In depth: Irish language to be used in Northern Ireland courts

A near 300-year ban on speaking Irish in courtrooms in the counties which came to comprise Northern Ireland was recently lifted – just in time for St Patrick’s Day.

A provision to repeal the Administration of Justice Act 1737 was approved by Westminster in 2022 as part of the introduction of an Irish language act, a key component of the New Decade, New Approach deal that restored Northern Ireland’s government in 2020.

The 1737 law was primarily aimed at discouraging the use of French and Latin in court proceedings, but the legislation made it ‘a criminal offence to use any language other than English’ in courts across the island of Ireland. Those who contravened the law faced a £20 fine – about £4,000 in today’s money.

Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin, president of Irish language organisation Conradh na Gaeilge, hailed the move as ‘a historic and monumental achievement for the Irish-speaking community in the north’. However, the organisation has criticised the delay in overturning the ban, noting that similar laws were removed in Wales and Scotland in 1863, and in the Republic of Ireland in 1962. 

The role of the Irish language has been a vexing issue in the north for decades. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement reignited hopes of a revival, but the Northern Ireland Executive at Stormont received criticism – including from the Council of Europe – for repeated failures to promote the use of both Irish and Ulster-Scots.

The UK government later pledged to enact an Irish language act for the north as part of the 2006 St Andrew’s Agreement, but legislation did not materialise.

The use of Irish continued to be a bone of contention in the power-sharing government, noted Daniel Holder, director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), a Belfast-based human rights NGO. ‘The whole Irish language issue was a significant factor in the collapse of Stormont in 2017, ultimately leading to its restoration in 2020 with the New Decade, New Approach deal,’ he said. ‘This included Irish language legislation, but Stormont collapsed again due to battles over its implementation, leading to the UK government intervening to take the legislation through Westminster in 2022 but not commenced until now.’

Holder said questions remain regarding how repeal will affect the administration of justice. ‘It removes the ban, but it doesn’t actually set a framework,’ he added. ‘It’s very much passing it down to the Department of Justice here in NI and to an extent the courts to decide how they now operationalise the new context.’

'There are numerous scenarios where documentation will have been produced in Irish. Now it will be lawful for those documents to be submitted to court without the onus being on the applicant to source translations'

Daniel Holder, Committee on the Administration of Justice

Irish-speaking solicitor Niall Murphy of KRW Law in Belfast said the repeal marks ‘a significant moment in the history of access to justice’ in Northern Ireland but believes new guidelines are needed on the use of Irish in legal settings.

A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Department of Justice, meanwhile, said any ‘application to use a language other than English’ would be ‘a matter for the courts to determine in the interest of justice’.

A spokeswoman for the office of Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan, Northern Ireland’s most senior judge, said: ‘Under common law, the working language of the courts will continue to be English. Resources and impacts of accommodating languages other than English within the NI justice system would be a matter for the Department of Justice.’

It is unclear how many proceedings will now take place in Irish, but the repeal is expected to have a profound impact on Irish-speaking organisations and communities. ‘There are numerous scenarios – court proceedings relating to Irish-medium schools or educational welfare court hearings – where the documentation will have been produced in Irish,’ Holder said. ‘Now it will actually be lawful for those documents to be submitted to the court without the onus being on the applicant to source translations.’

The Department of Justice declined to comment on whether more money will be allocated to meet the increased demand for translation or interpreting services. But Murphy is confident the capacity is already there. A central translation hub providing Irish and Ulster-Scots language services for the public sector was launched in April 2021 – it just needs to be rolled out to legal settings. ‘Simultaneous translation for Irish is already catered for at the local devolved parliament at Stormont, so the linguistic and technical capacity has already been proven to be able to work in a statutory setting,’ he said.

The executive has also begun the long-awaited process of appointing an Irish language commissioner and a commissioner for the Ulster-Scots and Ulster-British tradition, who will monitor and set standards for public bodies delivering services to Irish and Ulster-Scots speakers.

SDLP MP Claire Hanna this month marked Irish language week by wishing MPs in the Commons a happy St Patrick’s Day in Irish. This was the first time Irish had been spoken at Prime Minister’s Questions in Westminster.

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