The following article by Eoin Ó Murchú was first published in Unity, the weekly paper of the Irish Communist Party.
WHILE the Irish language is the common inheritance of all the people who live on this island, North and South, urban and rural, Catholic and Protestant, the Unionist parties have made the language a divisive issue, when it should be a uniting one.
Back in the 1970s, an Orange Lodge (LOL 1303) was happy to inscribe Oidhreacht Éireann (Ireland's Heritage) on its banner, and, before that the Orange Grand Master of Belfast from 1885 to 1898, Richard Kane, was a patron the Belfast Gaelic League founded in 1895.
Before him, of course, the Presbyterian Rev William Neilson in 1808 wrote the "Introduction to the Irish language" for would-be Presbyterian ministers who were required in his time to be able to preach in Irish.
Still, the Unionist parties have all opposed any public manifestation of Irish and promoted the erroneous idea that according equal status to the language would in some way dilute the rights of English speakers or even make the Protestant presence in Irish life something marginal.
The historical record shows that this is nonsense.
Still, as Marx said, ideas become a material force when they grip the minds of men (and women). In other words, if people believe these arguments and act on them, they can influence political and social development.
On the other side of the debate is the reality that the Irish language is overwhelmingly applauded by Northern nationalists as part of their culture – a fact which, ironically, is used by Unionist extremists to justify their attacks on the language.
In a harmonious society, whether in Union with Britain or in a United Ireland, respect for the cultural concerns of all communities is vital.
The Northern Unionist parties are not the only enemies of the Irish language. The Southern Establishment is, at best, indifferent, and in practice hostile, to efforts to defend the Irish-speaking areas of the West (the Gaeltacht) from further population loss and anglicisation; let alone expand the public use and acknowledgement of Irish and the rights of those who speak it.
As the Communist Party pointed out as far back as its 19th congress in 1986, the priority question in relation to Irish is the defence of the Gaeltacht, and ensuring its economic, demographic and linguistic survival.
The party also acknowledged that maintaining and extending the language was incompatible with a capitalism that was only interested in profits.
These issues have been given renewed significance in recent weeks with proposals from Southern sources that the status of Irish and the rights of its speakers should be abandoned as part of the negotiations for a United Ireland.
This is no concession to Northern Unionists, but reflects the Southern middle class's embarrassment about anything, cultural, social or whatever, that emphasises the distinctive character of Ireland: their programme of full integration into the Atlantic exploitive EU demands nothing less.
The Unionist parties, of course, are continuing to insist that they will not participate in debates about what form a united Ireland could take. They seem to believe that if they ignore it-it will just go away.
But the reality is that, as the pressure towards reunification grows, ignoring the debate means that the real interests and concerns of Northern Protestants who, in a very clear majority support Unionism, will be ignored.
The Irish Communist Party believes it is vital to take part in this debate and to insist that the social needs of working people be central to any new United Ireland. The party also insists that unification with political sovereignty not in the hands of working people will leave us as helpless before the greed-inspired programmes of the EU as we are when dependent on the crumbs thrown off the Westminster table to the people of the North.
The United Ireland we need is one that respects all the communities that live here. Civil rights for all and special privileges for none, as the Orange Order itself proclaims.
In this context, we assert once again: the Irish language belongs to all of us. It will not and cannot be given up for an empty United Ireland that subverts parity of esteem, equality of respect and harmonious unity of our people.