Classically educated judges of Ireland were warned this week when Mr Justice Michael Twomey fired a broadside against impenetrable Latin and legal jargon in a judgment.
Coincidentally, Mr Justice David Holland, issued his own unrelated judgment dated the same day, using Italic language ad nauseam.
“Ceteris paribus” (all things being equal) and “mutatis mutandem” (with the relevant differences taken into consideration) both feature. “Inter alia” (among other things) is in there a lot, and we spotted a “prima facie” (on first impression) and a few “certiorari” (something to do with a higher court reviewing a lower court’s ruling).
There is also – zut alors! – some erudite but non-technical French. The judge admits having become “somewhat enmeshed in a pas de deux on the head of a pin” with one of the barristers, and at one point declares that “general provision for l’esprit d’escalier or afterthought as imposing additional burdens of obligatory regard is inconsistent with such a statutory architecture”. Quite.
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Overheard and its readers of course know what all this means without having to look it up, but it might, from some angles, fall short of “plain language understandable to the reasonably intelligent lay person”, as Mr Justice Twomey puts it.
Ours is not to judge. After all, de gustibus non est disputandum – there’s no accounting for taste.
Who is Nikhap Smokhara? A Leeds MP’s chatbot struggles with Irish-themed questions
With TDs scattered to the winds for summer, they might look with envy on the innovations in the field of constituent management coming from across the water.
Mark Sewards, the Labour MP for Leeds South West and Morley, has figured out a way to outsource what some consider the worst part of the gig – dealing with the electorate – to a robot, in the form of “AI Mark Sewards”, a voice-activated 3D cartoon of himself powered by artificial intelligence.
BBC Yorkshire rushed to interview the cyber-politician about the decision, receiving mostly platitudes and promises to send the information to humans, so we saw an opportunity to grill him ourselves about issues related to Ireland.
On the subject of the controversial Troubles Legacy Act, the legislative mechanical turk felt that the matter was “a bit outside my knowledge base” but that he’d pass our views on to real-world Mark’s team.
When asked whether Kneecap’s Mo Chara should stand trial on a terror offence, he said he didn’t know about the “Nikhap Smokhara” case.
And when asked when the Northern Ireland Border poll was coming, he said it was not what he was here to talk about and tried to guide Overheard back to questions about Leeds South West and Morley.
Prepared for such obfuscation by having read what many real UK MPs have said before about issues related to Northern Ireland in the past, we deployed a pre-prepared question about the chronic fly-tipping at Churwell allotments in Morley. What’s he going to do about that?
He couldn’t tell us anything about that either, but said he’d pass our views on fly-tipping on to Mark’s staff.
A straight bat all the way, with no gaffes, no substance and a strong rhetorical commitment to naming his constituency a lot. Impressive. Political parties of Ireland, take note: an AI spokesperson could prove an asset for those awkward Morning Ireland interviews.
Papa mio!
Someone else grappling with language is Pope Leo XIV, who created great excitement in the Duolingo community after returning to what is believed to be his account on the game-like language-learning app this week.
The pontiff (69), formerly Dr Robert Prevost of Chicago, is already a polyglot. Alongside his native English, he used Spanish in his working and daily life in Peru, with decent Italian, French and Portuguese to boot, and some ability in Latin and German.
He must be getting rusty, however. The account drprevost, created in 2014, under the name “Robert”, blazed back into action last with a new two-day streak learning Italian through Spanish.
Most of his previous study has been of German (through English). His longest-ever streak of 565 days ended in February 2024, before he became the successor of St Peter, and he has done 200 lessons after 10pm, his daytimes no doubt taken up with pastoral duties.
If you think you’re too busy to learn a language, well, the pope manages. Overheard – also trying to learn a bit of Italian – has followed him on the app for inspiration.
US TikTok star jumps on Kerry bandwagon
Kerry, the county that brought us such expressions of GAA hero worship as “naming the roundabouts in Tralee after footballers” and “unveiling a bronze statue of Mick O’Dwyer in his hometown while he was still alive”, has uncovered a new ally to the cause.
Enter US comedian Josh Pray, who has been extolling the virtues of Gaelic games to his four million TikTok followers, having been initially attracted by the skill and speed of hurling. Pray picked Donegal to win the football All Ireland last month, and local newspaper the Kerryman pinned him down this week in an interview to make him explain why.
“I obviously missed something,” he said, “because my God, I had no idea about the Clifford brothers.”
Pray has now developed the correct amount of respect for the Cliffords, comparing them to Super Bowl-winning brother Peyton and Eli Manning, and has special enthusiasm for David in particular.
“The world needs to know about David and Paudie Clifford. Kids in America should be running around with David Clifford jerseys on!” he enthused.
“Ireland has their version of Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, in David Clifford, and they need to hold him up like Rafiki held up Simba on the mountain in The Lion King.”
A compelling vision. It could make for a good statue.
