FRC propose axing of controversial 50-metre penalty for obstruction after marks
The controversial 50-metre penalty for obstructing a player who has called a mark looks set to be scrapped from Gaelic football.
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Scotsman
4 hours ago
- Scotsman
How new legislation would strengthen the rights of parents to ask for a Gaelic school
The Scottish Languages Bill will be debated on Tuesday, and Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes has written about the legislation's importance. Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Having been immersed in Gaelic medium education since the age of three, I recognise the immense benefits Gaelic brings to communities around Scotland. Living in the Highlands, I've seen how the language is a unique selling point for Scotland when exporting products, like whisky, or inviting visitors to the country. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the National Centre for Gaelic Language and Culture, is based in Sleat, on the Isle of Skye | Sabhal Mòr Ostaig The language also benefits the economy, with our thriving Gaelic broadcasting supporting 340 jobs across Scotland. The success and talent of the sector has been showcased to the world through BBC ALBA's recent crime thriller series An t-Eilean, or 'The Island'. The programme, which debuted earlier this year, has had tremendous success, attracting a record number of viewers on BBC ALBA. It has also been sold to several European broadcasters and was recently named Europe's best regional programme at the CIRCOM Awards. To accelerate Gaelic's growth, the Scottish Government has introduced the Scottish Languages Bill, which MSPs will consider on Tuesday. I am honoured to take forward this Bill into its final stage as a Gaelic speaker and Scotland's first Cabinet secretary for the language. It presents us with a significant opportunity to protect and restore our treasured languages of Gaelic and Scots. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad New powers within the Bill would strengthen the rights of parents to ask for a Gaelic school to be set up in their area. Under the plans, local authorities would be required to assess if the request was practical and affordable. After taking advice, ministers could direct local authorities to proceed with the establishment a new Gaelic school if the authority's assessment considers it to be viable. We know that Gaelic medium schools offer good value for money as they frequently demonstrate above average performance despite costs being no greater than English medium schools. Research also indicates that children who are bilingual tend to perform better in school and have access to more jobs when they grow up. The Scottish National Party's (SNP) Kate Forbes. Picture: Jane Barlow/PA Wire Other measures include introducing educational standards for Gaelic and Scots and bringing forward targets on the number of people speaking and learning Gaelic. This would ensure that ministers are accountable to MSPs on progress made in growing Gaelic throughout Scotland. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Bill would also establish Scots and Gaelic as official languages and support the creation of areas of linguistic significance in Gaelic communities, so that we can better target policies to support the language's growth These provisions aim to build on the encouraging progress made in the most recent census in 2022, which found an increase in Gaelic use for the first time since 1971. However, I recognise that more needs to be done to grow Gaelic in communities where it is traditionally spoken following a drop in speakers in the Outer Hebrides. That's why the Scottish Government is working with partners to support more economic and social opportunities in Gaelic communities so that more people who speak the language continue to live in those areas. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Scottish Languages Bill would also play a vital role in restoring Gaelic's place in these communities. The significance of Gaelic medium education to the language's resurgence is reflected through my own family. My grandparents, who lived just south of Inverness, spoke the language, but this was not passed on to my parents. But through Gaelic medium education I had the privilege to become fluent in Gaelic. I am optimistic that, with the passage of this Bill, the privilege of Gaelic medium education will become more widely available to children and young people in all parts of Scotland.
The National
5 hours ago
- The National
We can't wait until every other problem is solved to protect Gaelic
The Daily Mail treated us to: 'The ultra woke remote Highlands towns that want more migrants to move in ... despite fighting a housing crisis.' Apparently, the fact the Highlands are welcoming to refugees is something to be affronted about. I read the article but couldn't summon the strength to comment, because I was already reeling from something arguably worse – a letter in The Herald where a reader grandly declared that 'Gaelic culture and education aren't essential at the moment'. The writer argued that the £2 million allocated to support another Gaelic primary school in Glasgow, along with the additional £5.7m for other Gaelic initiatives, was effectively taking food from the mouths of children in poverty. I quote: 'Taken in isolation, any increased investment in education may seem a desirable thing to achieve. But in the context of a serious national child poverty crisis, it must be considered as a very dubious allocation of public funds.' READ MORE: 'Naked and Unashamed' cements Nan Shepherd's place in Scotland's literary canon Warming to his theme, he added: 'The allocation of large amounts of scarce funds to the sole benefit of Gaelic language is a crucial diversion away from other sectors with potentially greater social benefits. Gaelic language and culture can be seen as something 'nice to have when we have available funds' rather than 'absolutely essential to have right now'.' He finished with a flourish. 