110 thoughts on “The Seomra Of Shame”

  3. Smith

    Was it for this? Coming over here selling us cheap booze, marginally misspelling our language! Was 800 years of oppression not enough?

  6. tony

    That spelling is correct. Seomra Folctha is bathrooms. So the Brits actually got it right which is more than can be said for so many lazy Irish efforts.

  9. Spaghetti Hoop

    I see they’ve included their Dublin pubs under a ‘UK’ listing on their website. Jamie Olivier did the same.

    1. Conor

      Meh, transport a tourist from the centre of an English city to Dublin and sure they’d presume they’re still in the UK. Same shops, cafes, supermarkets etc etc etc

      1. Continuity Jay-Z

        Same amount of young lads with one hand down their tracksuits.

        ‘No young sir; you are not packing a Taurus 9mm.’

    1. Seán Mac

      Says the ‘deadbeat’ thwat! The Irish Language is not dead! Gaeilge/Irish is the ‘First Official Language’ of Ireland! You probably do not even speak proper English!

  17. Murtles

    Teecher..teecher..teecher..
    An bhfuil cead agam dul amach, ma se do thoil e

    BOOM, still got it.

  18. Cian

    They could also just not bother using Irish on the signs at all, seeing as maybe 0.5% of the population actually use it day to day (except when the grant man and census taker are asking)

    British chains go over the top with dual signage – Homebase is a notable example where everything is translated (and yet for years they didn’t sell Irish-size plumbing products). I think it comes from having stores in Wales where you really do have to do it on risk of the place being firebombed otherwise.

    1. ReproBertie

      One of the reasons more people don’t use Irish on a daily basis is that there isn’t really an opportunity. Signage won’t exactly start a conversation but it increases the visibility of Irish and anything that normalises Irish in daily life is a help to those who would like to use it more.

      1. Sancho

        Agreed. Signage is good. It’s a pity that the language isn’t spoken and I’d like to see more efforts to get it living again. Things like signs wont necessarily make the difference but they are still important. And if we removed Irish from all signs etc., given how few people speak it, it might spell the end entirely. Visibility is good. If it wasn’t, marketing would be fu*ked.

      2. Cian

        Having an oddity where foreign chains translate due a mistaken believe it’s needed doesn’t increase visibility beyond the odd case of noticing (or thinking you noticed) a typo though.

        Token gestures are worthless

        1. classter

          ‘ foreign chains translate due a mistaken believe it’s needed’

          I doubt it is a mistaken belief. Token gesture it might be but it helps localise these brands & I suspect that it works.

  20. Gary

    Bit cheeky to claim “Established 1804”. While the building dates from 1804, it was a school back then.

  21. D2dweller

    Can we just give up on this dead language already. Let it go with some grace. Thousands of people sleeping on the streets and children banished in poverty and we’re throwing millions at a language a few thousand people speak sometimes in one tiny part of the country

      1. ReproBertie

        Let’s stop upgrading roads while we’re at it. We already have roads and there are hungry children.

          1. ReproBertie

            As I pointed out, we already have roads and people do use the Irish language. I don’t have your genuine figures that are more accurate than the census but I do know people who don’t work for TG4 or RnaG and yet use Irish on a daily basis.

          2. D2dweller

            People who claim to use it daily are liars. Where do they use it? Certainly not in the bank, tesco, on the phone to UPC, local high street outlet or any other daily routine visit as nobody in these places speaks the language.

            Eventually you just have to accept the inevitable and let it go

          4. ReproBertie

            I know of one family in Mullingar who only ever speak Irish in their home (unless they have non-speaker guests) and have done for at least 2 generations. They may not use it on the phone to UPC but there’s more to daily life than interactions with corporations. Maybe if more people used Irish when dealing with the corporations then the corporations would change to accommodate. We can defeat the monolingualistic empire by ignoring it.

            It seems to be a lot more common to hear parents and children speaking Irish to each other in Dublin. Perhaps the increase in Gaelscoileanna is to be thanked for it.

