Unionists and the Irish Language

This week, the official website of the DUP and the personal websites of party leader Peter Robinson and Lagan Valley MP Jeffery Donaldson were the victim of an amusing pranks by self professed Irish language 'hactivist' 'Hector O'Hackedatdawn'. The prankster ran a fake story on the DUP website as Gaeilge titled “Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir”, or ‘Happy new year to you all’ which purported to claim that the party was embracing the Irish language. He also displayed Irish language messages on the sites of Peter Robinson ("Is mise Peadar Robinson, agus tugaim tacoíocht den Acht na Gaeilge" or 'I am Peter Robinson and I support the Irish Language Act') and Jeffery Donaldson.

The prankster claims his motive was to draw attention to the "nonsensical attiude" of the DUP towards the Irish language.

If this gag does nothing else (beside give thousands of people a giggle) it will highlight the bigotry of the DUP towards the Irish language or anything remotely Irish or of Irish culture for that matter.

Earlier this week, minister for the Dept of Regional Development proposed the introduction of bilingual traffic signs in both Irish and Ulster-Scots. Now to most people this would be seen as a good way of promoting minority languages, which the Dept is obliged to do under the European Charter of Regional and Minority languages. However the DUP are not like most people. They can hardly hide their hatred of anything remotely Irish. They could not of course say we are against this because they are anti Irish culture so someother excuse was to be expected. Their excuse is usually to do with the cost of implementation. However under this scheme the costs will be bourne by the promoter of the signs. So what other excuse could the DUP come up with? Read this little gem by DUP Strangford assembly member Michelle McIlveen

"Given the range of problems on Connor Murphy's desk he should be focusing on more important matters rather than a pointless political exercise about bilingual signage".

Of course there is nothing new or unexpected here from Unionists. The Irish Language Act has always been a bone of contention for the DUP and fellow unionists. Despite signing the St Andrews Agreement in 2006 which included that an Irish Language Act would be passed giving the Irish Language equal status in Northern Ireland, the DUP has vetoed every attempt Nationists have made to bring about it's introduction.

So fair play Hector for highlighting this bigotry and as you say yourself

 “My attack is against a political party which refuses to respect my culture and my language.”

Registrar General's Quaterly Report (2010 Q3)

On 22 December the Register General's Quaterly report was released for 2010 Q3. The birth and death rate per district council area are released in this report. Of the 26 councils 11 are majority Catholic areas and 10 are majority Protestant areas as per the 2001 census. Taking the average birth and death rates of both the Unionist majority councils and the Nationalist majority councils gives us the following table for Q3.

	Unionist majority councils	Nationalist majority councils	Councils with no clear majority
Birth rate	12.6	14.5	15.9
Death rate	8.0	6.6	6.8

We see that for Q3 the birth rate in Nationalist majority councils is 14.5 births per 1,000 people. This is significantly higher than the Protestant birthrate of 12.6. Furtermore, the death rate in Unionist majority councils is significantly higher than that of Catholics. The latest quaterly report does not tell us much we did not already know, it merely confirms that these trends are coninuing.

Spending cuts

In order to tackle the UKs budget defecit Chancellor George Osborne has set out a four year plan to introduce budget cuts of £4 billion in Northern Ireland. This will significantly reduce the block grant paid by the British government to Northern Ireland which currently stands at between £9 billion to £9.5 billion.
While these cuts will lead to 30,000 public sector job losses and will undoubtably be very painful, it does bring the block grant to a more realistic and sustainable level.

The reason for such a staggering block grant is simply that the public sector in Northern Ireland is much too large (believed to be around 66%).

Every party agrees that the private sector needs to be grown and the public sector reduced accordingly. This dependence on the public sector dissuades potential investors, causing relative poverty in Northern Ireland.

Now that the public sector is to be cut, the next stage in a self sustaining Northern Ireland is to grow the private sector. This is unlikely to happen within the UK. For one thing it would necessitate a reduction in corporation tax to match the Republics 12.5%. No UK government will do this for the North of Ireland. They are more interested in what is right for South East England, and besides could you imagine the reaction in Scotland and Wales if a concession like this was given to Northern Ireland.

Senior economists predict that (at least) a massive 90,000 jobs could be created if the North was allowed to adopt the economic policies of the rest of Ireland.

With the reduction in the block grant through spending cuts and the potential to eliminate it all together with growth in the private sector through All Ireland economic policy, the claim that the Republic of Ireland could not afford Northern Ireland is turned on its head (not withstanding the current economic difficulties south of the border). Also when there is an upturn in the global economy and Irish economies, the economic argument will further no longer wash as a valid excuse as to why there should not be a United Ireland.

