Irish without translation
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Article in The Irish Times (6/3/20):
"Church of England rules Irish inscription on grave stone must have translation: Family of Irishwoman wanted phrase ‘In ár gcroíthe go deo’ at grave in Coventry"
Here are the first few paragraphs of the article:
The Church of England has ruled that an Irish-language inscription on a Coventry gravestone must have a translation with it to ensure the phrase is not mistaken as being a political statement.
The family of Irish-born Margaret Keene want the words “In ár gcroíthe go deo” on the stone above her grave at St Giles burial ground at Exhall, Coventry. Translated the words mean “in our hearts for ever.” She died in July 2018 at the age of 73.
Stephen Eyre QC in his role as a judge of the Church of England’s Consistory Court (an ecclestiastical court) ruled that without a translation the inscription would not be understood by many visiting the church yard.
“Given the passions and feelings connected with the use of Irish Gaelic there is a sad risk that the phrase would be regarded as some form of slogan or that its inclusion without translation would of itself be seen as a political statement.
“That is not appropriate and it follows that the phrase “In ár gcroíthe go deo” must be accompanied by a translation.”
I do not understand the logic of what Stephen Eyre QC is saying here.
Mrs. Keene's daughter, Caroline Newey, had applied to the Consistory Court for the inscription without translation.
The judge said she had argued that there was no need for a translation and that “the Irish language is regarded not just as a means of communication but as a vehicle of symbolic value.”
“Mrs Newey says that the use of that language without translation is not a political statement but is a recognition of Mrs Keane’s identity and is to honour … [her] native tongue,” he said.
However, he said that the inscription would be “incomprehensible” to most who read it and ruled that there must be a translation.
It is the judge's ruling that I find incomprehensible.
[h.t. Bryan Van Norden]
Robot Therapist said,
June 4, 2020 @ 5:47 am
I never feel confident that such an article in a paper is a fair rendering of anyone's words or point of view. However, reading the linked article, I find that I CAN understand Eyre's ruling (as depicted), and I disagree with it.
David Cameron Staples said,
June 4, 2020 @ 5:57 am
WTAF… Are they still all het up about Fenians?
The poor, poor dears. Maybe someone should tell them that Ireland, you know, exists, and they don't have to enforce the Pale any more.
In any case, this seems to be the exact opposite of Spike Milligan's situation, where his wish for a specific statement on his grave was denied, but a short statement in Irish was allowed. The Irish being, of course, Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite … "I told you I was ill."
Leo said,
June 4, 2020 @ 6:00 am
Anyone tempted to suspect the phrase of being political will probably do so anyway, with or without a translation, as they won't know whether the translation is accurate, or perhaps even that it is a translation.
Philip Taylor said,
June 4, 2020 @ 6:02 am
I am reasonably certain that in the Islington and St Pancras cemetery, where many of my forbearers by marriage are buried, there are a number of inscriptions in the Hebrew language. If they do not require a translation (which, IMHO and by precedent, they do not), then why should an analogous inscription in a Goedlic language require one ?
S Frankel said,
June 4, 2020 @ 6:17 am
I wonder if the ruling allows translation into Latin.
Stan Carey said,
June 4, 2020 @ 7:26 am
The decision "does not reflect any national Church of England policy", according to a report today in the Coventry Observer.
Stan Carey said,
June 4, 2020 @ 7:29 am
This analysis is also worth reading.
Philip Taylor said,
June 4, 2020 @ 7:55 am
It certainly is, Stan. The lack of empathy for Mr Chadfield is, if anything, even more distressing than the case under discussion here.
jin defang said,
June 4, 2020 @ 8:03 am
the grounds for the ruling is absurd. If a translation is provided, those who don't know Gaelic can't be sure it's accurate—maybe it says "down with the Crown" or some other heresy.
however, can we deny that the Church of England has a right to regulate inscriptions on grave markers? If someone doesn't like the rule, are there not other cemeteries for poor Ms. Keane?
cliff arroyo said,
June 4, 2020 @ 8:21 am
How many years have passed and the English are still stomping on the poor Irish language…
David said,
June 4, 2020 @ 8:23 am
Here's the link to the decision: https://www.ecclesiasticallawassociation.org.uk/judgments/memorials/exhallstgiles2020ecccov1.pdf
The essence of the judgment is found at paragraph 13 – by asking for an Irish Gaelic-only inscription, the family is making "an implicit assertion as to the importance and standing of that language".
