Message to the Irish Government

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis

Tuesday June 29, 2004 11:12

by 1714

Dear President/Prime Minister,
In the spring of 1886, thousands of Catalans signed a Message in Support of the Irish People that was forwarded to Charles Stewart Parnell, then the most senior political figure in Irish politics. He replied to the Message through his secretary, Edward O’Sikley.

At a point in history when both our nations lacked freedom, Catalans wished to express their solidarity with the Irish people as they struggled to regain their national rights. The Message concluded with an expression of hope that solidarity between our two nations would endure for evermore.

Recalling that sentiment, the Catalans now again address the Irish people, as r]presented by you, their President, at a time when Ireland - long established as an independent republic within the European Union - has assumed the Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2004.

The Catalan people congratulate the Irish on their Presidency and note with satisfaction that the Irish Presidency Programme intends to facilitate the entry of new states to the EU as a matter of priority and to maintain “freedom, security and justice” among the peoples of Europe. Moreover, we are delighted that your programme proposes to encourage European citizens “to become much more involved in those processes that affect their lives”. In light of this, we are confident that you, as President of Ireland, will understand our great disappointment that the elaboration of a new Europan Constitution and the present configuration of Europe do not guarantee us, the Catalan people, rights as a nation or accord official status to our language - Catalan - which is today spoken by almost eleven million Europeans.

To reinforce the mutual sympathy felt historically between our countries, we would ask you, as President of Ireland, to support our national and linguistic rights as Catalans just as we fully supported the attainment of the rights of the Irish nation one hundred and eighteen years ago.

http://www.freecatalonia.com

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Comments (1 of 1)

I love the website.

by llibertat de expressió!

Tue Jun 29, 2004 13:14

Go check out the website!
But I also remember when the Katalanders first sent this letter to the IrlGov last year it helped stoke Pat the Cox Euro Big Boy into a beret frenzy. This ended with him refusing to meet the tripartite government Catalan delegation and leader of Parliament on the grounds that he needed clarification on berets, attitude to Basques and commitment to non terrorism. (It was about the time of the ETA ceasefire for Catalonia "alone")
I thought this rather showed up Pat the Cox for being an asshole. & I said so at the time.

Anyway. check out the website and for God's sake, over ten million people go to school, talk to their parents, learn their childhood prayers in Catalan. They then go to university, or start work in Catalan. They watch Catalan TV they listen to Catalan radio. They make love and breed in Catalan. If they don't they celebrate Gay Pride as they did yesterday in Catalan. It is their language. It is not a dialect, it is not a cosmetic national identity such as some might argue kilts and gaelic are in Scotland, or the thousands of people who's Irish doesn't go beyond Cead Mile Failte and Pog mo thoin. It is their language, their proper everyday tongue. And they quite rightly worry about it giving way in the modern Europe to Castillian. Barcelona is a bilingual city, most tourist point of contact workers speak español, thta's because they mostly come from "outside Catalonia". Which is why so many say "but they don't speak it!" But the real country up the hills, down the coast, and in the suburbs speaks its own language.
And a rich language it is too. Horrible spelling. Difficult pronunciation. Like english and unlike Spanish there is little corealation between ortography and pronunciation.

Anyway It is really annoying for them, to have to speak another language be it either Castillian Spanish or French when they goto Europe. And there is no shortage of translators. They're are more of them than any Baltic state "for example".

So if you haven't written an email to someone on the language thing, do.
Spain will not end, just because Catalan is recognised as an official language. Though that would upset the FreeKatalanders a lot.
But like "endevant!"
And it seems well up its ass, that Ireland has secondary status for Gaeilge when less than 100,000 can hold a conversation in it.

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Message to the Irish Government

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