Aer Lingus Petition to reinstate the Irish Language

Following on from this post on Aerlingus, there is now a petition set up on foot of the facebook profile and is available here. Good luck to Darragh with the petition.

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Ar fud an post seo , tá iarratas ar fáil anseo. Go n-eíri le Darragh leis an iarratas.

Aer Lingus(again)

So you would imagine that the national airline would do as much as possible to stay out of the headlines....not so. Apparently they have stopped, no wait RTE says they "ban[ned]"-(yes that is more sensational, let's go with that word)- their staff from using Irish during flights from their Belfast hub. Now this may seem slightly pedantic but erm what is the difference of using English only on these flights? Well lets see, 23% of Aer Lingus is owned by the Government of Ireland, and as such is a vested interest within the affairs of the Irish state. So maybe this is a strategy to boost sales or something considering the disastorous trading in the first couple of months of their operation in Belfast. Yas know how it goes, the first thing to go is the chocolates, then the other little luxuries etc. and then it is the dual-language. Of course nobody is suggesting that Mr. Dermot Mannion has not done a relatively good job in turning the fortunes of the company after the skethy international setting. He has, the problem is, he is the CEO of a Government of Ireland who has a policy of implementing and supporting the Irish language. It took long enough for the language to be recognised properly. Tá an Gaelige mo teanga agus an teanga níos fearr i mo thuaraim. Agus Ba bhfear liom ag caint i Gaelige má bíonn seans agam ach is duine réadúil mé agus labhraíonn mé i mBearla gach lá mar níl bród mór ag duine leis a teanga. Fós níl dochas ag daoine chun seirbhisí a fháil i Gaelige ina saol. Mar sin, tá sé ró-tabhatchta gach cinneach míhasta thart ar an teanga, triod a chur ar an cinneach. Sin é cén fáth tá an cinneach seo míhasta, mar; inniu tá Aer Lingus cros ar croisc ar an teanga agus amárach beidh a lán comhlachtaí na Stát ag cur amach an teanga.

Besides its always fun listening to the health and safety instuctions on the planes (*cue* the prop box-Your exits are here *points down the plane* here *points to the wings* and here *points behind*) however its more fun when its in a different language. :-)

So Belfast eh?

Now whilst I am not one to gloat or anything of that nature-I may merely point out things from time to time by slighting them in general- I could not help but have a slight smile on my face when i read this from the Irish Independent-Belfast dream turns Sour . It would appear that the Belfast dream that the Aer Lingus Board scraped and grabbed their way out of Shannon Airport for over the last year, has gone slightly ary. It is of course a possibility that people just don't know about the service, or there is a lack of marketing within the Belfast 'hub' and it may pick up in the future. Naturally one hopes that the fortunes of the former State carrier improves for the whole island's sake because I would imagine that the Shannon community, long known for its welcome to all visitors to this fair island, will not be extending this back to Aer Lingus for a very long time.