''Líofa'' (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

: Fluent) is an initiative headquartered in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

, which aims to assist people in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

who wish to support and become fluent speakers of the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

(''Gaeilge''). It was founded in 2011 by the

Northern Ireland Executive The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the ...

's Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure,

Carál Ní Chuilín Carál Ní Chuilín (; born 18 December 1964), formerly known as Caroline Cullen, is an Irish Sinn Féin politician and former Provisional IRA member. She has been a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Belfast North since 2007 and serv ...

Líofa bursary controversy

As part of the project, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure set up the Líofa Gaeltacht Bursary Scheme, whereby people can apply to attend summer courses. The

Department for Communities The Department for Communities (DfC, Irish: ''An Roinn Pobal'', Ulster Scots: ''Depairtment fur Commonities'') is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The minister with overall responsibility f ...

took over responsibility for the initiative in May 2016 following the

Fresh Start Agreement The Stormont House Agreement is a political accommodation between the British and Irish governments, and a majority of parties that make up the Northern Ireland Executive. The agreement was published on 23 December 2014. The Stormont House Agreem ...

. On 23 December 2016, the Democratic Unionist Party Minister for Communities

Paul Givan Paul Jonathan Givan (born 12 October 1981) is a Unionist politician from Northern Ireland representing the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Givan served as First Minister of Northern Ireland from June 2021 to February 2022, the youngest person ...

removed £55,000 of funding from the scheme. The money funded annual trips for 100 Northern Irish disadvantaged young people to the Donegal Gaeltacht, where they would attend Irish language classes.

Martin McGuinness James Martin Pacelli McGuinness ( ga, Séamus Máirtín Pacelli Mag Aonghusa; 23 May 1950 – 21 March 2017) was an Irish republican politician and statesman from Sinn Féin and a leader within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during ...

said the DUP's decision to remove funding from the Líofa budget was a factor for his resignation as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. Givan came under pressure to reinstate the funding and he said that the original decision to cut the funding was "not political".

Gerry Adams Gerard Adams ( ga, Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh; born 6 October 1948) is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. ...

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...

leader, called Givan an "ignoramus" and called the decision "ignorant". Givan's decision spurred protests outside the headquarters of the Department for Communities in Belfast. As the protests were happening, Givan tweeted that he was reinstating the bursaries after he "found the necessary funding". Furthermore, he said he "was not prepared to allow Sinn Féin to use that £50,000 as a political weapon against us he DUPin the upcoming election as a tool to rally their troops, and so I've taken that away from them". Givan's decision was welcomed by Irish language groups, but they insisted on an

Irish Language Act The Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom providing "official recognition of the status of the Irish language" in Northern Ireland, with Ulster Scots being an officially recognised mi ...

to be a feature of any crisis talks.

References

External links

Official Website
at Liofa.eu
Liofa
at

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

{{Gaels Irish language organisations Organisations based in Belfast 2011 establishments in Northern Ireland Organizations established in 2011

Líofa bursary controversy

See also

References

External links