Although I am not convinced that "Sinn Féin" means "Ourselves Alone". It is too short. Surely, "Sinn" means "nous" and "Féin" means "mêmes", so that "Sinn Féin" means "nous-mêmes", "ourselves", written as two words in many languages?
Be that as it may, Sinn Féin has just resolved not to allow its elected representatives to vote against abortion if such is their conscience, and has just resolved to strip the Catholic Church of Her charitable status. The Republican Movement has always identified the Church as one of Ireland's two great curses.
Nor has it ever been keen on the Irish language, which was kept alive by eccentric Anglo-Irish aristocrats and Protestant clergymen (not all of them Unionists, of course, but in many cases so).
In 2011, Belfast's Coláiste Feirste, the only Irish-language secondary school in Northern Ireland, had to take the then Education Minister, Sinn Féin's Catriona Ruane, to court in order to stop her from removing the funding that enabled pupils from outside Belfast to attend, even though such funding would still have been available to those attending other Belfast secondary schools from outside.
The answers to the question, "What is the point of the SDLP?" are starting to become starkly apparent.
Are there still Protestant ministers who support the language?
ReplyDeleteIn Northern Ireland, the Reverend Dr Eric Culbertson springs most immediately to mind.
ReplyDeleteCountry parson in County Tyrone. Honorary Clerical Vicar Choral of Armagh Cathedral (not the Catholic one). Deputy Grand Chaplain of the Orange Order. Member of the Council of the Evangelical Protestant Society.
And outspoken critic of the Good Friday and Saint Andrews Agreements, who in is time has tried to become an Anti-Agreement UUP MP.
He stands in a long, long line.