I am not normally a person to have a go at anyone who wishes to cultivate their culture - culture is a good thing. Culture brings the past and present together in such a way that people can recognise it and really appreciate where a nation or people came from. We can celebrate culture as a nation whole - unless you are in Quebec it seems.
Yet recently a pub, yes a pub - and an Irish pub at that - had the French language police come a-knocking on the door. Now we would ask why? Well, it seems that someone didn’t like the décor of the Irish pub they had visited. Who was this person we will never know; the language police don’t say who has called them to complain. If you would like to read the story I am quoting from click here.
The Irish have a bit of a history if you didn’t know. A long history where they were once part of Britain, then they were not. They have St Patrick which a lot of people around the world know about - just about every country turns into the Irish on St Patricks day. So what would have upset someone so much as to bring in the Quebec language police? The décor as I have said - but what was that décor? Wall posters!
In Quebec everything has to be in French - you can, if you want, use English but the English text/font must be half the size of the French text/font - why? I haven’t got a clue - but there you have it.
But these posters didn’t have any French on them - they were from Ireland you see - and in Ireland, where a great Gaelic tongue is spoken, a lot of English is, too. And these posters were in English.
Quebec’s French-language watchdog is investigating a popular Montreal pub, which is cluttered with classic Irish signage and English-only posters.
The owner of McKibbin’s received a letter from the Office québécois de la langue française (OLF) earlier this month inquiring about the use of English signs inside.
The wall hangings include vintage advertisements for Guinness and the St. James Gate brewery in Dublin, posters the owners say add to the charm and ambience of their downtown establishment.
If you have never been to an Irish bar - go to one, they are some of the friendliest people in the world, and they don’t mind you speaking English either.
Here, listed from that link is some, well - silliness?
Here are some other cases over the years that have attracted the interest of the language watchdog or people seeking to protect the French language:
* 1996: A woman warns the owner of a Quebec pet store she might get in touch with language authorities because Peekaboo, the parrot she wanted to buy, didn’t speak French.
* 1999: The Old Navy chain is asked to rename its stores “La Vieille Rivière.” It never happens.
* 2000: The owner of an Indian restaurant is told he’s breaking the law by having coasters for “Double Diamond,” a British beer.
* 2001: Some people express disappointment that race-car driver Jacques Villeneuve calls his restaurant “Newtown.”
* 2005: Language authorities say they will investigate complaints that Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay’s party used the word “Go” on its posters and pamphlets, as in “Go Montreal.”
* 2007: Imperial Oil says it will keep its Quebec-only “Marché Express” name for its Esso gas stations after protests against a proposal to change the name to “On the Run,” as they are known elsewhere in North America.
* 2007: About 50 people protest outside a Second Cup outlet to demonstrate against the words “Les cafés” being dropped from “Les cafés Second Cup” at some of the chain’s outlets.
* 2007: Language activists decry that callers to many Quebec government offices are told to “press nine” for English before instructions are delivered in French. Some of the departments have since changed the message to put English at the end.
Ahhh - and French is the language of love.
Au revoir! for now, old chap!
All Images designed by Alison Rhodes (LastingExpressions)
9 responses so far ↓
Jim // February 19, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Press Release:
Mile-End Irish Citizens’ Committee
For Immediate Release: February 14th 2008, Montreal
United Nations Human Rights Commission
OHCHR address:
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais Wilson
52 rue des Pâquis
CH-1201 Geneva, Switzerland Postal address:
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
To Whom It May Concern:
The recent actions of the racist officials of the Quebec language Police force, the OLF, against McKibbin’s Irish Pub on Bishop Street around the corner from the Concordia Library in downtown Montreal are just the latest in the ethnic-cleansing of another ethnic community; in this case the Irish ethnic community. In our circles ‘the Irish is up’ in everybody’s blood these days but this latest ethnic-cleansing action against pissed-off & oppressed Irish people points to the need for an Irish Civilian Defence Organization to defend our ethnic interests from French Supremacists in Montreal and Laval. The Mile-End Irish Citizens’ Committee is therefore calling for discussion in the Irish community among all classes of Irish people on the question of organizing Irish Defence Teams composed of all persons of Irish descent re: Establishing our agreement to disagree while we unite against French Tonguepartied in Quebec. It is our human right in an Irish pub anywhere in the world Irish are permitted to exist, to see Irish sayings posted on the walls in English or Gaelic. It is our right to have our expressions, sayings, messages posted in English or Gaelic on English/Gaelic menus and it is also our right to be served in English or Gaelic before being served in French and receive advertisements from these cultural establishments in English or Gaelic. Anything short of this is over the line and will be dealt with in an equally uncivilized way if it is not reversed.
