Aontú Leader Peadar Tóibín has called for Gaeltacht areas to be exempt from the placement of asylum centres saying that “accommodating a large group of people who likely speak only English or another language but Irish, will further diminish the value of the Irish language in those areas”.
The Meath West TD expressed concern amidst a protest by locals against proposals for an asylum centre in the village of Carna in the Conamara Gaeltacht this week.
“Gaeltachtaí across the country are already struggling to preserve our unique linguistic and cultural identity,” Deputy Tóibín said. “This government has already failed to protect Gaeltacht areas and invest in our language over the last number of years, but it is plain to see that accommodating a large group of people who likely speak only English or another language but Irish, will further diminish the value of the Irish language in those areas.”
“Aside from the cultural impact, we know that many Gaeltacht areas have extremely limited public facilities to serve those who live there on a full-time basis. Installing any amount of international protection applicants will, as we have seen across the country, put further pressure on those services,” he said.
He said that the Minister for Integration “needs to reverse any placements in Gaeltacht areas across the country and put in place a blanket restriction on future placements.”
“I will be raising the issue further in the Dáil in the coming weeks on the back of the concerns residents in Connemara have raised. It is time this government stood up for not just Gaeltacht areas, but communities across the country who feel under pressure as a result of placements made without robust community consultation,” he added.
Local people in the small Gaeltacht village of Carna in Conamara have vowed to hold a 24/7 protest at the Carna Bay Hotel to stop its use as a migrant centre housing 84 persons – saying that a “continuous watch” would also be kept on the three main routes into the village.
They said that it was their intention to prevent migrants who are seeking asylum from entering the hotel, saying that the community needed and wanted its hotel back.
Last night, a “large number” of local people gathered at the hotel, as they believed that a bus from Dublin was on its way to Carna. While the bus did not materialise, protesters say they will now operate a rota to prevent the hotel from becoming an IPAS centre.
The only hotel in Carna – a village in the Conamara Gaeltacht of significant cultural importance – has been used to accommodate Ukrainians for the past three years, but locals say that it was always their understanding that this would be a temporary arrangement.
“We already have no facilities, literally no footpath, no streetlights, only one bus a day to Galway city,” a spokesman for the local group opposing the migrant centre, Grúpa Gníomh Ostán Cuan Charna told Gript. “We are asking for years for help, and got nothing, and we already feel like second-rate citizens.”
“Níl aon ostán eile againn – Carna is finished if this goes through,” he said.
This week, Councillor Noel Thomas said that “the government absolutely should be taking extra cognisance that Carna and Cill Chiaráin are Gaeltacht areas”.
“Are they trying to completely destroy the language?” he asked. ““Local people are furious. They feel this would destroy the area.” He said that the hotel owners should cancel the offer of the centre for use as asylum accommodation. “They can withdraw the offer of the hotel as an IPAS centre if they want,” he said. “That’s what the locals want them to do.”
Meadhbh Ní Ghaora of Grúpa Gníomh Ostán Cuan Charna told Galway Bay FM this week that the community needed a location where they could gather, and that that several local businesses depended on the provision of tourist accommodation in the area.
Carna and Iorras Aithneach are famed as a hub of seannós singing, perhaps the most ancient and revered of the Irish traditional arts. Joe Éinniú (Seosamh Ó hÉanaí) learned more than 500 songs growing up in Carna, and other renowned exponents include Seán ‘ac Dhonncha, Sorcha Ní Ghuairim, Josie Sheáin Jeaic ‘ac Dhonncha, Dara Bán Mac Donncha, and Micheál Mháire Gabha.
The area became a major center in the collection of Ireland’s rich oral literature: in one instance Éamonn Búrc of Carna gave collectors 158 tales – with some “being very long” and one running to to 34,000 words – being described by the collector as “one of the finest folk-tales I have ever read in any language”.