Thursday, May 21, 2009

ROG, the Queen and 'Gaelic names'

Mr. Brian Robert Kenney of Baggot St Dublin writes that people who "sign their names in Gaelic...tells us something about their anti-British motivation."

Firstly, lets get down to the base of this subject. Ronan O'Gara did show a lack of respect by his actions when the Queen of England visited the Irish rugby team at Stormont. For sure, Irish people should be mature enough and confident enough to show respect to the head of state of any nation, especially our closest neighbour.


The Queen of England is the head of state of the United Kingdom and should be shown the same respect as the President of Germany, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden or the Emir of Kuwait. Moreso, because the Queen of England is for some of the team mates of Ronan O'Gara, their head of state too.

But Mr. Kenney pushes it too far when he brings in the fact that people sign their name in Gaelic or not. Firstly, the Irish language or any language should have no place in politics. The Irish language is beautiful and becoming ever more popular and trendy with TG4 and new Irish speaking 'celebrities' leading the way forward in this revolution.

There are people from outside of Ireland learning the language too, I myself encountered a Japanese man and an African learning the language at classes recently.

The problem Mr. Kenney is that despite your glee in labeling certain people as bigots is that you yourself are one too. I agree with some of your sentiment about being sick of people pushing their Ireland is not Britain agenda but you've shown yourself to be a bigot on the other side and this is often the problem in these disputes and the way people show their feelings in conversation on these topics.

So, get over yourself and allow people the freedom to choose and speak whatever language they wish and express themselves this way without fear of prejudice from people like you.

For the record, I am a British citizen and an Irish citizen, proud of both (at times, sometimes not too as recent news from both countries brings shame on both nations).

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