copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2024-10-08): Northern Ireland [edit]Under the Identity and Language Act of 2022, Irish is recognised as an official language in Northern Ireland.[130][131] 6,000 people (0.3%) in Northern Ireland claim to use Irish as their main home language according to the 2021 UK Census with 71,900 people being able to speak Irish (circa 4% of population) and 228,600 people overall in the state (12.4%) having some knowledge of the language. It is the second most spoken language in Northern Ireland.[132] [...] Irish was taught in Catholic secondary schools (especially by the Christian Brothers) but not taught at all in the controlled sector, mostly attended by Protestant pupils. Irish-medium schools, however, known as Gaelscoileanna, were founded in Belfast and Derry. These schools and the Gaelscoileanna movement has since expanded to across much of Northern Ireland similar to its expansion in the Republic of Ireland. An Irish-language newspaper called Lá (later called Lá Nua) produced by The Andersonstown News Group (later called Belfast Media Group) was also established in Belfast in 1984 and ran as a daily newspaper between 2003 and 2008. The paper is no longer produced due to a decision by Foras na Gaeilge to cease funding it in late 2008. BBC Radio Ulster began broadcasting a nightly half-hour programme in Irish in the early 1980s called Blas ("taste, accent") and BBC Northern Ireland also showed its first TV programme in the language in the early 1990s. BBC Northern Ireland now have an Irish Language Department in their headquarters in Belfast.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2014-12-17): UUP councillor Chris McGimpsey, who has studied Protestant engagement with the Irish language, says: "An integral part of unionist identity in Ireland was the fact that they were Irish. [...] The survival of the Irish language in west Belfast owes a lot to a pioneering project in the 1960s when a group of families decided to make the Shaw's Road area into a Gaeltacht, an Irish speaking area. [...] In Northern Ireland less than 4% of the population is fluent, although over 10% say they have some ability in Irish
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2024-09-19): History [edit]Ulster Irish was the main language spoken in most of Ulster from the earliest recorded times even before Ireland became a jurisdiction in the 1300s. Since the Plantation, Ulster Irish was steadily replaced by English and Ulster Scots, largely as a result of incoming settlers. The Eastern dialect died out in the 20th century, but the Western lives on in the Gaeltacht region of County Donegal. In 1808, County Down natives William Neilson and Patrick Lynch (Pádraig Ó Loingsigh) published a detailed study on Ulster Irish. Both Neilson and his father were Ulster-speaking Presbyterian ministers. When the recommendations of the first Comisiún na Gaeltachta were drawn up in 1926, there were regions qualifying for Gaeltacht recognition in the Sperrins and the northern Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island. The report also makes note of small pockets of Irish speakers in northwest County Cavan, southeast County Monaghan, and the far south of County Armagh. However, these small pockets vanished early in the 20th century while Ulster Irish in the Sperrins survived until the 1950s and in the Glens of Antrim until the 1970s. The last native speaker of Rathlin Irish died in 1985.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2018-11-30): The proportion of people in Northern Ireland with some knowledge of either the Irish or the Ulster-Scots language is almost the same. [...] They suggest that 14% of people had some knowledge of Ulster-Scots, while 15% had some knowledge of Irish. [...] One in five Protestants said they had some knowledge of Ulster-Scots, compared with 7% of Catholics.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2022-09-23): 91.85% of Mid Ulster residents indicated English was their main language – the lowest figure in Northern Ireland. [...] Irish (0.47% - 682) saw the fifth highest figure for main language in Mid Ulster, behind Tetun – the language of East Timor – at 0-.84% (1,210). [...] The number of those in Mid Ulster who indicated they had 'some ability' in Irish rose by 28% to 29,398, while the figure with 'some ability' in Ulster Scots rose by 66% to 13,494.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2022-03-07): Irish and Ulster-Scots: Experts look at how to boost the languages - Published [...] A separate strategy document for Ulster-Scots language, heritage and culture recommends GCSEs, A-levels and university degrees in Ulster-Scots. [...] According to the 2011 NI Census, 184,898 people said they had "some knowledge" of the Irish language - though that included a much higher percentages of Catholics (21%) than Protestants (2%).
