Give us back our language

A demonstration took place at the European Union offices in Dublin today over the status of the Irish language.

Protestors called for the nation's first language to be recognised as an official EU language, along with nine other languages that are to be included in EU law following the accession of new member-states in May 2004.

Following the accession, the inclusion of Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Slovene and Maltese will bring to 20 the number of languages recognised as official by the EU.

STADAS, a group comprised of representatives of Irish language groups, educators and legal figures, has been formed to lobby the Government on the issue.

Protesters have warned that exclusion of Irish would put the language under greater pressure and that its inclusion would help create jobs and safeguard the future of the language in a greater EU.

An online petition has been in circulation calling on the Government to ask that Irish be included as an official EU language. The following is the text of an email circulating the internet requesting support for the petition, which is located at

https://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?gaedhilg

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