Méid an Téacs

The last place you’d expect a cúpla focal

Meitheamh 24, 2013

Nicky Larkin is amazed to find the cupla focal being used as a healing device in fiercely loyalist East Belfast.

LINDA Ervine began to learn the Irish language two years ago. I started learning 26 years ago. But Linda Ervine speaks more Irish than me.

I sat in her office in The Skainos Centre – the East Belfast Mission. It is the brain-child and baby of Rev Dr Gary Mason, a Methodist minister, known as a critical friend to the UVF and the Red Hand Commando. Both groups chose his church for their weapons decommissioning in 2006.

A man of serious innovation, he raised more than £21m (€24.5m) to develop his community centre in the heart of loyalist East Belfast. He introduced me to Linda, who quickly put me to shame with more than just the basic cupla focal. Practically fluent in only two years, she is married to Brian Ervine, himself the former leader of the PUP party.

The famous family connections do not end there. Linda’s brother-in-law was David Ervine, the moustached late PUP leader whose face still adorns countless loyalist murals in East Belfast. In his younger days, David was a member of the UVF. He was sentenced in the 1970s to 11 years for possession of explosives.

However, later in life he became hugely respected both north and south of the Border as a progressive peace-making politician who turned his back on violence.

So why are these heavily-connected unionists – and in some cases former H-Block loyalist paramilitary prisoners – learning this language traditionally seen as the parlance of their mortal enemy?

More pertinently, why can they speak more Irish than me – a Taig from south Offaly with 14 years of Irish tutelage apparently under my belt?

The answer is simple. They want to learn it.

Linda approaches Irish as contemporary language, as opposed to the archaic methods used in most secondary schools down here to bash the Gaeilge into us. We are taught Irish as if it has no relevance to our daily lives – just a list of verbs on a board we are expected to learn by heart.

As a result, myself and my fellow hostages can now barely string a sentence together in our native tongue. I can speak much more French than Irish, despite the fact I spent five years learning French and 14 learning Irish.

Clearly that points to a serious problem in the mode employed down here to teach our own native language.

Linda has this problem sorted. She told me of former loyalist paramilitaries who now have adhesive notes attached all around their homes, to their milk and their butter, trying to learn the language in an everyday, relevant sense. They are learning Irish in a contemporary fashion, much in the same way secondary school students in the Republic learn French or German.

The demand grew so huge that Linda now runs five Irish classes a week, supported by Foras na Gaeilge. But what motivates her to spread the language? Is she not seen as something of a traitor by her unionist community?

Linda sees the Irish language as a healing device. She feels that depoliticising it is the basis for ordinary people from both sides of the divide to get together. She also feels she is providing the opportunity for people to re-connect with a part of their heritage they had lost, hijacked by violent nationalism and used as a tool of conflict.

Linda told me how she recently discovered there was a long Ervine family tradition of speaking Irish in the home. Trawling through the 1911 census, she was shocked to discover Brian’s grandfather and wider family members were all native Irish speakers.

She showed me the handwritten census pages, where Brian and David Ervine’s relatives’ names were listed in Irish, and under the “language spoken” column they were listed as bilingual. Those same men built the Titanic in a Protestant environment.

Later that night, I met Linda’s husband, Brian – the epitome of good craic. There is a sparkle in his eye, and he throws his head back with every belly laugh. We went for a few pints, Linda kindly offering to act as designated driver. After the beers, we drove through the streets of East Belfast.

As we passed a huge mural of David Ervine adorning the gable end of a house, Brian came out with one of the most profound statements I have ever heard. He said he was sick of it all – sick of the murals, sick of the glorification. He said we need to start living in the present if we have any chance of moving on.

He is right. Linda and Brian Ervine are a remarkable couple. Leaving Belfast that night, I felt that just maybe, if people like Linda and Brian are allowed to be heard above the cacophony of shaven-headed, tattooed cartoon characters we see on the news, a new day might be just around the corner after all these years of blood and tears.

www.independent.ie

Foilsithe ar Gaelport.com 24 Meitheamh 2013

Irish Independent – Nicky Larkin