A tongue which sounds so odd
Proinsias O Maolchalain admires the historical consistency of the
London Times
Gerry Adams's meeting with Tony Blair was always going to provoke
some excesses from the British media. But for sheer bigotry and,
in fairness, historical consistency the editorial in the London
Times on Friday was in a different league.
Titled ``Forked Tongues: Gerry Adams' Gaelic words send false
signals,'' the Times complained that ``the climax for Mr Adams in a
day of distasteful theatrical contrivance was his studied use of
Irish on the Downing Street doorstep... Deliberately ignoring an
inquiry in English, Mr Adams sought out a figure in the crowd who
addressed the Sinn Féin leader in Gaelic. Mr Adams' choice of
language will have been as carefully choreographed as...the
stately procession down Whitehall. The ambassadorial overcoat,
motorcade, bodyguards and, most of all, the tongue which sounds
so odd to British ears are all designed to suggest that Mr Adams
is the representative of a foreign people come to talk peace and
negotiate colonial withdrawal.''
Sinn Féin, we are told, ``wished to be seen not as a political
party representing a part of the United Kingdom's population
trying to improve its government but a foreign delegation seeking
an end to occupation.''
Well, at least something has sunk in. But the Times had even more
to say on the subject of the odd sounding tongue: ``His use of
Irish, like his use of violence, is another act of cynical
calculation to advance his aim of denying Ulster's democratic
majority its rights. When the commander of the IRA's Belfast
brigade issued orders to kill he did not do so in the language of
Cuchulain but the brutal urban English of a Leninist warlord.''
The British should realise by now that the days when an Irish
national leader would refuse like Garrett Fitzgerald in Chequers,
to answer a question in Irish, ``for fear of giving offence'', are
long since over.
But you have to admire the consistency of the Times. In 1867 the
paper condemned the Eisteddfod, a Welsh language festival similar
to the Oireachtas in Ireland, as follows:
``The Welsh language is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and
the ignorance of English have excluded, and even now exclude the
Welsh people from the civilisation of their English neighbours.
An Eisteddfod is one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces
of sentimentalism which could possibly be perpetuated. It is
simply a foolish interference with the natural progress of
civilisation and prosperity. If it is desirable that the Welsh
should talk English, it is monstrous folly to encourage them in a
loving fondness for their old language. Not only the energy and
power, but the intelligence and music of Europe have come mainly
from Teutonic sources, and this glorification of everything
Celtic, if it were not pedantry, would be sheer ignorance. The
sooner all Welsh specialities disappear from the face of the
earth the better.''
As Matthew Arnold, Professor of Poetry in Oxford remarked at the
time, ``Behold England's difficulty in governing Ireland!''
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)