          5. D2dweller

            A whole one family? Gosh….I take back everything. That one definitely are definitely prove that Irish language is definitely on the rise

            One whole family…like all of them?….wow

          6. ReproBertie

            That’s what’s called an example. I never suggested it was a full list. Maybe they’ll cover examples when you go back to school.

          8. ReproBertie

            I know how you feel. I failed Maths an hated Maths as a result. Then I grew up and realised I had failed because I had not put any effort in. I made peace with Maths and now have no problems dealing with it.

            Maybe you should come to terms with your own failures at Irish and realise that the blame lies with you and not with the language.

          9. D2dweller

            Yeah I need maths every day…nobody needs irish
            Maths build bridges, allows us to see the solar systems light years away, builds technology that saves lives…irish costs us a fortune on road signs that nobody reads

          10. ReproBertie

            Ignoring that you’ve failed to grasp the purpose of an education, how many bridges have you built?

          11. D2dweller

            I don’t understand how I’ve failed to grasp the purpose of an education? Bit of a stupid comment.

            I have never built a bridge…though I think it’s a safe assumption the people who have used maths in the process

            I use maths all day in my job, my trips to the supermarket, doing my monthly accounts.

          12. ReproBertie

            You don’t understand a comment so the comment is stupid? You might need to look closer to home for the stupid.

            You’re completely missing my point in bringing up Maths which was to identify the source of your prejudice, not to compare the utilitarian value of the two subjects.

          14. ReproBertie

            Plenty of people use Irish. Denying a fact doesn’t make it any less true. It just highlights your own stupidity.

          15. D2dweller

            Yeah I head a guy say ceol agus craic in the pub the other day…oh and a few people I know have changed the FB profile names to the Irish version so their boss’ can’t find them….yeah loads of people use irish…

          16. ReproBertie

            So because you don’t know people that use Irish on a daily basis that must mean nobody does?

            You can’t really be that dense.

          18. Práta ag Caint

            @ D2dweller Leaid bocht. Níl clú agat! -Mar mhúinteoir, táim imníoch faoin gcinéal ‘oideachas’ a bhfuair tú le meoin mar seo agat. So sad and so clueless it’s laughable.

      2. D2dweller

        No. The natural history museum, trinity’s science museum, the national gallery and imma all garner huge interest and have fantastic footfall for both residents and tourists. Irish it a dying language that few people speak in this country, despite exaggerated claims of census reports.

        1. D2dweller

          In fact lets just open a museum, somewhere down the west, for the irish language. Throw a few hundred grand at it so it looks pretty and leave it at that. At least then we’d finally be succumbing it to its inevitability…the history books.

          1. tony

            I live in D2 as well. I use the language every day. And I find when I offer to use it with people who dont normally speak it, they are delighted to have the chance to use it. So despite your wishes to see it dead, it is growing under your feet…

          6. D2dweller

            I’m not trolling at all. Believe everything I’ve said. The Irish language is like folk music or glenroe. Ah lovely to look back at but both long dead…and really none of us are arsed about bringing it back.

          7. ReproBertie

            Not trolling? Just blind to the obvious then.

            Irish, no matter how many times you say it, isn’t dead. People use it every day. New words are added to the language and kids in Gaelscoileanna create their own slang.

            Your attitude is just a mirror of your own shame at not feeling confident to use the little you have. The Irish language cares not one jot for your attitude and its continued existence is in no way affected by your attitude. Why waste your energy raging about something that you can’t harm or hinder? Let it go, move on.

          8. D2dweller

            Because my tax dollars are being wasted on it…talk all the waffle you want at home, just don’t waste state budgets on futile resurgence attempts

          9. ReproBertie

            Tax dollars? Get real. You have no idea how much is spent on the Irish language and, given your obvious prejudice, you have no notion about how valuable the language is so you can’t possibly understand how much of that spend is justifiable.

          11. ReproBertie

            Yes, it really is that simple. The only reason there are homeless families is because some money is spent on the Irish language. Every other cent spent by the government is spent correctly and only the Irish language spend is preventing us housing the homeless.

          12. D2dweller

            Nope…there is plenty of things we waste money on. Just this thread is about the Irish language, hence why I’m talking about that and not any other matter.