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2023-11-23): Mid-Ulster English and Ulster Scots [...] Maguire, Warren, 'Mid-Ulster English and Ulster Scots', in Raymond Hickey (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Irish English, Oxford Handbooks (2023; online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Dec. 2023), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198856153.013.10, accessed 9 Oct. 2024. The northern Irish province of Ulster is home to two distinctive dialects not spoken elsewhere in Ireland: Mid-Ulster English (MUE) and Ulster Scots (USc). This chapter examines their historical origins, their linguistic features, and the relationship between them. Both MUE and USc have their origins in the Plantation of Ulster and associated settlements in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. This period saw immigration of many English and Scottish settlers, which dramatically altered the province’s demographic and linguistic landscape giving rise to intense contact between Irish and dialects of English and Scots in a relatively small geographical area. This chapter explains how MUE and USc emerged through processes of language shift and new dialect formation which resulted from this contact. It furthermore discusses the common features shared by the two sets of varieties and outlines avenues for future research.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2022-11-02): For years, the group has been pushing for more Irish-medium schools, more investment, and the swift ratification of the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Bill that would give Irish official status in Northern Ireland, as well as introduce measures to promote the little-used Ulster Scots language. The long-delayed bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons this month and will now proceed to the committee stage. [...] Niall Comer, a lecturer in Irish at Ulster University and former president of language advocacy group Conradh na Gaeilge, said the Irish language might have been considered divisive in the past but that is changing with many people recognising the educational benefits of bilingualism. He stressed that Irish language advocates never wanted to suggest that the language was the preserve of any one community or religious affiliation. [...] The famine, or Great Hunger (An Gorta Mór) as it is known in Ireland, of 1845-1849 had a devastating effect on the numbers of people who used Irish as their first language. Many Irish speakers were among the one million people who died of hunger or famine-related diseases like cholera or typhoid, or the estimated 2 million who fled across the sea to the United States. An estimated 100,000 would die en route, succumbing to horrific conditions on the so-called coffin ships.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2024-01-01): - Hiberno-English – the common colloquial vernacular of the north, now known principally as ‘Irish English’, and also occasionally described ‘Mid-Ulster English’ or ‘Ulster Anglo-Irish’ - Ulster-Scots (sometimes called ‘Scotch-Irish’). - Irish Gaelic, as surviving in Ulster still or until relatively recently in certain areas. [...] - Sir John Byers collection – an extensive glossary, principally handwritten notebooks and typed transcripts detailing Ulster dialect items as manually recorded from patients’ speech while attending Dr. Byers’ (1853-1920) medical practice, c.1890-1910 - G. B. Adams papers – documents and correspondence focusing on phonological research of Hiberno-English, Ulster-Scots and Irish, plus place-names and folklore, gathered by Adams (1917-81) as Curator of the Dialect Archive at Ulster Folk Museum - Montgomery papers – glossary of dialectical terms collected from a Ballymena family, 1880s-1960s - Prof. R. J. Gregg word-lists – records of the dialect of Glenoe, Co. Antrim, and Coolshinney (Mid-Ulster), plus the notes, papers and published works of the pioneer of the academic study of Ulster-Scots - T. G. F. Paterson notebook on the Fews Dialect (south Armagh), undated (pre-1970)
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2022-02-27): The Mid Ulster District Council launched an Irish language version of the council’s recycling guide on 13 March 2019. The guide is published in nine languages. DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson told the News Letter on 15 March it "is actually producing unnecessary waste", saying "no one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language". [...] The Northern Ireland Neighbourhood Information Service (NINIS) provides information of the Northern Ireland census on local geographical areas. The 2011 census is the first census that asked about the main language people are using. It reveals that 440 people living in the local government district (LGD) of Mid Ulster spoke Irish (Gaelic) as their main language, representing 0.3% of the Mid Ulster population above three years old (132,025) (source: Main Language: KS207NI). That is a higher percentage than the Northern Ireland average of 0.23%. [...] In 2011, 440 people in Mid Ulster spoke Irish as their main language; 0.3% of the Mid Ulster population is not "no one".
