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(Editorial, Irelandclick.com)

Coming hard on the heels of its disgraceful decision not to fund the St Patrick's Day Carnival Parade, news that Belfast City Council has refused to erect bilingual signs at the new Falls Swim Centre comes as no surprise, but it is no less infuriating for that.

Shops, pubs, clubs, businesses and community groups across West Belfast are increasingly turning to bilingual signage in an attempt to cash in on the sense of civic and cultural pride that the dual signage bestows to a premises or an area – especially an area such as West Belfast.

The Gaeltacht Quarter spirit is rejuvenating the once economically moribund Falls Road, particularly in the immediate area of the Cultúrlann, which is where the Falls Swim Centre lies. But rather than ride the wave, rather than join the people of West Belfast in their growing sense that culture equals confidence equals crowds equals prosperity, the Council opts to stand sourly by and to slap down this modest request. The atmosphere, of course, will be entirely different when the RIR are entertained royally at City Hall in a lavish banquet the cost of which we can only guess at. Then the champagne corks will pop and the music will play.

Not that this is only an issue of the Council acknowledging and supporting the culture of the people of West Belfast, although that is reason enough for the signage to be funded. The hard fact of the matter is that many Irish-speaking children from Irish-speaking homes do not learn how to read English until the age of perhaps seven or eight – that the Council chooses to ignore that adds callousness to insult.

This article appeared first on the Irelandclick.com web site on February 24, 2005.