Tag Archives: Irish

AlaaMary Fitzgerald, of the Irish Times, reports that Jordanian-born 26-year-old Alaa Ciymeh, who grew up in Ireland, has died fighting with rebel forces in Syria.

Alaa went to De La Salle College, Churchtown, and left Dublin in 2008

He is the third young man with links to Ireland to die in the country’s civil war.

Shamseddin Gaidan (16) from Navan, Co Meath and Hudhaifa ElSayed (22), from Drogheda, Co Louth were both killed during fighting in Syria within the last six months.

Man raised in Ireland killed fighting with rebel forces in Syria (Mary Fitzgerald, Irish Times)

Sarah de Búrca writing for TheDetail.tv reveals the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) will proceed with a £1m tourist signage project with Down District Council as long as the signs are solely in English.

The council wanted the signs to be both English and Irish.

The NITB insisted that it would withhold the funding if the council pressed ahead with bilingual signs. The reason?

Signs as bearla agus Irish may confuse motorists, thereby causing carnage on Down’s roads.

Right.

The ban comes despite most of the nameplaces on the island, including Downpatrick (Dún Pádraig) being Irish in origin.

Not to mention the cross-border language authority called Foras na Gaeilge which is tasked to promote the Irish language and paid for by taxpayers, north and south.

Or The Good Friday Agreement (1998) which committed the Government to ‘recognise the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity, including in Northern Ireland, the Irish language, Ulster-Scots and the languages of the various ethnic minority communities, all of which are part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland.’

And lest we forget The St Andrew’s Agreement (October 2006), which committed the UK Government to work with the incoming Executive to protect and enhance the development of the Irish and Ulster-Scots languages.

Which was consequently included in amendments to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, placing duties on the Executive to adopt a strategy setting out how it proposes to enhance and protect the development of the Irish language and Ulster-Scots culture, heritage and language.

But hey, what do we know?

Why is Irish Being Banned From Tourism Signs Here? (The Detail)


There literally isn’t one.

Yesterday’s New York Times extolled the kindness of the Irish towards the residents of hurricane-hit Breezy Point in New York.

But noted:

“But complicating the current embrace from abroad is the gated community’s extreme insularity. Breezy Point is the whitest neighborhood in the city, a demographic makeup that critics say illustrates the enclave’s entrenched xenophobia, a dark flip side, perhaps, to all that ethnic pride.

The consul general of Ireland, Noel Kilkenny, said he and others had made special efforts to avoid the impression of “the Irish looking after their own.”

“Over 63 percent of the 4,381 people in Breezy Point and nearby Roxbury are of Irish descent, including a large number of police officers and firefighters who live in bungalows and one-bedroom homes. That connection became well known in Ireland after Sept. 11, 2001, when the community lost dozens of residents in the attack.

“After 9/11, we became very aware of where the Irish were living,” said Anthony Kearns, a member of the Irish Tenors who sang at the Christmas luncheon. “After Hurricane Sandy it became highlighted even more.”

“Its ethnic and racial makeup has also been a source of controversy. It was once called an “an apartheid village” by the Rev. Al Sharpton during a protest.

Steve Greenberg, the former chairman of the Breezy Point cooperative’s board, said that to his knowledge, no black family had ever held a share in the private community. Even in the days after the storm, volunteer firefighters in the community repeatedly told a visitor as she left to beware of the residents of Far Rockaway, the predominantly black neighborhood at the other end of the peninsula.”

“Concerns over the community’s insularity have been privately broached by the Irish coming to the aid of Breezy Point.”

Ah

When Irish Hands Are Helping an Enclave in County Queens (Sarah Maslin Nir, New York Times)

 

Pic FDNY Flickr

Davy Holmes Writes:

This is the Irish Shop in Dulwich, London, which sells anything and everything you can’t get outside of Ireland, from Ballymaloe Relish to TK Red Lemonade to Barry’s tea. My flatmate told me about it and I went down to buy tea and relish, but it was closed until “further notice”. An additional note on the sign seems to say that it is due to the death of the lady who owned and ran the shop. Due to the grammar I can only assume her young child (or a severely dyslexic adult) was the author. This made me sad. Thoughts and prayers to her family.