It says much about the stability or otherwise of Government in Northern Ireland that the first question, when any row or challenge emerges, is whether it will bring down Stormont.
So it proved yet again, with the dispute over the Irish language signage at Belfast’s Grand Central Station.
Irish is to be added to physical signs and ticket machines at a cost of £150,000 (€176,000); given the station is roughly six months old, this begs the question: why was this not done when the existing signs were being installed?
DUP MLA Deborah Erskine was in quickly on the day of the announcement, accusing Sinn Féin – the North’s Minister for Infrastructure is the party’s MLA Liz Kimmins – of prioritising “their narrow agenda over the wider public good” and stating that “this money could and should have been better spent on fixing our roads and improving infrastructure for everyone”.
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So far, so predictable – and, one might say, reasonable; the row only took off a day later, when the sole Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) MLA, Timothy Gaston, fell back on the old trope of accusing Kimmins of a “plan to weaponise Irish” and lodged a petition in the Assembly seeking to have the matter referred to a cross-community vote.
His real challenge, though, was to the other unionist parties; now, he said, was the “opportunity” for Erskine and the DUP “to do something about it rather than simply issuing a statement”.
“The only question is - will the DUP and UUP members of the Assembly demand equality for our community or will they roll over to Sinn Féin?”
This put both parties in a bind, especially the DUP – which, though it has by far the greater political representation, perpetually feels the TUV’s breath on its neck in the hunt for the grassroots vote; as a row, this says more about tensions within unionism than with nationalism.
The other unionist parties duly responded; DUP leader Gavin Robinson said the party would “put a marker down” at the Executive table “that public money cannot be used to further Sinn Féin’s pet projects”.
For its part, the UUP emphasised it had “no issue” with either Irish or Ulster Scots and its concern was cost, but in the same statement spoke of “unease” at a “narrative ... that ‘every word of Irish spoken is like another bullet being fired in the struggle for Irish freedom’”.
For Claire Mitchell, a writer from a Protestant background and an Irish language learner, this is outdated. “I think most Protestants now would be familiar with the long history, hundreds of years, that Protestants have had with the Irish language, and saving the Irish language.
“Politically, I’ve noticed a real softening towards the Irish language amongst wider unionism. It is a sensitive topic for an element within the unionist community that erupts from time to time, but I think amongst most ordinary Protestants the issue is understood differently today.”
Yet, as the history of Northern Ireland shows, it has brought and kept down governments, not least from 2017-20, when a dispute over an Irish Language Act was the major sticking point preventing the Assembly’s restoration.
This was resolved, and the DUP and Sinn Féin have since moved on. Last month, the recruitment process was launched for commissioners for Irish and Ulster Scots – signed off by the First and deputy First Ministers – while just this week, DUP leader Robinson told the Irish News there were party members “fluent in Irish”.
At the Executive table on Thursday, the focus was, unsurprisingly, the implications of US president Donald Trump’s tariff announcement; sources said while the signage was raised by the DUP, it was a low-key conversation at the end of the meeting, with the more heated language saved for the press conference outside afterwards.
Indeed, outside is where any resolution will likely be found – either through the courts, or thanks to the aforementioned Irish Language Commissioner.
“It’s the phrase I’ve used forever on this subject,” says former UUP director of communications Alex Kane. “A bespoke arrangement which suits both the DUP and Sinn Féin will be arrived at, and it will be dismissed by the people who are angry now, and nearly everybody else will just shrug their shoulders.”
But the row has proved a very public reminder of the inherent divisions within this four-party Executive that have been largely absent since its restoration, with the partnership of Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly instead praised for such cross-community initiatives as a visit to a GAA club, a match at Windsor Park, and the PSNI graduation ceremony.
This is why this row is significant, because it is the first such pressure point, and the history of the North shows just how dangerous these can be.
Yet this has remained a war of words, not actions – “not a crisis”, to quote Robinson. For all the controversy, it is clear there is no appetite to collapse the Assembly again.
But it has again reinforced its vulnerability to identity politics. This is why the key question in this, and indeed any Stormont row, remains whether or not it could bring the Northern political institutions crashing down again.
