Note : “Líofa” is the Gaelic word for “Fluent”.

There are lies, damned lies and the Norn Iron Census.
And every decade (2011 being just the latest)  I lie thru my teeth and claim that I am “liofa” (at best I am just more than liath-liofa….if indeed its even possible to be “half-fluent”.)
Indeed for the purposes of the Census, all my “clann” are “liofa”…even the ones that now live in their own homes.
Theres absolutely no point in the Norn Iron Census if you cant lie. Its a British Census so it doesnt count (so to speak).

My own experiences of Irish are a bit “iffy”. I had no choice but to send #1 son to a Gaelic speaking nursery school. (his grandparents looked after him during the day).
I was a bit concerned when I was waiting for my “mac” outside the school and got kinda chatting with another “athair” outside waiting on his “inion” kinda embarrassed myself and told him that I didnt really speak much “gaelic” and he told me that he spoke “Jailic”  (sic) having learned it at “Ollscoil Long Kesh” (where IRA prisoners were kept).
Ooops.
Of course my “mac” learned nursery rhymes with the best of them and the time arrived for him at 5 years old to go to “bunscoil” and we had an interview and they told us #1 son was brilliant.
I was kinda put off by the notion that I would have to fund raise for the school and that seemed a bit of a risk in 1989/90 (to be publicly identified with themmuns).
The attitude that if I didnt fund raise it might have an effect on #2 sons s chances of getting into the same school was a bit annoying……as much as the notion of my colleagues seeing me outside the Bank Buildings in Belfast on a wet Saturday with a collecting tin.
Indeed much later, one of my colleagues spotted a “focloir” in my drawer and said “I didnt think you were like that”.
Of course things change. Coming up to UDR or RUC roadblock I always thought it advisable to get the books off the back seat. And yet about ten years ago a RUC man went out of his way to tell me he was “ag foglamh”.
There are ups and downs with learning. Theres that “bialann” in County Donegal where I cant show my “aghaidh” due to the unfortunate incident where I ordered “nostrils” rather than “beans” for my sons.
I suppose up in Donegal they dine out on stories about people from “Béal Feirste” thinking they are fluent.

Thing is I only speak Gaelic in front of people who speak it even worse than me. Id hate to make an “amadán” of myself in front of a real Gaelic speaker.
Not that I havent tried to learn more. Even went to some night classes with a man who wore a poppy in Poppy Season and the rest of the “rang” were far too polite to notice.

So Caral Ní Chuílín the (Sinn Féin) Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure can sign me up for Liofa 2015. It is a campaign to get one thousand people fluent by 2015.
Absolutely. No “fadhb” at all.

But actually Id make a very bad Gaelic speaker. I dont buy into the “first national language” thing. Its the “first national hypocrisy”.
I also think Douglas Hyde was a bit of a weirdo.
Ironically a few years back I stopped the car in Ballaghdereen Co Roscommon, and asked directions for the Hyde Centre at Frenchpark and the man from Ukraine didnt understand the question. The lady from Poland working in a shop did tell me.
The irony being this is the place where Dougie heard a country boy speak “English at the Market and asked him could he not speak Irish”. And he told Dougie “shure isnt it Irish Im speaking”. Dougie a local Protestant aristocrat threw himself into saving the Gaelic language from extinction.

Actually the wee “buachaill” was “ceart”. English IS an Irish language. The basic problem that Sinn Féin have with “English” is that its called “English”. Call it an Anglophonic language and they might react better.

And theres an irony there thats lost on the “Gaelic galory”.
In “English” we tend to refer to the “English language” and the “Irish language”.
Yet in Gaelic an English person is “Sasanach” and the language “Béarla”. And it is “Éireannach” and “Gaeilige”.

By the way my “Gaelic” spelling is worse than my “English” spelling and Im too lazy to look up spellings.

So I should probably sign up to “Liofa 2015″ just to remove the horrible “peaca” of lying to British census people. And I live in daily “eagla” of getting a phone call from them asking me to say something in Gaelic. Plan B is to mention that I am deaf……but I forget how many deaf people I declared in the family.

“Lets Get Alongerists” and of course Unionists claim that the Gaelic language is divisive. It divides our homogenous society (yeah right) by creating another barrier.
Is it Divisive?
Couldnt care less to be honest.
People who use the word “divisive” say it was a “bad thing” but no more than the Twelfth, Poppy Day, GAA, Unionist, Republican.

If we lose or submerge our national identities, then we the nationalists lose more than the unionists. Ultimately the homogenous society is not “value free”. It would be more British than Irish and those that seek to make us homogenous want to take away the constitutional position of Norn Iron as a live issue so that it will die out.