          16. ReproBertie

            Sea, cinnte. Ar aghaidh linn go dtí club Chonradh na gaeilge agus feicimid a lán daoine ag caint as gaeilge, i BAC 2. Sin rud a tharlaíonn gach lá ar fud na tíre.

        2. ReproBertie

          In just 24 minutes you’ve amended your opinion on Irish from dead to dying. Keep this up and in an hour you could be posting in Irish.

          Bain triail as, níl sé deachair.

          3. D2dweller

            Aye, keep kidding yourself…it’s an irrelevant unnecessary expense that panders to a handful of depleting villages off the west coast

          6. New Person A

            D2dweller think he’s Rockefeller
            Huffin and puffin and retortin and snortin
            He got no point so he takin a line
            That he won’t be seen dead talkin to his own kind

          8. Cluster

            D2dweller, the education system has failed you completely – not because you can’t speak any Irish but because you’ve gone through probably 20 years of free education & you’re still pig-ignorant.

            In your world ‘maths’ is worthwhile ’cause it allows you tot up your groceries, poems need to rhyme, museums exist only to create ‘footfall’ and homelessness is a function of a few quid spent on Irish.

            Anyway it doesn’t matter. I speak Irish daily & I love it & there’s many more like me. There’s also a whole other group who don’t have much Irish but who value it – as a cultural resource, as a tourist attraction, as a as a tribal signifier, as something which has made our literature smongst the best in the Anglosphere, as a link with the past, etc. So like it or not, some of your ‘tax dollars’ are going to be spent on Irish unless you manage to come up with s better argument than endlessly spouting ‘dead language’

          9. D2dweller

            1. Irish doesn’t bring any tourists…
            2. Our most successful and revered literary greats spoke in English.
            3. Irish is now the 3rd most spoke language in this country, behind English and polish.

            The simple fact is very very few people actually speak the language. €12m euro has been budgeted to train people to translate EU legislation documents to irish. How can you justify that money? We spend over €30m a year on TG4 which garners approx only 2% of the Irish TV audience. A little dig around the Internet and I’m sure I could come up with some more staggering figures than that. Imagine what good that money can do to help the most vulnerable in Ireland. Instead we waste it on Hector and dodgy translations.

            This is pure tokenism.

          10. The Wizard's Sleeve

            Well said D2dweller.
            You said what I was going to say, and what a great many WOULD say if the balls and sense.

            Nice one.

          11. classter

            D2, you really were failed by the education system.

            ‘1. Irish doesn’t bring any tourists…’
            This is a difficult one to quantify but it is clear that tourists come for many reasons – some of which clearly do relate to Ireland being unique from the island next door, some of which relate to Ireland’s extant link to ‘Celtic’/Gaelic culture. Guide books always talk about the Gaeltacht, Irish road signs etc.

            ‘2. Our most successful and revered literary greats spoke in English.’
            True (you know what the word Anglosphere means, right?) but there’s has been a rich, Irish-inflected English. This influence, this link to a long tradition of Irish language literature & this transition from Irish to English is often posited for the fact that we have produced so many of the best writers in English.

            ‘3. Irish is now the 3rd most spoke language in this country, behind English and polish.’
            ‘The simple fact is very very few people actually speak the language.’
            I don’t know what your source is but either way this is irrelevant. In a way I am doing the wrong thing by engaging with your myopic, utilitarian arguments. The money you’re talking about is a miniscule proportion of our budget. Any public ‘reformer’ concentrating on Irish language costs is wasting their time. I am willing to bet that if you graphed equivalent monolingual & bilingual countries on a graph against poverty or homelessness, you would see no statistical difference between the two types of administration. Do you doubt this?

            Your opposition to Irish is based on emotional, subjective grounds not logic. That is fair enough but you should realise that.

          12. D2dweller

            Yes it is based on emotion. I’m genuinely saddened to see people starving on our streets because we spend millions on drivel like ros na run on a channel nobody watches, speaking a language nobody speaks.

