NI 1987 state papers: Sinn Féin's 'linguistic proficiency' questioned by leading Irish poet

A senior Irish-speaking poet from west Belfast voiced doubts in the late-1980s about the capacity of Sinn Féin to advise on the issue of the language.

Gerry Adams, then a Sinn Féin MP, led language activists to meet the Arts Council in April 1986 as a campaign for greater recognition of Irish grew.

But poet Ciaran Carson said most of the activists had a "barely competent grasp" of the language.

The details appear in previously confidential files dating from 1987.

The documents have now been released by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

The delegation met with Mr Carson, then the traditional arts officer at the Arts Council, and the organisation's director Ken Jamison in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement the previous year.

Mr Adams, the Sinn Féin president, referred to the "resurgence" of interest in Irish, especially in west Belfast.

He put this in the context of a European concern for lesser-used languages, and said the Northern Ireland Office had declined to make any special provision for Irish.

Mr Adams was joined by his party colleague Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, then head of Sinn Féin's cultural department, and now an MLA for South Belfast.

Mr Ó Muilleoir called for money to be offered for Irish language activities, and said the language revival was "a populist working-class phenomenon with no elitist overtones".

But in a memo circulated among Arts Council officials, Mr Carson questioned the activists' Irish linguistic proficiency.

He wrote: "Most of those present seem to have a barely competent grasp of the phonetics of the language.

"It is hardly our place to help them brush up their Irish, but it might be our role to make them aware of the wider cultural implications of the language."

Mr Carson, now a professor of poetry at Queen's University in Belfast, added that the delegation was "not fully representative of the Irish language movement in west Belfast".

He said this suggested that "some groups did not wish to be associated with Sinn Féin".