A Sinn Féin councillor has accused the BBC of showing disrespect to the Irish language community. Niall Ó Donnghaile has written to the corporation to complain about the abuse of Irish on the Nolan Show. He appeared on Wednesdays TV programme to discuss an Irish language parody by DUP MP Gregory Campbell. But Mr Ó Donnghaile said the offensive remarks were repeated ad nauseam in order to get a cheap laugh on the Nolan Show. A row erupted last Tuesday after Mr Campbell began his address to the assembly with: Curry my yoghurt can coca coalyer. The Irish sentence go raibh maith agat, Ceann Comhairle translates as thank you, Speaker and is used by nationalist MLAs in the chamber. Mr Ó Donnghaile said he had agreed to appear on the Nolan Show following Mr Campbells comments. But he said: The disrespect shown to me and the Irish language community on BBCs the Nolan TV Show on November 5 was totally unacceptable. This was an insult to me and to an entire community and I dont think this would be acceptable in any other area in which the BBC operates. The BBC needs to state clearly whether it has a different standard for Irish language speakers than any other racial, ethnic or linguistic group. A BBC spokesperson said: We have just received Mr Ó Donnghailes correspondence and we will reply in due course. We reject any suggestion the discussion on The Nolan Show was racist. Mr Campbell was barred from addressing the Northern Ireland Assembly for a day for failing to apologise for the parody. The Speaker said his conduct fell well short of standards expected from MLAs. Meanwhile south of the border An Irish government website marking the centenary of the 1916 Rising has left language lovers speechless. The site marking 100 years since the Easter Rising carried text in the Irish language straight out of Google Translate. Native speakers called the results nonsensical. Several excerpts contained basic mistakes in the translation from English into Irish. A spokesperson for the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht confirmed that Google Translate had been used. The spokesperson said the mistake happened because the government department sent the English text to an external company that was contracted to design the website. That company used Google Translate to get a draft, or holding version of the Irish text to appear on the page to see how much space it would require, thus enabling the company to design around it. It should have been replaced by the official Irish translation that was later supplied by the department, the spokesperson said. This did not happen when the website first went live, but the offending text has now been removed and replaced by the official and correct Irish version. The Easter Rising rebellion began on 24 April 1916, but ended after six days of fighting, and most of its leaders were executed. It cost the lives of 450 people - more than half of whom were civilians - and resulted in widespread destruction of much of the Irish capitals inner city. The Easter Rising was defeated by the British forces within days, but the execution of 15 rebel leaders who survived the fighting roused public sympathy for their cause. The event is widely viewed as the catalyst for the Irish War of Independence two years later, which was followed by the partition of Ireland and the establishment of the Irish free state.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 03:27:15 +0000
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