Ulster-Scots Community Seeks Reassurance on Commissioner Role, Says Agency CEO

The chief executive of the Ulster-Scots Agency stated that a segment of the community remains “who are waiting to be convinced” regarding the advantages of an Ulster British Commissioner. Legislation concerning language, specifically the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act, became effective in December 2022. This act mandated the creation of the Office of Identity and Cultural Expression, along with an Irish Language commissioner and a commissioner dedicated to the Ulster-Scots and Ulster British Tradition. Ian Crozier commented that “everybody lives in hope that these things will deliver tangible improvements.” During his testimony to the Executive Office committee on Wednesday, Mr. Crozier faced a question from Traditional Unionist Voice MLA Timothy Gaston, who inquired if the commissioner position was “just there for the optics”. Crozier responded, “I can’t really speak to the motivation, Ulster-Scots tends to try to be straight to the point, paper doesn’t refuse ink, you can write anything you want down in a political agreement, you can write anything you want down in the face of a bill in parliament there’s every possibility it’ll turn out to be a ‘pig in a poke’, ” He further stated, “We’ve had a human rights protection under the European charter for regional minority languages for 25 years. Has it made a demonstrable difference to Ulster-Scots and the lives of Ulster-Scots people? No. Is there a long pile of deliveries that have appeared because we have it? No. “The fear in this…I think there are a lot of people out in the community who are waiting to be convinced about the benefit that will come from this. Everybody lives in hope. On the face of it the potential is there,” Mr. Crozier was questioned on whether he perceived himself as “short-changed” when contrasting the responsibilities of the Ulster-Scots and Ulster British Tradition commissioner with those of the Irish Language Commissioner. He replied, “I don’t want to take anything away from what the Irish language folks have achieved, people lobby, people make the case, people achieve things. We are not looking to take away from that. “I do personally have a fear that if what people see is lots of deliverables, lots of progress for the Irish language community and then end up looking at a position where the deliverables for the Ulster-Scots community is threadbare, then that is just not going to help the optics overall.” He expressed a desire for “balanced delivery” across all cultural communities. Foras na Gaeilge, an organization tasked with advancing the Irish language across the island of Ireland, also presented testimony to the committee on Wednesday. Paula Bradshaw, who chairs the Executive Office Committee, declared that “it was a momentous day” for the committee, marking the first instance of evidence being delivered in Irish. In the course of the evidence session, Mr. Séan Ó Coinn, CEO of Foras Na Gaeilge, was asked about the “politicising” or “weaponising” of the Irish language. Mr. Ó Coinn acknowledged his understanding that “there is a history here and a baggage linked to the Irish language” but emphasized that “people have rights recognised by the UN, UNESCO, by the European council and we should not be restricting those or denying those rights because they don’t maybe sit well with other members of the community.” He further stated, “We now have an opportunity to see Irish as something that belongs to us all, to all our communities so I wouldn’t be of the opinion that we should mix it up with issues regarding identity, British identity, Republican identity, nationalist identity, Irish identity even. “I think it is a heritage issue and something that belongs to anybody who is on this piece of land in which we live and we should look and deal with it in that way,” Concurrently, earlier on Wednesday, the Education Minister met with Irish-speaking youth at a community center located in Ballymurphy, west Belfast. Paul Givan informed BBC News NI, “I’ve said before, we shouldn’t be fearful of people’s identity and languages, whether you converse in English, Irish medium, Ulster Scots and we have many other languages now in Northern Ireland,” He added, “My Northern Ireland is big enough to accommodate everybody,” “We want to build a Northern Ireland which shows respect and equality of treatment for everyone.” Copyright 2024 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC disclaims responsibility for the content of external sites. Information regarding their approach to external linking is available.