Petition To Save Foinse – The Last Irish Language Weekly Newspaper
It has come to my attention today that the Irish language weekly newspaper Foinse may only be in publication for two more editions – on the 21st and the 28th of this month, due to a lack of funding. Some of you may remember my post last year on the future of Lá Nua, the daily Irish language newspaper from Belfast, which sadly has since ceased to exist, again due to a lack of funding. Slowly and little by little, the support for Irish language is being destroyed by this incompetent government, but the problem is that while we hear about the “popular” news items regarding their destructive touch, issues such as the Irish language are sidelined and fail to make front news headlines.
While many of us have mixed feelings about the Irish language, we need to put aside our negative associations and realise that the termination of Ireland’s ONLY remaining Irish language newspaper has a knock-on effect for all of us, whether we speak the language or not. It affects our culture, out national pride and our identity and we should not allow that to be destroyed at the hands of an incompetent bunch of idiots – it is not theirs to ransack and destroy, no more than they have the right to build a major road practically next to the Hill of Tara. We have to ask – if this present government thinks nothing of destroying milestones of our culture, be it national newspapers or heritage sites – WHAT IS NEXT? Clearly, absolutely nothing is sacred to them – except their pensions, perhaps!
Our culture was around long before these imbeciles were and will exist long after they cease. Hopefully our language will do so too, but I don’t share the optimism of others out there in this regard. Without support our language will dwindle into oblivion forever!
