An anti-Irish campaigner behind a car leaflet campaign says he “despises” the language and plans more protests.
The head of Protestants Against Gaelic Language (PAGL) wants to protest against the use of Gaelic right across the island, as English is the “ancestral language of most Irish people”.
The group is preparing to increase its efforts against the use of Irish in the Republic with the upcoming launch of its new website, and in Northern Ireland where a revival of the language is gaining momentum following the Identity and Language Act 2022.
In an interview with the Irish News, the group’s founder, Jack Sinnott, has denied the campaign was behind leaflets placed on the cars of people attending an Irish class in Belfast that police had investigated as a possible hate incident.
A number of attendees of the class at The Points bar on Belfast’s Dublin Road in December emerged to find the leaflets on their windshields.
The text on the leaflet opened with “Why 87% of Irish people should hate the Irish language” and warned the tongue “was always used to discriminate against non-nationalists”.
One attendee of the class said they felt the leaflets were “low-level intimidation” when speaking with the BBC.
The PSNI initially said they were investigating and treating it as a “hate incident”, but a spokesperson confirmed on Friday: “Police carried out a number of enquiries and determined that no offences had been committed.”
Although the leaflets featured the initialism “P.A.I.L” - understood to stand for Protestants Against Irish Language - the wording is the same as a leaflet produced by the PAGL group.
Mr Sinnott, who is 62 and from Co Dublin, says he “despises” the Irish language.
Despite insisting PAGL was not behind the leaflets in the Dublin Road area, he says his group has placed leaflets opposing Irish on vehicles in both Belfast city centre and at Belfast International Airport in November.
He said he has previously been interviewed by police over letters written to Irish language campaigner Linda Ervine and her colleagues at the Turas project in east Belfast.
Mr Sinnott said his group - which he claims includes around 30 members - has emailed the PAGL leaflet to elected members of the DUP, UUP, TUV and Alliance in the north in a bid to gain support for the campaign.
“I feel that religion is being targeted, and if it is, then the Irish language should be targeted, but not in a way that intimidates or causes anyone to feel it is a hate campaign” he told the Irish News.
“Our members are based in the Republic, where of course there has been a huge push for the use of the Irish language, but the language movement is very active in the north now.”
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Mr Sinnott said historic moves by the British to oppose Gaelic, including bans on its use, was “just so they could make it that we would all speak the same language”.
His group’s leaflet states “Ireland’s Christianity is a more important part of Ireland’s heritage than the language ever was” and the government in Dublin “would do much more for the Irish people if they taught Latin in our schools instead of Gaelic”.
It adds the government has used “compulsion, bribes, grants and of course jobbery” to “force” people to speak Gaelic, but said Irish people have “resisted and refused” these attempts.
According to Census figures from 2022, almost 40% of people in the Republic said they had some ability to speak Irish.
In the north, around 4% say they can speak Irish according to the 2021 Census, while 12.4% say they have some ability with it.
Mr Sinnott said his group plans to hand out more leaflets in schools and colleges in the Republic.
However, Linda Ervine said there is a “great love” of the Irish language in the Republic, along with its rise in use north of the border.
“If you somehow removed Irish from its position in the south, there would be a terrible outcry,” she said.
“Because it is so accessible there, there can be sometimes be a lack of appreciation, but as the saying goes, ‘you don’t miss the water until the well runs dry’. As for Northern Ireland, in the work that I do, I see Irish as a medium of reconciliation that brings people together for the love of the language.”