This language Commission should be put under a UN Trusteeship forthwith for violations against any small enterprises and individuals in the past thirty years. More than 500,000 of our people fled Montreal with their holdings to evade this very sort of situation. We have ex-Patriot Montrealese Committees and Clubs organizing in places like Toronto and Harvard University at Cambridge MA. What will it take to have international human rights laws applied to linguistic discrimination and tonguepartied in Quebec please? It would appear that without responsible intervention against French Linguistic ethnic-cleansing in Quebec our private and non-governmental para-military inclinations may well be the only resort to defend our youngsters from the menace of forced-francofication in a country no way deemed by anyone to be a unilingual French country. The Government is breaking the law!
In this respect it is the political position of the Mile-End Irish Citizens Committee, in lieu of UN intervention, to suggest that every community of the 129 non-French ethnic cultures and languages on our Islands of Montreal & Laval consider doing exactly the same thing within their own structures. It is further recommended that when so constituted individually, we have representatives from our 129 communities meet in common to discuss civilian patrols of our Islands by ethnic Civilian Protection Units to be established with proper equipment in the soonest possible time and directed in operations by ourselves, not some turncoat government agency betraying us to French Supremacist interests.
Charles Bunting of Liverpool in 1975 once quoted Sir Winston Churchill as having wisely said one long time ago: “If you take the beer away from the working man you get a revolution.” Or as Horace said 2000 years ago: “If Heaven shows no mercy; Hell will be unleashed!” It would appear that Quebecois Paradise has reached the point of transformation. Will it be peace with honour or the obvious historical inevitability unchecked? I remain,
Yours Faithfully,
Sean Hugh O’Brien (Chairman, Executive Council)
Mile-End Irish Citizens’ Committee POB 55020, Department MG, Fairmount Postal Substation
Montreal, Quebec. H2T 3E2 Canada Telephone: 514-670-1016 or 514-276-3874
Will Rhodes // February 19, 2008 at 9:02 pm
HAHAHAHA!
steve // February 28, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I’ve been to McKibbins many times when I’ve been in Montreal, and this is absolutely crazy. EVERY Irish pub, EVERYWHERE has guinness signs up. Just a couple streets away from Mckibbens (which is on Rue Guy) is Hurleys, on Crescent, as well as several other Irish Pubs, and they all have the same decorations up, and no complaints? Sounds like someone at Mckibbins has made some enemies and that’s why they’ve been targetted.
Will Rhodes // February 29, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Hi, Steve, and thanks for dropping by.
I have read so many stories about Quebec and the language police - many of those who speak exclusively English feel completely ostracised in their own country. French is a minority language both in Canada and in the world - if, say the UK, had laws where French is outlawed then there would, justifiably, be an outcry. Yet we see in France itself that they are quite comfortable with people speaking English as well as their mother tongue. Forcing people to do what comes unnatural to them is a detriment and shows only that there is no real call for it by the majority of the people.
A theme pub is just that, a theme pub and surely should be encouraged to get tourists in and for them to spend money.
Ask Jacques Villeneuve - they went ballistic when he only used English for his restaurant.
steve // February 29, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I guess one way you can look at it at least the Quebec government isn’t politically correct. I cannot imagine the firestorm of controversy if in the US the government cracked down on spanish language signs in restaurant/stores. In fact, most grocery stores where i live now have the entrance/exit signs/hours in spanish and in english. Quebec is very protectionist about French (ironically 40% of English vocabulary is from French, yet we don’t seem to have a problem with that). All Canadian Provinces except Quebec are bilingual. The road signs on the Autoroutes outside of Quebec are bilingual. In Quebec, it’s only French. I guess the National government is bending over backwards, and allows discrimination against English speakers, as a means of desperately trying to keep Canada together. I wonder if the hissy fit would have been thrown if McKibbins had Guinness signs in Gaelic rather than English.
Will Rhodes // February 29, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Putting it all in Gaelic would have been a compromise - except for those French who come from Brittany, Normandy etc. That Gallic charm.
Ed // May 21, 2008 at 10:40 am
Hey Will, you know my feelings on most things haughty, arrogant and endemically French.
I feel it’s about time Canada, exerted its English presence a little more and ,well basically, tell the québécois to go fuck themselves….
…sorry, but you ll have to excuse my French!
:p
Will Rhodes // May 21, 2008 at 1:21 pm
LOL I know exactly how you feel, Ed!
Ed // May 21, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Further point to the letter at the top concerning ‘ethnic cleansing’ it’s funny that the Breton speakers in France only receive backing from the Celtic nations on the British Isles as the French Govt. refuses to support the gallic language and its furthering within the region.
The French have a habit of being highly at fault when it comes to all things politically correct regarding French purity…therefore I have no problem in chastising their little Mongrel -Germano-Celtic-Iberian- Scandinavian arses.
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