six county elections 05/05/2011

[hsthompson]

Forgive my ignorance, but what will an Irish Language Act actually consist of?

[The Worker]

Forgive my ignorance, but what will an Irish Language Act actually consist of?

irish words

[hsthompson]

Yawn. Stupid smartass comments like that make this board very tiresome. Minder is another fiend for it, why do yous bother your holes

[lawnseed]

Forgive my ignorance, but what will an Irish Language Act actually consist of?

maybe signage in irish, official docs in both english and irish, bbc news in irish, the queen has to learn more irish, i hated irish at school the teacher was a total nutter and a bully. you should hear the sighs of boredom at county board meetings when somebody starts speaking irish and the gaa are supposed to be promoting irish. i cant say i condone the spending of too much public money on this especially when fellas like gerry adams are slagged off by gaelgoir snobs when he does his best to try to speak the language instead of trying to encourage him

[lawnseed]

Forgive my ignorance, but what will an Irish Language Act actually consist of?

maybe signage in Irish, official docs in both English and Irish, BBC news in Irish, the queen has to learn more Irish, i hated Irish at school the teacher was a total nutter and a bully. you should hear the sighs of boredom at county board meetings when somebody starts speaking Irish and the gaa are supposed to be promoting Irish. i cant say i condone the spending of too much public money on this especially when fellas like Gerry Adams are slagged off by gaelgoir snobs when he does his best to try to speak the language instead of trying to encourage him

Now, houl on there. That post is complete bollix!

You blame your hatred/lack of Irish on a teacher. If you had a bully as a maths teacher, you'd still f**king know if you were short in your wages. You have no Irish because you have no interest in learning it. Stop with the cop out shit.

Gerry Adams' Irish is totally shocking and he is far beyond encouragement at this stage. He has had the same standard of Irish for about 30 years and has done fcuk all to try and improve it. Please stop talking shite.

never the less, whether you think my post is bollix i have stated a fact my Irish teacher was piss poor- fact! not one person in my year choose Irish as an o level and the teacher suffered from depression-fact! as regards Gerry's Irish it could be brilliant i don't know but I'll take your word that its not good. Gerry is self taught and thats better than me therefore i applaud his effort for he didn't have an Irish teacher at school nutter or otherwise. as you will know there is a debate raging throughout the teaching profession and gaeldom that the way Irish is taught in schools throughout ireland needs to change as it is the subject students of all ages hate the most so actually my post isn't complete bollix is it. ps if its a choice between a hospital and irish...

[lawnseed]

its a pity that you have choosen to post on a subject you obviously dont have a clue about. i posted on what i presume an irish language act will entail and made reference to MY experience of how it was taught and the calibre of the teacher provided and how non irish speakers and poor irish speakers are treated as dummies. if you are going to try to get someone to learn a language that is not essential to their daily life you need to 'sell' the idea and market it in a way that actually makes your target customer think that they 'need' to learn irish. foisting the irish language on youngsters isnt working

[Myles Na G.]

Yawn. Stupid smartass comments like that make this board very tiresome. Minder is another fiend for it, why do yous bother your holes

Speaking of bothering holes, have you tried google? I bothered my hole, and found this, which might help:

http://www.pobal.org/english/irishlanguageact.php

It may not help though as I didn't bother my hole reading it. However, as you are a person who is interested in this subject, you might bother your hole.

If you bother your hole and find that reading this was not worth bothering your hole for, please bother your hole to reply to this post and tell me that your hole was unduly bothered. I will then bother my hole to find a better answer to your question.

[Gaffer]

Yawn. Stupid smartass comments like that make this board very tiresome. Minder is another fiend for it, why do yous bother your holes

Speaking of bothering holes, have you tried google? I bothered my hole, and found this, which might help:

http://www.pobal.org/english/irishlanguageact.php

It may not help though as I didn't bother my hole reading it. However, as you are a person who is interested in this subject, you might bother your hole.

If you bother your hole and find that reading this was not worth bothering your hole for, please bother your hole to reply to this post and tell me that your hole was unduly bothered. I will then bother my hole to find a better answer to your question.

Agreed, That was funny, Hats off, Hardstation !

[Maguire01]

Forgive my ignorance, but what will an Irish Language Act actually consist of?

maybe signage in irish, official docs in both english and irish, bbc news in irish, the queen has to learn more irish, i hated irish at school the teacher was a total nutter and a bully. you should hear the sighs of boredom at county board meetings when somebody starts speaking irish and the gaa are supposed to be promoting irish. i cant say i condone the spending of too much public money on this especially when fellas like gerry adams are slagged off by gaelgoir snobs when he does his best to try to speak the language instead of trying to encourage him

Now, houl on there. That post is complete bollix!