Let's see if the decision will be appealed.
Rose Eneri said,
June 4, 2020 @ 8:52 am
@the link provided by Stan Carey: The Diocese of Coventry Churchyard Regulations, written in 2019 by the Chancellor who decided this case include the following:
"memorials placed in our churchyards must be fitting and appropriate and they must be fitting and appropriate not just for today but also for the future."
So, the esteemed Chancellor actually thinks he has the power to know what will be deemed appropriate in the future?
This Chancellor should be removed from his post.
Jonathan said,
June 4, 2020 @ 10:09 am
"… its inclusion without translation would of itself be seen as a political statement."
I'm pretty sure that, if asked, this QC would tell you that adding the translation is not a political statement.
The power to decide what is and what is not "political" is great, especially as it is usually deployed via language that masquerades as blandly neutral.
Victor Mair said,
June 4, 2020 @ 10:19 am
From an Irish colleague:
I was reminded of an epitaph from Antrim on the grave of a man hanged for sheep stealing (may be apocryphal, as hanged men didn't get gravestones. however…):
Here lies the body of Thomas Kemp, lived by wool, died by hemp
Michèle Sharik Pituley said,
June 4, 2020 @ 10:39 am
OT — from the article Stan linked to above:
"Mayo hurler Bernie Keane"
In AmE, "mayo" is short for "mayonnaise", so this made me chuckle. I assume it's really a place name and sports term?
Germanistic said,
June 4, 2020 @ 10:47 am
But an inscription in Latin, which would be understood by almost no one, would be perfectly acceptable? How do we know it's not a Roman incitement?
(Now I'm thinking of that scene in "Life of Brian".)
Philip Taylor said,
June 4, 2020 @ 10:49 am
Michèle — County Mayo, player of hurling. Wonderful place, wonderful game !
Thomas Rees said,
June 4, 2020 @ 10:50 am
Appeal from the consistory court of Coventry lies to the provincial Court of Arches. The new Dean of the Arches is Morag Ellis QC who, as deputy chancellor of Southwark, approved a memorial with a Welsh inscription. She stated, "Those who want to find out the meaning can, these days, easily look it up online, as I have said.”
Apparently this case has produced some fluttering on CofE Twitter.
KevinM said,
June 4, 2020 @ 11:25 am
The suppression of a language is self-defeating because it creates the very connotations they would suppress. So the use of the Irish language, irrespective of content, has come to carry a political message, just as the rising of the moon is no mere astronomical observation.
Theophylact said,
June 4, 2020 @ 11:49 am
Michèle Sharik Pituley: Check the scene in Airplane at the Mayo Clinic. (Oddly, Dr. Mayo's ancestors don't seem to be from County Mayo; he was a descendant of an English chemist named Mayow.)
David L. Gold said,
June 4, 2020 @ 12:35 pm
If the court has verified that the inscription is not a political slogan, it has done its job and at that point it should have closed the case.
David L. Gold said,
June 4, 2020 @ 1:07 pm
Here is a better formulation of my reaction than the one posted at 12:35 pm:
If the court has verified that the content on the inscription is not offensive, it has done its job and at that point it should have closed the case.
The court should not concern itself with what m i g h t be in the future. If someone someday sees the inscription and thinks it is offensive, it should be incumbent on that person to prove it is.
David Morris said,
June 4, 2020 @ 4:29 pm
Having a little Latin, I would have assumed that 'deo' was derived from Latin. Now that I've re-read the inscription, I would possibly recognise 'gcroíthe', but knowing the translation certainly helps pick that word.
Serious question: For whose benefit is a tombstone inscription?
CuConnacht said,
June 4, 2020 @ 4:47 pm
It's too bad that no one in England has a cell phone with access to Google translate, which would allow the heart of anyone disturbed by the sight of untranslated Irish to be put at ease.
