A policy so bad it causes a sectarian argument in Shandon Park has achieved a whole new level of failure in Northern Ireland.
The tree-lined east Belfast street is the epitome of an affluent, liberal neighbourhood. Its larger houses sell for more than £600,000 (€689,000), putting them in the top 2 per cent of the northern property market. Yet it has suffered the indignity of appearing on front pages and news bulletins because someone has attacked its new bilingual street sign with an angle grinder, removing the Irish half. This is an activity akin to painting kerbstones or flying flags at inner-city interfaces – and indeed British flags appeared on lamp-posts in Shandon Park earlier this year, as part of the street sign row.
The culprits in both cases are presumably from elsewhere. Few people in Shandon Park will know how to use an angle grinder, or know anyone socially who can.
This bizarre situation has arisen due to Belfast City Council’s bilingual street sign policy. Previously, it required a third of all residents to petition for a sign, with two-thirds then having to approve it.
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In 2022, this was changed to enable any one resident or councillor to apply for a sign, with 15 per cent of residents who respond having to approve it.
The justification for this threshold is a 2017 report from the UN special rapporteur on minority issues, who made the apparently reasonable point that majority support should not be required for a minority language.
Of course, Irish is not just a language in Belfast: it is a nationalist cultural symbol. Nor are nationalists a minority – they are a plurality, or a majority by some measures, which is why they had the numbers to change the street-sign policy, with the support of Alliance.
This combination of majoritarianism with minority special pleading has caused unionists great annoyance, not to mention some confusion. But the policy itself did not cause any problems for its first year or so of operation, for two reasons. First, much of Belfast is so segregated that 15 per cent is an unusually large minority. Figures publicised this week by Conradh na Gaeilge show that across all 244 streets with a sign approved under the new policy, only 3.9 per cent of residents objected. This is actually a measure of division, not of consensus, as Conradh na Gaeilge bravely tried to imply.
Second, the policy promised flexibility for the small number of streets where votes are more finely balanced. Final decisions rest with a council committee, which can block a sign or an initial survey based on the views of residents, advice from officials, “local context” and potential impact on community relations.
This quickly evolved into a convention where signs would be deferred indefinitely if more residents were opposed than in favour, creating a de-facto majority requirement for mixed streets. This was important for Alliance, as mixed streets are its territory. But following an election in 2023, nationalists gained a majority on the committee and all flexibility ceased. This first became an issue last summer on four middle-class streets in north Belfast. Shandon Park, where 17 per cent of residents were in favour of a sign and 50 per cent against, has brought the scenario to east Belfast. The committee has just approved more surveys for east Belfast, against official advice.
Few parties emerge from this fiasco with any credit. Nationalists have been cynical, Alliance naive and unionists belligerent. All that is necessary to restore good sense is to return to the flexibility promised and shown until recently. All unionists need to do to achieve this is to make common cause with Alliance, which clearly realises its mistake. But unionists are too busy raging at Alliance and fighting with each other. The DUP held an assembly debate on the signage policy on Monday, where it squabbled with the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), overshadowing a significant statement from north Belfast Alliance MLA Nuala McAllister.
She accused Sinn Féin of “ignoring the wishes” of residents, “igniting flames and tensions within communities” and of placing “getting your own way” above protecting and promoting the language.
Ideally, unionists could join Alliance to set a formal 50 per cent threshold, as adopted by other councils in Northern Ireland. However, that would require more acceptance of Irish than they seem capable of swallowing.
It might help if others would stop lecturing unionists that Irish “belongs to us all”. Sarah Bunting, the DUP leader on Belfast City Council, made an appeal for this last week. While the lectures may be well intentioned, to those who are not Irish, they can sound condescending at best and duplicitous at worst.
Unionists do not have to like Irish, but sometimes they have to live with it anyway. Belfast’s aggressive signage policy does not foster that realisation.
