Irish becomes official and working language of EU

Irish has been a "treaty language" in the EU since 1973, but it’s never been an "official" or "working" language - meaning that while EU treaties have been translated into Irish, other documents haven’t been, and no interpretation services have been provided for Irish at EU meetings. Irish was the only official and national language of an EU member state to have this ambiguous status - which kind of made sense, really, because Irish has something of an ambiguous status within Ireland itself (i.e., it’s a national language which isn’t spoken habitually by most of its nation).

In any case, Irish supporters have been campaigning for several years to gain official status for Irish in the EU. Last autumn, the Irish government finally tabled a formal proposal requesting that the status of Irish be changed, and today this proposal was unanimously approved, making Irish the 21st official language of the EU. Hooray!

As for what effect this will have on the actual, everyday use of Irish…well, I can’t see it having too much of an effect at all, really. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s a token gesture, because I think that symbolically it’s very important. I also think it could give a boost to similar campaigns for Welsh, for instance. And, of course, it’s absolutely fantastic for Irish translators and interpreters. But realistically, I don’t see how it will encourage more people to speak Irish on a regular basis in Ireland - which is, ultimately, what’s necessary in order for the language to survive in the long term.

On a side note, I think it’s quite interesting to see how different news articles (deliberately or inadvertently) highlight different aspects of the story. I’m somewhat amused by the Sinn Fein MEP quoted in the BBC article - she seems to give Sinn Fein a lot of credit for the EU decision, which I’m not entirely sure they deserve. And in the article from the Basque news and information channel, it seems funny to me that they should refer to the "little-used native Irish tongue"; I mean, it’s true that Irish isn’t widely spoken, but "little-used" just sounds so dismissive to me. Maybe I’m being oversensitive - but I can’t help but wonder if the dismissive tone has anything to do with the fact that Basque, Catalan and Galician sadly haven’t been granted official EU status.

And finally, I’m intrigued by the fact that just about every article mentions "the cost to the EU taxpayer" of 3.5 million euros a year for Irish translation, interpretation and legal services, but only the Irish Times article published on the subject a few weeks ago points out that the cost of each of the 20 other official languages is 46 million euros a year - so 3.5 million seems paltry by comparison. And no one mentions the fact that the average cost per taxpayer for all the languages together is just over two (2) euros a year.

As a translator, a minority-language enthusiast, and an EU taxpayer - I think it’s worth it.

Further reading…