A student campaign group at Queen’s University Belfast has launched a protest over what it calls “decades of inaction” on language policy by placing Irish-English stickers on campus signs.
The group, AN Cumann Gaelach, said the move was part of its campaign against a “monolingual campus” and aimed to highlight the lack of official bilingual signage at the university.
Posting photos of the stickers online, the society wrote: “As part of our campaign against a monolingual campus, some activists put bilingual signs of their own around campus. With the ‘institutional commitment’ the university has made to promote linguistic diversity, we are looking forward to the implementation of official bilingual signage over the weeks and months ahead.”
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However, the QUB Young Unionists criticised the move, claiming the stickers “create a chill factor” for some students.
Group chair Jay Basra said: “Queen’s University Belfast is moving towards a digital signage policy, a direction that has been clearly and repeatedly outlined during meetings with the administration.
“To those behind the recent ‘stickering’ campaign—if they truly value the Irish language as deeply as they claim, why diminish it by covering the campus with stickers they know will soon be removed?”
He also alleged that a previous petition calling for bilingual signage “did not even receive 10 per cent support,” adding that such measures risk reviving divisions on campus.
“History shows that when similar signage was displayed in the 1980s and 1990s, Unionist students felt discouraged from taking part in Students’ Union life,” he said. “Reintroducing that environment today would be the physical manifestation of the ‘cold house’ perception that this university has worked so hard to move beyond.”
In response, Eoghan Ó Conghaile, Campaigns Officer for An Cumann Gaelach, said most feedback to the stickers had been positive.
“The stickers included both English and Irish, so you have to understand the imposition of English-only signage as a neutral default,” he said. “A better question is why activists felt they had to go out and do this.”
He added that opposition to dual-language signage is often “rooted in a lack of knowledge.”
“These stickers broaden access to the Irish language and don’t affect English signage in any way. This is international best practice and does not infringe on anyone who doesn’t speak Irish.”
Ó Conghaile said that while their consultation received support from around five per cent of the student body, this did not indicate widespread opposition.
“Opposition to the Irish language on campus can, at times, be rooted in intolerance,” he said. “Queen’s University should take proactive steps to tackle such negative attitudes.”
A Queen’s University Belfast spokesperson said: “We are always keen to listen and engage with our student body and the University management has had several meetings with An Cumann Gaelach.
“The University’s EDI policy includes linguistic and cultural identity, with significant and ongoing progress in the promotion of the Irish language including the recent creation of bespoke accommodation for students who are Irish speakers and the creation of the new post of Irish Language Officer based in the University’s language centre.”
Although Queen’s has not formally committed to introducing dual-language signs, the university recently reported a 227 per cent increase in students registering for Irish courses, suggesting growing interest in the language among the student body.
Featured image via Canva and Instagram @cumanngaelachqub
