Partition of Ireland: 100 years of Irish language rights denied

By Lasair Dhearg

For more than six centuries, British policy in Ireland has been aimed at the destruction of the Irish language.Partition has failed the language in both the Twenty Six and the Six County states. Successive Free State governments have failed to support the revival of the language in any meaningful or practical way and have refused to support the economic development of Gaeltacht areas to the point of no return. British repression of the language has continued post partition with the foundation of the Six County Orange state where it has been continually treated with hostility.

Ontario: Wide-scale defence of Francophone rights

Ontario government’s gratuitous attack on Francophone minority rights condemned

Ottawa, December 1, 2018.

Condemnation of the Ford government’s decision to scrap the building of a French language university and to eliminate the Office of the French Language Commissioner in Ontario, announced as a “cost saving” measure in November, has been swift and widespread throughout the province and Canada. This cynical attack on Francophone Ontarians is an assault on the very nature of a society that Canadians want to have.

Condemn the racism and Eurocentrism of the British prime minister

British Prime Minister David Cameron must be condemned for the outrageous comments made last week in The Times and elsewhere in which he claimed that a lack of ability to speak English was connected with what he referred to as an “alarming picture” of isolation facing some Muslim women. He even announced plans to deport some new migrants if they subsequently failed language tests two and a half years after entering Britain on a spousal visa, and announced £20m for the provision of English classes for “women who are isolated”. The Prime Minister then went on to claim that an inability to speak good English and what he called “separate development” and the “development of parallel communities” was not only responsible for “aiding men” who hold a “damaging control” over women in some communities but might also “help a young person’s slide towards radicalisation”.

Mass protests against Irish government’s assault on the Irish language

756 documented instances of discrimination of Irish speakers noted in the Irish Language Commissioner’s report for 2012

By Cuan Ó Seireadáin

Irish language commissioner quits and protesters take to the streets of Dublin | Getty

(Feb. 13) – THE impending resignation of Irish Language Commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin on February 23 has sparked a wave of protest all over Ireland.

On Saturday, February 15 speakers and supporters of the Irish language will gather in Dublin to make plain their dissatisfaction with the Irish and Northern Ireland governments’ lack of response to Ó Cuirreáin’s criticisms of their policies. The protest is expected to be the largest public demonstration of support for Irish since the protests of the Gaeltacht civil rights movement in the 1960s.

In Memoriam: Veerasingan Dhuruvasangary, 1950-2006

Originally delivered as the Eulogy, Toronto, Ontario, 10 December 2006 by Robin Oakley with Tony Seed, and edited for publication

Yet another prototype

(December 29, 2006) – Veerasingan Dhuruvasangary passed away on 2 December 2006 in Scarborough General Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. A scientist, an inventor, writer, artist, internationalist and a beloved friend, we called this modest, unassuming man Dhuruva or, more often than not, Inventor.

Born in Point Pedro (Jaffna), Sri Lanka in September 1950, he used to say “I had two fathers: my birth father, and Russia.”

25/90 & An Ghaeilge: Honouring Bobby Sands and James Connolly

A REFLECTION BY TONY SEED

Mac-Talla, annual Gaelic supplement of Shunpiking Magazine, May 2006

THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY of the Easter Rising in Dublin and 25th anniversary of the H-Block hunger strikes in Belfast have become times of great celebration for the Irish people and are being commemorated throughout the world, including Canada. Activities include marches, seminars, public meetings, plays, films and exhibitions. The actions of those who stood up and fought for independence in 1916 and the courageous sacrifice of the ten hunger strikers who gave their lives in 1981 represent the best of Ireland. They typify a valiant spirit that has endured much suffering over the centuries of armed British colonial occupation.