to think there must be some kind of border in Ireland / Northern Ireland because of people

[kalapattar]

All the talk has been about goods and services.

But how will people travel between the UK and Ireland without a physical border? Passport checks, immigration status etc. There won't be a border between mainland UK and Northern Ireland so how will this work?

treaclesoda re Funerals. Most people in the UK are cremated, probably due to the lack of space in burial grounds and the cost. At this time of year there can be quite a wait to get a slot at a crematorium, so a few week's wait is quite normal. As to getting time of work to attend, most employers will only give bereavement leave to very close relatives.

Yes, I do understand all that. Employers here only give bereavement leave for close relatives too, but people expect to take a half day unpaid to attend a funeral, or the employer will send a representative from management or HR or something. But it's more the social side of things that I meant. Everyone crowding round the house, coming to see the deceased, bringing cake and buns and food for the freezer and standing in the kitchen making thousands of cups of tea whilst the close family sit in the living room being comforted by visitor after visitor. I get the impression (from what I read on mumsnet anyway) that in England turning up to visit someone who had been bereaved would be seen as very cheeky, that the person would feel obliged to 'host' you, that funeral services are private things, not overflowing houses with people standing in the street unable to hear what's going on, but standing there anyway to pay their respects.

It's just the one example that immediately popped into my mind about how cultural we are closer to Ireland than England, regardless of political background.

And of course in many other ways we are culturally closer to the UK than Ireland. We are very much a hybrid of both.

That Healey Rae description is fantastic Stillscreaming.

The Irish thing is difficult; I went through 12 years of learning Irish and can't speak a word. My kids went through 14 years of learning Irish in school and absolutely hating it. My sons, both of them, dreaded Irish and got into more trouble in Irish class than in the rest of school altogether. They resent the fact that friends of their who were born outside Ireland didn't have to do it and so had a massive advantage in school, with hours of free time for study coming up to the leaving cert.

They learned to hate Irish, Irish literature, Irish poetry and Irish culture because it was rammed down their throats.

I don't agree that making it compulsory for everyone in NI will bring people together (unless a common hatred of something is a good idea ), I think it would polarise people even more.

Ideally people would learn the Irish language in a fun, enthusiastic way, but nothing has changed here in the 40 years since I was in school and it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon.

Fair point Maryz I didn't think that one through properly, about people hating learning Irish. I suppose what I'm really thinking about is breaking the link between it being seen as a language like any other and a-sinister-language-only-of-interest-to-those-who-wish-us-harm which is how it is viewed at the moment by many.

Most people in Scotland are not cremated. Funerals tend to happen within a week and people beyond the family attend. Don’t lump us all together .

Is NI more like England? I’d have expected it to have similar customs with funerals to the scots.

I'd be happy to see Irish banned in NI, Gerry Adams' insistence on sharing his awful grasp of our once beautiful language is painful on the ears.

If you fear he's using it in an attempt at secret communication, rest assured, he gets all of his propositions muddled and no one has a clue what he's trying to say. Furthermore, even if he could speak Irish, 90% of our populations' Irish skill only go as far as being able to ask to use the toilet.

I agree Maryz.
A great description by StillScreaming
of the Healy Raes.

Sorry Lobster!

I'd say N Ireland funerals seem, to me, anyway, to be similar to the rest of Ireland? Buried within about three days usually, and attended by all and sundry. Including children.

Maybe that's similar to Scotland too?

Is NI more like England? I’d have expected it to have similar customs with funerals to the scots.

NI is only like England or Scotland in that it's an absolutely unique country with its own traditions and customs. Their funeral customs are quite similar to the Irish ones but they are also similar to many places in Southern Europe and Jewish customs. Family and friends gather round and care for the bereaved, bring food, comfort and little stories about the recently departed. I think it's quite a human tradition that the English have lost rather than something that is uniquely Irish and Northern Irish.

Similarly, NI people are very chatty and friendly, superficially, you could see this as being like the Irish but it's just not like the English. No NI woman would ever post on MN about being outraged at a stranger touching their baby but neither would a Spanish or Italian woman.

Treacle, yes that tends to be the case here too - unless of course there is a PM. The funeral attendance might not be quite as big and the “tea” after is often a bit smaller as not everyone goes to the commital though so we might be somewhere in the middle.

You’re rather harsh on the English stillscreaming...

I haven't made any value judgements about cultural differences. I don't think that there is anything inherently superior about attending a funeral or chatting to a stranger.

I've lived in both London and rural Ireland, both cultures have their advantages and disadvantages.

I'd be happy to see Irish banned in NI

This makes me weep. Why would you say this. With all the history of our language being stolen from us, do you think it's funny?

Younger generations of my Derry family speak fluent Irish, despite the older generations having had not opportunity to learn it as children. My very elderly relative absolutely loves hearing us converse in Irish all around her, even though she can't understand it all. She fought (in a civil rights sense... she never lifted a gun) for us to have the freedom from discrimination and the full rights of our heritage. Hence why I speak Irish with my raised-in-England, sole Irish nationality children. It's a beautiful language and we're proud of it.

I agree totally with maryz that compulsory Irish is a bad idea in the republic let alone as a strategy for NI. Many people here loath it.

A big problem with Irish that I see is that it tends to get 'owned' by certain sub sections of society.

In NI it's the preserve of those with strong nationalist tendancies. That's true of more republican parts of Ireland too, Kerry being a good example.