            If your happy to throw money that could genuinely improve the lives of thousands of people in this country to make a few roadsigns in the burren then your heartless

          13. classter

            D2dweller, I am genuinely saddened to see how how poor your response is.

            Gross current expenditure for 2015 will be just over €50 billion.
            Capital spending in 2015 is €3.5 billion.

            Spending on Irish in this context (however you calculate that spending exactly) is negligible – it is a rounding error.

            The problem of poverty & homelessness is a complicated and multi-faceted issue which has no real link to spending on the Irish language. Turn off the Irish funding tap tomorrow and you will have the exact, same problem.

            Let’s also bear in mind that this story is about a chain of pubs – they have decided to do this. It has nothing to do with state policy,

    2. Seamus

      It may be dead to you…. but to me, my girlfriend, my family, my friends and my work colleagues it is used on a daily basis. I work in an industry and make a living through the medium of Irish everyday and have done so for the last 10 years. Beatha Teanga í a labhairt!…… so sáigh san i do phíopa.

        1. Seamus

          Sorry to tell you i’ve never been busier. You’re pushing a malinformed (maliciously misinformed) opinion on a subject you know next to nothing about, you’re coming at it from a sphere of ignorance. I genuinely pity the fact you have to carry this chip on your shoulder, you’re the one who should let it go…. alot of Irish people speak Irish and are happy to do so and we are as entitled as anyone else to develop, encourage and promote it.

          2. D2dweller

            A lot…..yup. You your girlfriend and your mam. Quite the roaring industry. Christ even the EU don’t recognise it

          4. Seamus

            @D2dweller i just used my own circumstances as an example to disprove your trolling rants and prove your ignorance on the matter. I’m sorry you and your mam can’t understand this.

      2. Kieran NYC

        Why aren’t you and a huge lobby campaigning for the language to be overhauled in schools then? EVERYONE says the teaching is the main problem.

  23. Sancho

    Broadsheet- aim higher…
    For example- targeting [redacted] = good. Cheap (and wrong) shot at new British pub competing with entrenched Irish publicans who have been ripping off nation since formation of state = cheap, and silly really (and embarrassingly wrong)

  26. erm...

    I’m constantly amazed by those people who believe a language, one of the cornerstones on what defines a nationality, should be allowed to wither & die. Ask the Catalonians or the Basques what they think of this attitude.

    1. Kieran NYC

      I think the ball is firmly in Irish teachers’ court.

      The finger has been pointed to them (and the Dept) for generations and nothing has changed.

      1. Art Ó Laoghaire

        In fairness, Kieran, how are teachers supposed to organise classes of 30 students into conversation classes? Classes need to be smaller – for tefl courses, most colleges do not have more than 15 students per class. Until that is done, it is next to impossible to change the teaching. The Department knows this, but the teachers are scapegoated. Time is running out.

  27. Art Ó Laoghaire

    1) Brian O’Reilly was sloppy and incompetent beyond words not to check on the superb Foclóir website (all the main Irish-English-Irish dictionaries on one site) beforehand. It’s really hard to understand the laziness and lack of pride in one’s work. Seriously, Brian, improving your Irish even to a basic level will help your career and reputation as being open-minded. Buy Éamonn Ó Dónaill’s Gramadach gan Stró as a start.

    2) Never mind that “d2dweller” above and his “tax dollars”, like. It’s hilarious. He sounds like one of the trolls over on Boards,ie’s After Hours forum. And I presume “Cian” above is the guy from Kildare who has been waging a war against Irish over on Wikipedia since 2006. There’s a ferocious number of “cultural cringe” retards going around this poor benighted land of ours. Everybody should read the An Sionnach Fionn website as it’s the finest attack online against the Irish haters.

  28. Demon

    This debate was played out in the 1960s with equal passion over the teaching of Latin in school. The Latin-haters won. Their point was that it was a dead language, anyone who wanted to learn it could do so, but it shouldn’t be part of the curriculum.
    It didn’t improve the curriculum a lot to get rid of Latin. And there were side-effects – for instance, spelling and grammar suffered because people are no longer aware of the derivation and etymology of words, and they don’t get the grounding in grammar that Latin gives.

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