Election date set

Despite earlier reports that the Assembly and Local elections would be held earlier than the May 5 date of the Alternative vote introduction referendum, it has been confirmed  that the date for all three elections will indeed be held on May 5.

The main issues which are likely to dominate the elections include the strong possibility of Martin McGuiness becoming First Minister, the impact of the cuts to the Northern Ireland budget, the economy, the Irish Language Act, the issue of parading and the possible reduction in the number of MPs.

The impact that the TUV will be of interest (Jim Allister has stated that he intends to stand in most of the constituencies) as will the effect of Tom Elliots take over of the leadership of the UUP. It will also be interesting to see what form of "Unionist Unity" measures are put in place and how the three main Unionist parties split of the votes pans out. What will be the effect this will have on Martins McGuinesses chances of becoming head honcho?

On the Nationalist side, can SF continue to gain ground on the SDLP or will Margaret Richie be able to costruct a SDLP revival?

Reduction in number of MPs

According to a BBC article, Nigel Dodds has spoke out against the passing of the bill to change the Westminster election voting system and reduce the number of Northern MPs.

The question arises as to why Dodds is critical of the bill. We already know that he will be struggling to hold his North Belfast seat at the next general election if current demographic and electoral trends in that constituency continue.

At present Unionists hold 9 seats, Nationalists hold 8 and Alliance hold 1. As the Alliance party won a seat in East Belfast due to the unpopularity of Peter Robinson, I think it is fair to say that many of the votes for Alliance in the constituency were drawn from Unionist voters.

Lets assume that Unionists hold 10 seats and Nationalists hold 8. Assuming that there are no changes to constituencies or the number of MPs at the next Westminster elections and Gerry Kelly wins North Belfast as expected, we will be left with 9 Unionist seats and 9 Nationalist seats. For the first time ever unionists will not have a majority of seats.

Under the proposals being pushed through by the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition in Britain the number of MPs in the north could be reduced from 18 to 15 seats, a loss of 3 seats. Does Nigel know something the rest of us do not? Is he worried that if the number of MPs are reduced by 3, it might be possible that a situation may arise where Nationalists actually have more MPs than Unionists after the next general election?

UUP leadership

On Wednesday 22nd of September the UUP will have a new leader. The leadership battle is to be a two horse race between a traditionalist Tom Elliot and a moderniser Basil McCrea.

A profile of each candidate is available on the UUP website.

Basil McCrea

Cllr Basil McCrea MLA was elected in 2007 to the Northern Ireland Assembly as an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member for Lagan Valley.
He is also a UUP Councillor on Lisburn City Council and a member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and UUP spokesman on Education.
Basil was educated at Belfast Royal Academy before attaining a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Birmingham. He later attained a degree in Advanced Computer Technology from the University of Ulster.


Tom Elliot


Political Career:Active member of the Fermanagh Unionist Association for many years
Honorary Secretary of the Fermanagh Unionist Association from 1998
Ulster Unionist Councillor on Fermanagh District Council from 2001, serving on following committees - Development, Planning, Policy & Resources; Environmental Services; Equality Impact.
Election Agent for James Cooper in the 2001 Westminster Elections
Chairman of internal Ulster Unionist ad-hoc Review group for its duration 2000/1
Special Interests:
Agriculture and Regional Development.
Educated Ballinamallard P.S.; Duke of Westminister High School, Ballinamallard & Kesh; Enniskillen College of Agriculture - College Certificate in Agriculture.
Justice
Employment:
Farmer on family run Beef and Dairy farm.
Part-time Ulster Defence Regiment and Royal Irish Regiment for 18 years


Elliot the traditionalist is an Orangeman. He favors of a formal link up with the DUP in a bid to form "unionist unity". He does not favor continuing the link with the British Tories and has spoken of his determination to change the St Andrews agreement so a nationalist cannot be elected as First Minster.

McCrea is strictly opposed to doing any deal with the in any form with the DUP and is also against a continuation of the Tory link.

The bookmakers have not yet published odds but it would appear that Elliot is seen as the favorite.

If Elliot wins and this man is given a platform to speak on behalf of moderate unionism, he will, with his 'traditional unionism' views antagonise and agitate many people. In fact he has already started with anti GAA and anti gay remarks.

