Putting on the poor mouth

Quite a few candidates have sent me their election materials in Irish (having noted, while reading the electoral register, that I go by an Irish-language name, first name and surname). I genuinely appreciated the thought and the effort (although of course as a long-time member of a party and a canvasser, I’m not really much of a floater!)

Anyway, I did receive a letter today, which made me laugh. It’s from Mr. McDowell, the current Minister for Justice and the leader of the Progressive Democrats (sometimes neither progressive nor democratic, but sometimes OK). And his office decided to write to me in Irish. But instead of, y’know, talking about PD policies and McDowell’s wonderful achievements for the constituency and country (and to be fair, he has done some good things, and I have agreed with a few of his policies, especially with regard to the reform of licensing laws), the entire letter is about the Irish language. And how much he loves it, how his children go to an Irish-speaking school, that he sometimes speaks it in the Dáil, who taught him Irish in school (an tAthar Diarmuid Ó Laoghaire SJ, who is a well-known figure in the Irish language community), and even a nice mention of his grandfather (Eoin Mac Néill), a founder of Conradh na Gaeilge.

Seriously - I’m not making this up. It’s like that wonderful speech in Myles na gCopaleen’s An Béal Bocht (the ‘poor mouth’ of this post’s title) where the ‘Gaelgeoir’ gives an entire speech about how great is to be speaking about Irish in Irish. Although I do have an interest in language policy (only natural), I really don’t care all that much for someone trying to pull that sort of emotional ‘I’m-one-of-you’ thing. Irish speakers have broad political interests, just like any other community or section of the community, and are not going to vote for a candidate based on who taught them in secondary school. Or am I wrong? Of course, it’s important to highlight policies of interest to a minority (especially when communicating with a presumed member of that minority). But a letter to (for example) gay voters wouldn’t be written in pink and have five paragraphs on how much fun the candidate had in the George last week and one paragraph on civil partnership.