'It's a great legacy to leave': the rise in Irish-English street signs across Northern Ireland

Luke Butterly speaks to some of the more than 2,000 residents who have applied for dual language street signs in Northern Ireland over the past five years.

Thig leat dul chuig tuairisc Meon Eile ar an ábhar anseo.

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When Tom Cosgrove was growing up in Derry, speaking Irish was taboo at home.

“My mum found an Irish language dictionary in my bedroom one time. I came home and she was holding it like ‘What's this, why are you learning Irish?’ To her it was like joining the Ra!”

And then there were the experiences of an older generation, Irish speakers like his grandmother. She moved during World War II from the Gaeltacht in Donegal to work as a cleaner at military bases in Derry but feared discrimination if she used her native tongue.

Now 34, Mr Cosgrove, an architect, is one of a growing number of people trying to combat hostility towards the language.

In the past five years, there have been more than 2,200 applications for dual language street signs across Northern Ireland. The majority – more than 90 per cent – are for Irish-English signs.

He said that negative perceptions – from Unionists but also middle class Catholics – are what motivated him to apply for a dual language street sign.

“If you see something, it is visible and you become more comfortable with it over time. It normalises and de-politicises it.”

“I think there's a lot of people who wouldn't be very honest about this, but middle class Catholics really are afraid of the language. We look down on it,” he added.

“Some will say that it would devalue our property if we have Irish language signage, because it's only poor Republican areas that have them. It's really snobby.”

Mr Cosgrove works in and lives near the Fountain, a loyalist enclave in Derry city.

He said the people on his street - who come from Catholic, Protestant, and international backgrounds - are not bothered by the prospect of English-Irish signage.

“Unionist parties are very obstructive to it. I think some hardcore unionists see it as a Trojan horse to United Ireland, but it's just a language.”

There were 211 applications for dual language street signs in Derry City and Strabane District Council between 2020 and 2024. Many have been waiting more than two years for a decision.

The nationalist-controlled council recently lowered the level of support needed from residents before a street sign change can be considered - from 66% to 15% - which will likely lead to an increase in applications.

However, a spokesman for Derry City and Strabane District Council said they have put in no additional resources to deal with the potential increase.

They added that the council “staff are committed to working through all of the applications as promptly as possible and in accordance with the process involved.”

Recognition

Last month, dual language street signs were installed at Woodside Gardens and Churchill Gardens in Portadown, the first in the history of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Council.

Róisín Ní Ágáin-Fontes, a local resident who campaigned for the Irish-English signage, said it was an historic day.

“It's refreshing, and it feels as if finally there is some recognition for the Irish community”, she said.

“Never in our lifetime did we ever think, in Portadown, that we’d see our language openly displayed. I think it's a great legacy to leave.

“We live in a very diverse area - my own husband's Portuguese - and the newcomer families are so supportive. That of course, in Ireland, you should have Irish on display. It was just really, really good feedback.”

Dual language signs have faced opposition.

At a council meeting last June, DUP MP Carla Lockharte spoke against the Woodside Hill application.

All ten residents of the street had voted in favour of the sign.

Ms Lockhart said that such signs “would intimidate and create a no-go area for the small number of Protestants who live in this area.”

“In my opinion this is not about the Irish language and their love for the Irish language, this is political, it’s to whip up tension and it’s an attempt to territory mark,” she added.

A third street in Portadown - Woodside Hill - also met the threshold of more than two-thirds support of residents, but was rejected by the unionist-controlled council.

That decision is now the subject of a judicial review.

Peter Lavery, an Alliance party councillor in Lurgan, said earlier this year that the decision was “going to set council back the guts of £100,000.”

Growing enthusiasm

Over 97% of the 2,212 applications across the North made between 2020 and 2024 were in just five of the 11 councils, according to data obtained by The Detail.

Causeway Coasts and Glens District Council had no bilingual signage applications in the past five years.

Aodhán Ó Baoill (26), from Portstewart, said his family intended to make an application this year.

“No one is trying to do them any cause or damage by putting that sign up, it's just an expression of our love for our language, our love for our place names,” he said.

He has noticed a significant change in how people think about the Irish language in his area.

“I had a fairly traditional upbringing, went to a Catholic grammar school, played Gaelic Games, played Irish traditional music”, he said.

“But when I was starting to learn Irish, some friends would say, what are you doing that for? To them, speaking in Irish was sort of a bridge too far.

“Now, there's no doubt that there's a growing enthusiasm, and a change in attitude towards the language. It's cool to speak Irish.

“You can't really mention anything about Irish without mentioning Kneecap, and their influence on a global scale.

“So it comes back to exposure. If you're exposed to it, and you see it, and you hear it, then it just becomes something normal.”

Identity

While the vast majority of applications across Northern Ireland are for Irish, a small but growing number are for Ulster Scots, mostly in Belfast.

There were 108 Ulster Scots applications in Belfast in 2024, up from 49 in 2023 and just one in 2022.

Tracey Kelly, a DUP councillor in Belfast, applied for an Ulster Scots sign for her street.

“It is part of your identity at the end of the day. A lot of people will identify with it, the same as people identify with Irish. So, it goes both ways.”

Ms Kelly also submitted applications for an additional dozen streets in the Botanic area she represents, after being asked to do so by her constituents.

Many of the streets - such as Boyne Bridge Place, at the bottom of Sandy Row - are without residents.

She said the rise in applications for Ulster Scots signage was partially a reaction to the rise in applications for Irish street signs.

“Its when you start to see Irish being forced into unionist areas, then the unionist community will react to that.

“And you can’t stop it (an Irish street) unless you have another application in, so I would assume that is probably the reason you've seen that rise (in Ulster Scots applications).”

“So those people then feel, hold on a minute, you are trying to take our identity away and put your identity in," she added.

“It's the same as going up the Falls Road and trying to put Ulster Scots up there, it wouldn't be accepted.”

Of the hundreds of applications for signage in Belfast in recent years, in a small number of cases there were two applications for the same street in different languages.

For one street in west Belfast, different applications for Irish and Ulster Scots were submitted within two days of each other.

A spokesman for Belfast City Council said that in such cases, the application received first will be processed first.

“If the erection of dual language street signs in that language is approved by councillors, signs will be erected, and any other application for that street will be closed.

“If the first application is unsuccessful, then the subsequent application for that street, requesting a different language, will be processed in order of submission.”

Legislation passed in 1949 stated that street signs in Northern Ireland should not be “put up or painted otherwise than in English”.

While that law was repealed in 1995, many councils continue to make it too difficult for bilingual street signs to be approved, a body of European experts said last year.

Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin, president of Conradh na Gaeilge, an organisation which promotes the Irish language, said “misguided opposition to language rights and equality must end.”

“Visibility of minoritised languages are incredibly important and allow large swathes of our community to engage with the language and to discover the Gaeilge roots of the vast majority of our placenames here”, he said.

“Unfortunately, some councils continue to place unrealistic burdens on residents requesting parity of esteem in the form of bilingual signage. The right to see our native language on official signage is enshrined in numerous treaties ratified by the British Government.”