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2024-10-08): The total number of people (aged 3 and over) in Ireland who declared they could speak Irish in April 2022 was 1,873,997, representing 40% of respondents, but of these, 472,887 said they never spoke it and a further 551,993 said they only spoke it within the education system.[12] Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968.[12] In response to the 2021 census of Northern Ireland, 43,557 individuals stated they spoke Irish on a daily basis, 26,286 spoke it on a weekly basis, 47,153 spoke it less often than weekly, and 9,758 said they could speak Irish, but never spoke it.[13] From 2006 to 2008, over 22,000 Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as their first language at home, with several times that number claiming "some knowledge" of the language.[14] [...] Ulster [edit]Ulster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht regions of Donegal. These regions contain all of Ulster's communities where Irish has been spoken in an unbroken line back to when the language was the dominant language of Ireland. The Irish-speaking communities in other parts of Ulster are a result of language revival – English-speaking families deciding to learn Irish. Census data shows that 4,130 people speak it at home.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2013-08-27): Well I don't know. But up until the 1900s there were still vast expanses of Southern Ireland that spoke Irish as a native language. Obviously the accents in those remote parts are a result of the Irish language. It depends were you go but around here we have a very Scottish sounding accent. I do feel that the Extreme western parts of Ireland are a different world to the South-east of England for example. I have yet to visit these places but they look very different to even here. They speak Irish native down there. [...] Well in general there is the Northern Ireland variety which is mid-ulster english/Ulster-Scots. Generally that is a mix up of Irish words, scottish words and english words. Although there seem to be more Scottish words than Irish. There are a few areas like Newry and Fermanagh were there is a dialect called 'Southern Hiberno English' and there they speak with a dialect that sounds Southern/Northern Irish. [...] Q2). It depends were you live. In Ulster-Scots areas like Ballymena everybody has the same accent. But in places like Belfast there is a split, East Belfast and West Belfast. Generally to me there is a pattern, but if a protestant is living in a catholic area they will have the same accent and if a catholic is living in an ulster-scots area they will have a Ulster-scots accent. Some protestants pronounce certain words and letters different to Catholics. To me as a native if I was not told and I listened to someone I could easily identify their religion just by listening to them.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2024-07-05): In Lagan Valley, Sorcha Eastwood of the Alliance Party took the seat which had been held by the former DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson since 1997. [...] But TUV objections to the DUP's deal to restore Stormont seem to have cut through, enabling Allister to overturn a DUP majority in the party's heartland. [...] - Sinn Féin's Cathal Mallaghan was the first Northern Ireland MP elected, topping the poll in Mid Ulster - DUP leader Gavin Robinson retained his seat in Belfast East despite the challenge of Alliance leader Naomi Long - Her colleague Sorcha Eastwood won in Lagan Valley, a seat long-held by the DUP - The DUP's Carla Lockhart, Sammy Wilson and Jim Shannon retained their seats in Upper Bann, East Antrim and Strangford respectively - Gregory Campbell from the party also retained his East Londonderry seat, but it came after a surprisingly close fight with Sinn Féin's Kathleen McGurk - Sinn Féin's Órfhlaith Begley retained her seat in West Tyrone as did her party colleagues Chris Hazzard in South Down, John Finucane in Belfast North and Paul Maskey in Belfast West. Dáire Hughes also won for Sinn Féin in Newry And Armagh, replacing Mickey Brady who opted not to run - Former nursing union boss Pat Cullen held Fermanagh and South Tyrone for Sinn Féin - The SDLP's Claire Hanna also held onto her seat in Belfast South and Mid Down as did party leader Colum Eastwood in Foyle
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2023-07-23): Indeed, the utility of speaking Irish is, at the moment, negated by the fact that all its speakers also speak English. I had one of my first transactional monolingual Irish conversations with a bookstore employee only because her colleague in their other branch told me that she was a fluent speaker. It’s really quite funny how if you are learning a language that doesn’t see much daily use in most areas, you are likely to learn the words for "lenition" or "verbal noun" before you learn how to ask how much something costs. Speaking English is perfectly enough to fulfill one’s communicative needs in Ireland. [...] Another thing of note for Irish is that it has three different dialects. It’s amazing how such a small country has three dialects. But what was truly surprising to me is that dialect differences do not divide people. I haven’t heard anyone say that the other dialects are wrong. For beginners, that does create difficulties, since they need to get familiar with every possible pronunciation. I guess I’m lucky to be hearing all three — the locals in the conversation groups speak Muster Irish, there are some people who moved here from Connacht, and the teacher in the night course in UCC is from Belfast and thus speaks Ulster Irish.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2014-08-26): J.R.R. Tolkien, 30th August 1964: "[C.S. Lewis] …of course had some oddities and could sometimes be irritating. He was after all and remained an Irishman of Ulster. But he did nothing for effect; he was not a professional clown, but a natural one, when a clown at all. He was generous-minded, on guard against all prejudices, though a few were too deep-rooted in his native background to be observed by him."
