A leading member of the SDLP has accused the president of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), Mr Gearoid O Caireallain, of sectarianism and called for his resignation.
The party's cultural affairs spokeswoman, Ms Brid Rodgers, was reacting to comments by Mr O Caireallain, reported in The Irish Times yesterday, which originally appeared in the Irish-language newspaper, La. In the article he criticised the work of the Ultach Trust, which promotes Irish among Protestants and Catholics, and said its work at trying to make Irish more attractive to Protestants was like a "disease" spreading though the North.
Ms Rodgers said his comments were "no more than a sick, sectarian attack on the Irish language" and were "disgraceful". She accused him of "trying to politicise a language which predates even Christianity on this island".
Mr O Caireallain defended his article yesterday, saying it was written in a "tongue-in-cheek" journalistic style. He said he believed it was "a very legitimate target" to try to make the Irish language more attractive to Protestants, but that people were going about it in the wrong way.
His article, he said, had called for the creation of an Irish-speaking society by funding the arts, business, a radio station, and Irish-language schools "for whoever might want that, irrespective of their religion or their political background".
Mr O Caireallain, speaking on BBC radio, said he was misquoted in the headline of an article which appeared in yesterday's edition of The Irish Times, and that the report had completely ignored the "tongue-in-cheek" element of it.
"It was addressing the point that there is a perception that you have to sort of deny your nationalism if you want to get support for the Irish language from official sources in the North," he said, adding that he accepted this was not entirely true, but the piece was "tongue-in-cheek".
Ms Rodgers said the SDLP was fully supportive of the Ultach Trust, which had "done much to break down many of the misconceptions surrounding the language. In one short article Mr O Caireallain has damaged much of this work."