Wexford businessman and broadcaster, Ivan Yates, has defended comments that he made on Virgin Media's The Six O’Clock Show that some feel discourage Irish Speakers. According to The Journal, Yates then went on to double down on his comments, despite the uproar created among Gaeilgeoirí online.
Yates had been a guest on the show, invited to speak about politics and the power of podcasting, before native-speaker Síle Seoige was brought on to discuss the Irish language.
During Síle's interview, Yates was asked if he speaks Irish. Yates responded: “Níl focal ar bith agam (I have no words at all). I couldn’t be arsed to learn Irish and I’m sorry if you’re offended.”
The statement was made more controversial when Brian Dowling got up and shook Yates’s hand. Dowling, adding that he too has no Irish. Yates then continued: “All this money we put into it, and there’s only 16,000 people in the country speaking it now.”
Yates softened his statements by saying that he’s “not against it”.
Irish language statistics
According to the 2022 census, 1.83 million people in Ireland said they could speak Irish. 10% of these people said they could speak Irish very well, with a further 32% reporting that they could speak it well.
One third of people, nearly 625 thousand, who could speak Irish said that they speak it daily.
Virgin Media shared a clip of the controversial exchange on X, but it was removed after Yates' comments received backlash from Irish speakers online.
Backlash
Global Gaelic Games, which has a substantial following on the platform, hit out at the exchange:
Lose your language, lose your heritage. If people don't want to learn it, fair enough but don't be disparaging about it. It should be encouraged. https://t.co/MObHAPYI1i
— Global Gaelic Games (@Global_GAA) February 12, 2024
Another X user wrote: “What a horrible way to describe the Irish language and shame on the presenter for allowing that to happen.”
Yates doubled down on his comments. Speaking to The Journal on Tuesday he said “I’m not bothered by Twitter spats, but if anyone watched the programme, they’ll see that I was on to speak about politics and the power of podcast.”
He also reminded people that he was not on the panel to speak about the Irish language and that the comments were made in the context of the interview with Síle Seoige.
By Beat News
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