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2020-01-20): It is why many Asian people cannot say the letter R and replace it with an L. Once I started to listen I wondered about my Father-in-law who came from Nfld at age ten and had no trace that I could hear of a Newfy accent, any more than my Mother-in-law had any trace of what should have been an Ulster Irish accent. I never met the Newfy grandparents, but I did know the Ulster grandmother and there were traces but only traces. Mother had individual words rather than accent. Her older sister who was in church and community life more had begun to adopt something a little posher - sort of English - but she lived in New Westminster which was founded by the Royal Engineers and the military were still around.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2010-03-05): The more artificial such standards, the less they are likely to be accepted–and, while the Irish government has been able to abuse its control of the Irish education system to ensure the use of its standard in the schools and media, thus ensuring that most Irish written today appears in the Caighdeán Oifigeamhail, the fact that four rival sets of textbooks teaching variously Munster Irish, Connacht Irish, Ulster Irish and Standard Irish, and sometimes more particularly Cork Irish, Kerry Irish, Cois Fhairrge Irish, etc, shows that there is a mismatch between the Standard and the language of the Gaedhealtachtaí, and that to that extent the Standard has not been fully accepted, especially by learners who want to learn to speak like Irish native speakers.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2018-01-09): If two people in a non-Gaeltacht area (let’s say Dublin) who learned Irish as a second language decide to raise their children through Irish from day one — if Irish is the language of those children’s home life (and, if they’re very lucky, their school life as well) — isn’t it fair to say that those children are not learners, but native speakers? [...] Don’t get me wrong. Gaeltacht Irish, whether it hales from Ulster, Connacht, or Munster, is beautiful. It’s the heart and soul of the language, and gives it an important anchor in its history. But is it really such a tragedy if someone chooses to use features from more than one? [...] If this is, indeed, happening more frequently than I’ve experienced, it’s something that really needs to be addressed. There’s little point in Irish being the language of the land if no one can understand anyone who comes from a different region!
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2014-06-16): The dialects of English which are spoken in the North of Ireland today are reflexes of: first of all—the language spoken by the English and Scottish colonists who planted the Province in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth Centuries; and secondly — the Irish language of the indigenous population. Planters from the South West of Scotland predominated in the North and East while English settlers from the North West Midlands and the South West of England colonised much of the remainder of Ulster, forcing the native Gael to the far West and South. [...] South Ulster English (Fermanagh, Monaghan, Armagh, N. Leitrim, N. Cavan & N. Louth) Mid-Ulster English (Down, N. & S. Donegal, S. Derry, Tyrone, N.Armagh, N.Fermanagh, N.Monaghan) and Ulster Scots (N. Antrim, E. Donegal, Ards Peninsula). [...] ‘The Scotch-Irish dialect boundaries in Ulster’, Patterns in the Folk Speech of the British Isles, M. F. Wakelin (ed.) (London: Athlone Press: 1972 pp. 109—39).
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2021-03-05): So, to be clear, the story from German-speaking Europe is that Ulster Scots is worthy or respect and study; it does not require a written standard; yet it may decide it wants one in which case ridicule is inevitable; however, the first attempt at one may need to be abandoned. In other words, the ridicule may be illegitimate but actually it may be legitimate, provided it is aimed at what is presented rather than at the overall process of language study. I should add that I am slightly troubled by the question in the census, and let us go back again to Luxembourgish. The question asks if I "speak, read, understand or write" Irish or Ulster Scots, or if I have "no ability". With Irish, none of those applies in my case – I cannot claim really to "speak", "read", "understand" or "write" it in any way approaching proficiency, yet nor do I have "no ability"; I was forced, reluctantly, to tick the latter option on the basis I really could not claim any of the others. With Ulster Scots, conversely, almost everyone in Ulster (all of it) will "understand" Ulster Scots and most will "read" it; whether they "speak" it is more questionable and whether anyone really "writes" it is unclear – and the census translation demonstrates that. [...] We need to be careful not to ridicule Ulster Scots itself on the basis of some poor choices in linguistic development.
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2024-10-08): Hiberno-English[a] or Irish English (IrE),[5] also formerly sometimes called Anglo-Irish,[6] is the set of dialects of English native to the island of Ireland.[7] In both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, English is the dominant first language in everyday use, one of two official languages of the Republic of Ireland, along with the Irish language, and one of the three recognised languages of Northern Ireland, along with Irish and Ulster Scots. [...] Ulster English [edit]Ulster English, or Northern Irish English, here refers collectively to the varieties of the Ulster province, including Northern Ireland and neighbouring counties outside of Northern Ireland, which has been influenced by Ulster Irish as well as the Scots language, brought over by Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster. Its main subdivisions are Mid-Ulster English, South Ulster English and Ulster Scots, the latter of which is arguably a separate language. Ulster varieties distinctly pronounce:
Claim: No one in Mid Ulster speaks Irish as their first language. (DUP councillor Clement Cuthbertson, 2019-03-15)
Evidence (2013-08-15): It should be noted that Northern Ireland is probably the only place in the world where when you turn up late and use, "I got stuck behind a tractor!" as your excuse no one will doubt you.