You might be forgiven for thinking this is some reference to colleagues from the new accession states speaking the foreign tongue, but this is actually what a Bar Man in Grafton Street, Dublin told a native Irish Speaker when he tried to order in his own native tongue Irish.
In a fascinating experiment aired on TG4 last night called No Bearla, Manchan Magan attempts to travel around Ireland speaking nothing but Irish, of which 1.6 million of us claim “the cupla focail”. Particularly topical in the week that Irish is announced as the newest EU language, some people even resorted to hostility when spoken to As Gaeilge.
View some clips of the show here.
It certainly begs the question that if we can’t do business or even survive in our own country with just our official language, then why are we going to the trouble of getting it EU status? Would it not be the first step for the houses of the oireachtas to conduct their business this way…..?