Andrew (not the same one) said,
June 4, 2020 @ 5:12 pm
There was a famous case where the Church would only allow a grave inscription to be written in Irish, that of Spike Milligan, whose tombstone (mostly in English) includes the epitaph Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite ('I told you I was ill').
Julian said,
June 4, 2020 @ 11:06 pm
Even taken on its own terms, the learned judge's obnoxious argument about the language being Irish in particular is absurd.
If a reader doesn't know what it means, why would we assume that they would know what language it was?
Peter Grubtal said,
June 5, 2020 @ 2:00 am
David Cameron Staples: "WTAF… Are they still all het up about Fenians?"
There are still people around who were victims of the murderous attacks carried out in the UK in the name of Ireland up till some years ago. Others still have vivid memories: The Old Bailey bomb rattled my windows (both literally and metaphorically) when I was working in London.
Nonetheless, I would go along with David L. Gold.
cliff arroyo said,
June 5, 2020 @ 4:17 am
I wonder what the reaction would be if a Lebanese Christian wanted an inscription in Arabic…
CNH said,
June 5, 2020 @ 5:59 am
There are sensitivities with regard to Irish nationalists in the UK as a consequence of many years of mass indiscriminate bombings in cities by the Irish Republican Army.
Andrew M said,
June 5, 2020 @ 8:11 am
Julian: It's often possible to recognise a language without understanding it. The possibility of fake examples of a language depends on this: e.g. one can tell that 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet' is meant to be Latin without knowing what it means (since it doesn't mean anything).
Stewart Macdonald said,
June 5, 2020 @ 10:37 am
Hopefully, this will be overturned – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/church-of-england-disowns-ruling-irish-epitaph-gravestone
Doug said,
June 5, 2020 @ 10:58 am
jin defang asked, " are there not other cemeteries for poor Ms. Keane?"
I don't think anyone on either side of the dispute would want to move the body at this point.
Julian said,
June 5, 2020 @ 4:59 pm
Andrew M: yes, it's possible to recognise a language without understanding it. I wonder what proportion of English people would actually recognise Irish.
mollymooly said,
June 5, 2020 @ 6:02 pm
@David Morris:
According to s.33 of the Diocese of Coventry Chancellor's Churchyard Regulations:
Jonathan Badger said,
June 5, 2020 @ 11:13 pm
@mollymooly
Yes, I really needed to learn that this stranger will be in the hearts of their loved ones forever. I was maybe thinking, will this person be in their hearts for five years? Ten years? No, forever, apparently. Reminds a bit of the old joke that the true tragedy of death is that according to obituaries only wonderful and beloved people die.
Philip Taylor said,
June 6, 2020 @ 3:31 am
I think, Jonathan, that your reaction and mine when reading the inscriptions on gravestones must be very different. I don't see a stranger lying there, I see instead someone whom I never had the privilege to know, but who was clearly and dearly loved by those left behind who had the monument erected to record their grief at their loss. And at that moment, I too share in their sense of loss — to paraphrase John Donne, "every man's death diminishes me", and never more so than when I read the loving tributes of those left behind.
It would not occur to me in a million years to query whether the inscription will be as valid in five, or in twenty-five, years time, since that is not what it sets out to convey. What it sets out to convey is the feelings of those left behind at the moment of their loved one's death.
Stephen said,
June 6, 2020 @ 12:54 pm
"There are sensitivities with regard to Irish nationalists in the UK as a consequence of many years of mass indiscriminate bombings in cities by the Irish Republican Army."
Indeed there are. Many people were affected by this to a greater or lesser degree.
My wife was on the train behind the one at the platform when the London Bridge bomb went off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_London_Bridge_bombing
So there were probably 2,000 people on that train thinking something along the lines of 'There but for the grace of God go I".
Re. Spike Milligan. My recollection (from reading his autobiography many years ago) is that he was raised as a Roman Catholic. So he might have been buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery.
Doug said,
June 6, 2020 @ 5:04 pm
"Re. Spike Milligan. My recollection (from reading his autobiography many years ago) is that he was raised as a Roman Catholic. So he might have been buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery."
