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'Anti-Irish language leaflets made us more determined to learn'

Brendan Hughes
BBC News NI political reporter
BBC a young woman with curled blonde hair and earrings and a nose ring, smiling at the camera, with bar stools and a table visible in the backgroundBBC
Aoife Nic Giolla Cheara, an Irish speaker who teaches the language in a Belfast pub

An Irish-language teacher whose class was targeted with leaflets saying "English is our mother tongue" has said the incident made people more determined to learn.

Aoife Nic Giolla Cheara, 22, runs a free weekly Irish class at a pub in Belfast city centre.

In December, her students discovered leaflets placed on their cars which said that most Irish people "should hate the Irish language".

Police investigated the flyers as a "hate incident" but later said no offences were committed.

Ms Nic Giolla Cheara, from west Belfast, grew up speaking Irish and said she felt "hurt" by what happened because the language is "all I've ever known".

"When somebody says to me that there is no reasoning, there is no purpose, there is no need for it, it hurts," she said.

The incident happened outside the bar on Dublin Road, where the Irish class was taking place.

In a lengthy message, the flyers said the government "should respect the will of the Irish people not to speak Irish".

Flyers opposing the Irish language were placed on vehicles parked near a pub in Belfast city centre
Flyers opposing the Irish language were placed on cars around the Dublin Road

At the time an Alliance Party councillor condemned the flyers, describing them as intimidating.

"Irish belongs to our community who use and cherish it and people should be free to learn without this florid stupidity," Emmet McDonough-Brown said at the time.

Ms Nic Giolla Cheara said she was "very concerned" about the impact on her students.

"I don't want my class to feel unsafe or to feel that there's a disdain for them for just learning a language - it's ridiculous," she said.

But the leaflets had the "opposite effect of what the person intended" and "if anything, they felt more motivated to learn".

The weekly Irish class takes place in a Belfast pub
Aoife Nic Giolla Cheara says the response from her students was "absolutely lovely"

The Police Service of Northern Ireland it carried out a number of inquiries and determined that no offences had been committed.

The development of policies in Northern Ireland on the Irish language has long been a focus of political disputes between unionists and Irish nationalists.

Cross-border funding arrangements and proposals for bilingual signage at Belfast's Grand Central Station have been among the recent disagreements at Stormont.

At local council level, there have also been disputes over the introduction of dual-language street signs in some neighbourhoods.

You can see more on this story on Sunday Politics on BBC One Northern Ireland at 10:00 BST on Sunday and on BBC iPlayer.