In the republic its been commandeered by a particular set of middle class Catholics who send their kids to Irish schools for the educational advantage. Then of course there are those from the Gaeltacht who speak it as mother tongue (in fairness I don't personally know many of these)

Obviously there are Irish enthusiasts who sit outside that, but if you don't belong to these groups, you can often feel a bit removed from the language. It's not like Wales, where Welsh feels more integral to the nation as a whole.

The standard of teaching in non Gaeilgeoir schools is generally dire, which doesn't help.

I think claiming something as 'quite a human tradition that the English have lost' could be considered rather harsh - as in the English have lost their humanity. Might not have been what you were aiming for - but that interpretation could be put on the words. And if that's how someone reads it then it does come across as judgemental.

'a common tradition that the English don't follow' might have been a bit more neutral.

It's not like Wales, where Welsh feels more integral to the nation as a whole.

It wasn't always that way. The Welsh language was almost wiped out by the English, too. It was through hard work that the Welsh kept their language alive, and gradually built it up to, now, 20% of people speaking it fluently IIRC. There was a Welsh Language Act in the early 1990's that massively helped there, after a century of grass-roots support for Welsh.

I'd like to know who this homogenous group of English following one funeral tradition are, too. It seems more lead by religion than nationality - my British Muslim friends have very different funeral traditions than British C of E friends. Fellow Catholics (wherever their heritage hails from) are somewhere in the middle.

I can't see how Irish could be made compulsory in schools up to qualification level here because we wouldn't have enough qualified teachers but bringing in freelance teachers to teach at least some would work if the schools were given the budget for it.

But then again, DS is in nursery school and it's not currently given enough money by the education board to pay for all the staff they need. We need a functioning government sooner rather than later.

I loved learning Irish. I couldn’t wait to get to second year in high school when I got to learn it. It’s the only GCSE I got an A in. However, it was my choice to learn Irish. It was only compulsory for that one year in secondary school just as French, Latin and Spanish were also compulsory that year. I hated French that was compulsory from 1st to 3rd year. Irish shouldn’t be compulsory IMO it should be there as an option and be accessible and inclusive to anyone who wants to learn it. But never forced. That way resentment lies.

Anyone listening to the questions on R4 'any questions' now-ish?

The Welsh language was almost wiped out by the English, too. It was through hard work that the Welsh kept their language alive, and gradually built it up to, now, 20% of people speaking it fluently IIRC

Don't get me wrong, I think that's all great and more power to the Welsh for reaching those numbers. 20% is huge.

But I think Ireland's in a very different place with their language. And I see how cultural nationalism becomes more important in Wales than in ROI, where they have political independence.

As for NI, forcing unionists to learn Irish would be totally counterproductive and only succeed in pissing them off. If we ever do move towards a united ireland, it will be important to demostrate that unionist attitudes and culture will be embraced rather than them feeling they're being shoe horned into a version of Irishness they don't connect with.

No one should be forced to do/say anything... we're all too thran for that! But whilst children in NI shouldn't be taught Irish if their parents have objections, I do think it should be an option for all. The only way to do that is supporting the language more earlier on; small bursaries for taking classes in it is often helpful at undergraduate level, for example.

This makes me weep. Why would you say this. With all the history of our language being stolen from us, do you think it's funny?

Firstly, because it's been turned into a hot button topic, like the flegs. Anytime anyone shows any signs of making any progress one of a number of these hot button topics is thrown up and everyone goes back to fighting. It's anything but funny that Stormount hasn't sat in, what 18 months and now the NI assembly has been shut down too?

NI is economically and socially stalled because of these issues. No progress is made, hardly any independent investment from multinational companies is made, even the EU were getting suspicious after the renewable fuel scandal.

I haven't looked at the figures lately but someone up thread claimed that UK government spending is 40% in NI that in England and it's had decades of that, without any noticeable improvement in infrastructure of standard of living. That's because it has more layers of government/civil service to police these pointless, ongoing arguments.

So, yes I'd ban the language, along with flag, marches, religious schools and all of the other symbles of sectarianism, not because there is anything wrong with beating a drum while wearing a sash or the Irish language, in and of itself, but becases of their dog whistle nature of these things and how they are used to devide.

However, I'd ban all of these thing in the sure and certain knowledge that sections of the population would take to eating their boiled eggs in the street, just to show that they were starting from a different end to 'the other side'. That each side would wank on about how their's was the one true way to eat a boiled egg, that the other side were oppressing them by their very existence and that their fathers and forefathers had eaten eggs in exactly the same manner and died for the right to do so.

Stormont is the assembly Stillscreaming

There's one thing that unites us in NI more than anything else and that's being told how to go on by anyone else your not serious suggestions put my hackles up and I think I'm fairly neutral overall...

So, we're touchy as fuck and like Somerville said, thran

I'd like to know who this homogenous group of English following one funeral tradition are, too.

It was me who raised the issue of funerals as an example of somewhere that I think even the most unionist of unionists might find they have more in common with the rest of Ireland.

I was really mostly basing it on what I've read on mumsnet - there are funeral threads regularly where people describe funeral customs that are very alien to me eg someone being referred to as the 'chief mourner', not bringing the deceased home to lie in the house, and the idea of the bereaved feeling obliged to 'host' the people at the funeral and finding it distressing and feeling imposed on, funerals not being suitable for children etc. I was just guessing, based on the demographics of mumsnet, that this was a broadly 'English' or ' British' view.

Maybe I'm the only person listening to R4, to the 'leaver' claiming that it is only the EU forcing the issue of a hard border in Ireland.