+1
Although i'm not even sure as to what the last sentence means.

[MW]

But if you can confidently conclude Alliance voters are far more likely to come from a Unionist background, I worry a bit if I wanted the union to continue. These people are now in the willing to talk about it camp and history is (fortunately) trending in only one direction.

Quite the opposite. I'm no less of a unionist for having voted Alliance (and Green) recently, and with the Union secure I see little imperative to vote for a "unionist party".

[Tony Baloney]

Are there any rules with regard to removal of election posters after elections? The shinners are the only ones with posters up in Armagh. They're hanging every road so isn't it time Sean Boylan and the rest took their mugshots down?

[Tony Baloney]

Sean Boylan has never ran for office in Armagh as far as I know. I was of course referring to Cathal Boylan!

[Banana Man]

Sean Boylan has never ran for office in Armagh as far as I know. I was of course referring to Cathal Boylan!

thought it was another fallout from the meath camp there!

[Tony Baloney]

Sean Boylan has never ran for office in Armagh as far as I know. I was of course referring to Cathal Boylan!

thought it was another fallout from the meath camp there!

My mistake. Anyway the gales today should have taken care of any outstanding posters! I'll check on the way home from work.

[Evil Genius]

No, in trying to draw a general conclusion from a single set of figures, Armaghniac has shown himself to be the "idiot" (see my post #653).

I didn't make a strong statement on this. I merely chose the constituency with the largest Alliance vote as my example, when you came along with "evidence" it was the transfers of candidates who got less than half the vote of Anna Lo. In South Down Ritchie might have picked up transfers but was already elected when the the Alliance candidate was eliminated. My own feeling is that both of you are overstating things and Alliance are pretty much in the middle.

Er, a wee bit of backtracking there [bold], I think.

You see, in order to bolster his case that the trend in NI was towards a UI, Donagh Ulick originally basically made up the claim that Alliance voters transfer disproportionately towards Nationalist candidates.

But you did not respond to him by claiming that Alliance voters are "pretty much in the middle" when it comes to transferring. Instead, you went to the trouble of looking up and quoting Anna Lo's transfers only. Considering that these were predominantly to Nationalist alternatives, whilst you ignored several other examples where Alliance transfers went predominantly to Unionist candidates, the only feasible conclusion is that you were looking to support Donagh's Ulick's fabrication.

A good deal more analysis is needed to make a stronger statement.

Agree, but why did you stop at South Belfast? Why didn't you  undertake some more analysis before throwing the Lo transfers into the debate?

Might the real reason be that due to the fact that Alliance candidates receive over eight times the share of the 1st preference vote in Unionist-majority constituencies than they do in Nationalist-majority constituencies, further analysis may reveal that those self same 1st preference Alliance voters also transfer disproportionately back to the community from which they come? 

After all, logic at least (as well as those figures I quoted earlier from four constituencies) would suggest that they do.

But if you can confidently conclude Alliance voters are far more likely to come from a Unionist background, I worry a bit if I wanted the union to continue.

Not in the least worried, rather quite the contrary (like MW).

You see, the Nationalist share of the vote in NI is now stuck stubbornly around the 41-42% mark, unchanged in nearly a decade and a half. Therefore if it is ever going to reach the magical 50%+1 mark, it (Nationalism) will have to find extra votes from somewhere. One obvious area would be the centre/Alliance vote.

Yet if, as seems clear, that vote emanates very predominately from the Unionist community, then Nationalism will self-evidently have a much harder task in "converting" them than if Alliance voters came mostly, or even evenly, from a Nationalist background.

Or, to put it another way, by far the most successful and significant election result Alliance has ever received was when Naomi Long, rather than, say, the UUP or TUV, took advantage of Peter Robinson's problems in last year's East Belfast Westminster election. How many of her 13k-odd voters do you reckon would vote "Yes" in a referendum on a UI? 

These people are now in the willing to talk about it camp and history is (fortunately) trending in only one direction.

There you go again.

Where is your evidence that history is trending towards the only recognised means of achieving a UI, i.e. a 50%+1 vote in a referendum in NI?

If you stubbornly repeat it over and over, even in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, you'll only end up looking like Lynchbhoy...