Past experience tells us that as unionism attempts to strategise in order to encumber nationalism does not work. We saw this in Fermanagh and South Tyrone this year. Attempts at 'unionist unity' had the opposite effect and led to nationalist motivation. Elliot's appointment will ensure nationalism will again be motivated in upcoming elections. It may also lead to increased unionist apathy and ensure that people who occupy the centre ground or whom are indifferent to the constitutional question, will not look to unionist parties on polling day.

Best of luck Tom.

Census 2011

Sunday 27 March 2011 is the date Census 2011 will be conducted. It is not yet known when results will be published but it should be noted that this is the first time that census information can be completed online. Consequently results are expected to be published earlier than in previous censuses. The census which is conducted every ten years will provide "comprehensive demographic statistics for small areas and small population groups, as well as Northern Ireland as a whole. Information from the Census is used extensively across the public, private and voluntary sectors and has many important uses".

However, the reality is many people will be looking at census results for a breakdown of the two main religious blocks and to ascertain whether trends from previous censuses are continuing.

Table S306 of the 2001 census can be summarised in the following table:

	Protestant	Catholic	Other
Population	53.1%	43.8%	3.1%
Electorate	56.2%	41.5%	2.3%

It will be interesting to see the 2011 version of this table.

The evolution of trends will also be of keen interest. This graph taken from the 2001 census shows that the 'tipping point' is the age of 27 i.e. the population above the age of 27 is majority Protestant and the population below the age of 27 is majority Catholic. Will the 2011 equivalent of this table show the 'tipping point' has moved exactly ten years to the right?

This chart shows the growth in the Catholic population based on census results from 1961 to 2001 (the results are based on this table on CAIN). Will the Catholic population reach/surpass the 45% mark and will the Protestant population dip below 50% for the first time once the 2011 census results are published?

Fianna Fáil to move North?

Brian Cowen travelled to the Armagh village of Crossmaglen on Thursday to open the latest Fianna Fáil office in the North. This follows the setting up of FF forums in Fermanagh, Down and Armagh. Plans are believed to be in place to set up foums in Antrim, Derry and Tyrone in the coming months. FF already have large cummans in the Norths main universities.

All this poses one question. Will they be contesting the 2011 assembly elections? It is of course too early to say but according to one article they are.

“This is about a bottom-up approach and there is no question of us contesting elections in the immediate future,” said a senior Fianna Fáil source yesterday.

As the assembly elections are fought under the Single-Transferable-Vote system, their entry in to the North would not have the effect of vote splitting. Also it would be interesting to see where they would get votes from. Nationalist voters do not have a centre right pro business party to vote for so one would imagine they will take votes from both SF and the SDLP. In 2008 a former Ulster Unionist Councillor and businessman from south Down joined Fianna Fáil so it will be interesting to see how many votes the party can attract from Unionists IF they contest elections next March.

Catholic/Nationalist and Protestant/Unionist

Some people do not take kindly to others describing Catholics as Nationalists, and Nationalists as Catholics interchangeably. Similarly, the same can be said with those who refer to 'Protestants' to describe the Unionist community. They argue that just because one is a Catholic, does not make them an automatic Nationalist and similarly, a Protestant is not necessarily a Unionist.


It is interesting to compare the the Nationalist electorate to the Catholic electorate. The Catholic electorate is relatively easy to calculate. Looking at table S306 of the 2001 census, by adding the totals of people aged 9 years and over in 2001 (they are 18 in 2010) and removing the few people who were 90 and over in 2001 we see that the Catholic electorate is 43.0%. The election in 2010 showed that Nationalist parties received 42.0%. This is an almost exact correlation.


Using the same approach, the Protestant electorate in 2010 per the 2001 census was 54.4%. The 2010 election shows Unionist parties received 50.5% of the vote. Although not quite as correlated as the Nationalist/Catholic electorate, the Protestant/Unionist correlation is strikingly similar.


It may be 'politically incorrect' to refer to Nationalists and Catholics and Protestants and Unionists interchangeably, however it may not be entirely 'factually incorrect'.

Leinster final

Yesterday we witnessed an absolute belter of a Leinster football final. It looked like Louth were going to win their first Leinster title in 53 years, until a last gasp Joe Sheridan goal snatched victory for Meath. TV replays clearly showed should have been disallowed. How neither the referee nor the 2 umpires behind the goal did not see that the ball was carried over the line American football style touchdown is beyond me. The bookmakers are offering odds of 15/8 that there will be a replay. However with the faith I have in the GAA hierarchy and the CCCC (whatever that means) I think i'll save my money to back Brazil winning the next World Cup at 4/1.