'Gaelic should become a secondary priority, while the generous funding it now receives is re-directed to overcoming the more severe challenges of our child poverty crisis.' All this, helpfully, landed in the same week as the 20th anniversary of the passing of the Gaelic Language Act was celebrated. I say 'celebrated' – but while it was covered extensively in Gaelic media, it didn't register so much as a blip in the English-language press. BBC Alba ran an excellent and in-depth interview with the man who chaired the Government's Gaelic advisory group (MAGOG), which first lobbied for and designed a Gaelic Bill back in 2000 and fought to get it into law at every stage. I'm biased, because that man is my father. He's given more than most in the fight to keep Gaelic alive. His family, and perhaps he himself, sometimes wonder if he gave too much. He certainly paid for it in the following years with his health. So to sit and read a comment as ignorant and crass as 'Gaelic language and culture can be seen as something 'nice to have when we have available funds'', while simultaneously watching my dad – 20 years on – carefully explain how hard it was to secure even basic rights for one of Scotland's indigenous languages, was, to put it mildly, infuriating. Gaelic is not a 'nice to have'. It's a language, a culture, a heritage. It's identity. It's part of thousands of us. It's part of Scotland – and it's dying. If we wait until every other problem has been solved and the coffers are overflowing, it will simply be too late. Not 'nice to have', but 'where did that go?' The road to any legal recognition or public support for Gaelic has been long, painful – and still isn't finished. Even the creation of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, which many now take for granted, was anything but simple. READ MORE: Can fiction free a nation? A Scottish writer looks to James Joyce for answers In 2000, the Scottish Government set up MAGOG to explore legislation. My dad's first inkling about the group was when he heard an item on the radio news about his appointment as chair. The group's aims were clear. They wanted a statutory Gaelic board to strengthen the language, proper funding for Gaelic organisations, and an Act that would give Gaelic secure status and protection. The government, however, was wary. Ministers seemed to view MAGOG as a way to contain Gaelic demands, not strengthen them. MAGOG had other ideas – they wanted Gaelic's position embedded firmly across Scotland. By 2003, a shift in political mood – partly thanks to a Labour manifesto promise – finally opened the door. But even then, progress was cautious. My dad and MAGOG looked to the 1993 Welsh Language Act, which had given Welsh equal validity with English. That was their gold standard. But Scottish politicians got cold feet. Instead of 'equal validity', they offered 'equal respect' – a legally vague phrase which carries no enforceable rights. Underlying much of this, I'm told, was fear. Fear that stronger legal rights would lead to spiralling costs or administrative burdens. Debates became heated, with some officials even raising concerns about whether Scotland might end up printing every phone book in Gaelic. One of the biggest losses was the legal right to Gaelic-medium education, which had been included in MAGOG's early drafts. That too was watered down. My dad wryly comments that you could have warmed your feet on the heat from some of the letters it generated, particularly around education and parental rights. Even the Act's final passage in 2005 was bittersweet. MAGOG had been wound up, and the job was done, but my father wasn't even formally invited to Holyrood for the vote. He only found out almost by accident. 'No limousine came to the door, or even a horse and cart,' as he puts it. Looking back now, he's frank. The Act was 'quite weak', weakened further by civil servants as the drafts progressed. But, he says, it was as much as could be secured in the political climate of the time. 'It wasn't strong enough, without any doubt – but it was as strong as we could get.' More sobering still is that it took another 20 years before any serious attempt was made to strengthen it. He had hoped for a review within five years. Instead, it was 2023 before a new Scottish Languages Bill, with overdue provision for Scots as well as Gaelic, was introduced – but even now, progress remains fragile. Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes recently admitted that, while progress has been made, the government must go 'further and faster' if Gaelic is to survive. Listening to my dad's interview this week reminded me not only how thankless the task was then – but how thankless it remains. READ MORE: Fourth Gaelic primary school to open in Scottish city after £2.4m investment In 2000, there were those who worried that giving Gaelic status might force them to translate the telephone directory. In 2024, we've reached the stage where Gaelic funding is branded as some kind of 'ultra woke' indulgence, as though supporting an indigenous Scottish language is a radical political statement, rather than basic cultural stewardship. And just for the sake of perspective: the Scottish Government's budget for child poverty interventions, including the Scottish Child Payment uplift and associated measures, stands at around £600 million a year. The entire Gaelic Development Officers scheme – the scheme that tries to support Gaelic across all of Scotland's communities – operates on £600,000. MG ALBA, which produces Gaelic broadcasting for the whole country, receives around £13 million annually, roughly the cost of building two or three average primary schools. The total Scottish Government funding for Gaelic language development, education, community activity and media sits somewhere in the £30 million range. In other words, it's no more than a rounding error in the national budget. Yet somehow, every time even a modest sum is allocated to Gaelic, someone shows up to argue that it's an outrageous extravagance. As though the existence of a language spoken in this country for over a thousand years is an optional luxury. Maybe the Highlands and Islands are welcoming to strangers from foreign lands because we know all too well what it's like to be treated badly. Our contexts and cultures are different, but the concept of being othered is universal
Irish Independent
18 hours ago
- Irish Independent
FRC propose axing of controversial 50-metre penalty for obstruction after marks
The controversial 50-metre penalty for obstructing a player who has called a mark looks set to be scrapped from Gaelic football.