From his Wikipedia article, it looks like Milligan was buried in an Anglican cemetery. The article says the objection to the epitaph came from "the Chichester diocese ". There is no Roman Catholic Diocese of Chichester in England, but there is a Church of England Diocese of Chichester.
Incidentally, it appears to me that Margaret Keene may have been a Roman Catholic as well. The article linked by Stewart MacDonald above quotes Keene's daughter says "“We are an Irish Catholic family and are immersed in that culture, but we are also totally assimilated into English culture and society."
It appears you don't have to be a member of the Church of England to be buried in their cemeteries.
Andrew Usher said,
June 6, 2020 @ 7:34 pm
Philip Taylor:
But, to state the obvious, the inscription will be read in five, or twenty-five years, or whatever long period. The point of an inscription is its permanence, as opposed to other expressions of grief. It may be tacky to criticse a specific epitaph, but one would hope that at least some would be composed with that in mind.
This does not of course mean I endorse the silly decision that started this thread – that's been gone over. It would have some justification to ban the Irish language altogether, but not to require a 'translation'.
k_over_hbarc at yahoo dot com
chloe said,
June 7, 2020 @ 12:37 am
Why not rule English inscription on grave stone must have Celtic translations too?
cliff arroyo said,
June 7, 2020 @ 9:59 am
"many years of mass indiscriminate bombings in cities by the Irish Republican Army"
Why? It's not like England ever did anything bad to Ireland or anything….
(yeah, sarcasm)
Philip Taylor said,
June 7, 2020 @ 10:23 am
An entirely justifiable response, Cliff, in the view of this Englishman. I do not seek to condone for one minute the actions of either the Provisional IRA or of the Ulster Defense Force, nor do I condone the behaviour of (some) British Troops in Northern Island. The history of the British treatment of the Irish is not a pleasant history to read, nor can it be read with any sense of pride by any Englishman or woman.
CNH said,
June 8, 2020 @ 7:21 am
Yes, the British did many brutal and barbaric things in what is now Eire. And if various churches within that country wish to ban the use of English on headstones, that's entirely up to them.
In this case, it is not the British government which is prohibiting the inscription. Apparently the family wishes the deceased to be buried in a Church Of England graveyard. That is their choice. It is also the choice of the Church Of England to promulgate rules for the headstones of the people who are going to be buried there. That is their choice.
If you disagree with that choice, find an alternative graveyard.
Philip Taylor said,
June 8, 2020 @ 7:41 am
"If you disagree with that choice, find an alternative graveyard". Should that apply whenever one disagrees with the status quo ? Should (for example) black people "find an alternative country" when they disagree with the treatment that some have received in the country in which they have chosen to live ? Or should they protest that this treatment is totally unacceptable, and seek to have it universally condemned ? I doubt that your (CNH's) views on the latter are very different to my own, so why apply different criteria to those seeking to have their loved ones interred in a graveyard close to the latter's final home ?
Doug said,
June 8, 2020 @ 8:05 am
"In this case, it is not the British government which is prohibiting the inscription."
If that is relevant, then it's also relevant to note that the Church of England, as an established state-supported church, isn't really entirely separate from the British government.
"If you disagree with that choice, find an alternative graveyard."
That would be extreme at this point. I seem to recall the Church of England strongly disapproves of digging up and moving bodies. Before resorting to such a step, it would be reasonable to follow the Church of England's rules for appealing the decision on the inscription. Apparently, that's what Mrs. Keene's family plans to do.
Stephen said,
June 8, 2020 @ 5:31 pm
@Doug
Thanks for the clarification. It was just a possibility.
I had looked on Milligan's Wikipedia entry and I could not see anything directly on point.
chris said,
June 12, 2020 @ 7:05 pm
The suppression of a language is self-defeating because it creates the very connotations they would suppress.
Only if it fails — if the language actually becomes a dead language, then its connotations are a moot point because no one uses it anymore. This hasn't happened to Irish, of course, but historically probably has happened to lots of other languages.
Given the passions and feelings connected with the use of Irish Gaelic
…I would have expected a judge to think twice before banning its use! But maybe he only took into account *one side's* passions and feelings connected with the use of Irish Gaelic, which seems rather injudicious.
I find the judge's reasoning entirely comprehensible. And also a word that rhymes with that.