Recognise ISL Today! - Templates for Letters to TDs and An Taoiseach

These are letter templates for sending to the Taoiseach and your local TD, asking them to recognise ISL. They’re also available on the the KDRC and IDS websites.

Find your local TD using this website:
www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=30&disp=const

Anyone else who’s reading, make sure to send one off to your local TD and the Taoiseach today to get ISL recognised!!




LETTER TO YOUR LOCAL TD
______________

Your Address

Date

Dear Deputy (your local TD’s name),

I am writing to ask you, as my local TD, to lobby the Taoiseach to officially recognise Irish Sign Language as the third official language of Ireland and afford it the same status as Irish and English.

Irish Sign Language (ISL) is the first language of approximately 5,000 Irish Deaf people and their families, with an estimated 50,000 friends, relatives and colleagues of Deaf people also using the language on a regular basis.

Irish Sign Language is an indigenous language, naturally developed by Irish Deaf people and has been used in Ireland for hundreds of years. It has it’s own grammar and structure different to Irish and English and is processed, like other languages in the speech centre of the brain.

Using Irish Sign Languages allows Deaf people to communicate and access knowledge, education and information, as many Deaf people have difficulty accessing the other two official languages of this country. I believe that by the Government of this country neglecting to recognise an indigenous language used by a group of its citizens, our basic human rights are being breached.

Over 45 countries internationally have officially recognised their countries sign languages and in this respect Ireland is lagging behind. In fact, ISL has been officially recognised in Northern Ireland along with British Sign Language for four years, it could be argued that this breaches the Good Friday Agreement.

The recognition of ISL is not only a disability issue, as Deaf ISL users consider themselves a cultural and linguistic minority. It is also an equality and language issue. The Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Health and Children, Education and Rural, Community and Gaeltacht Affairs, have all claimed that the recognition of ISL does not fall under their remit so we are asking An Taoiseach to please appoint a Minister or designate a department to take specific responsibility for this and liaise with the Deaf community on the best way forward, be this through a Constitutional referendum or an alternative method which sees ISL being afforded similar rights to Irish and English under the Official Languages Act.

Yours sincerely,

Sign:

Print Name:

LETER TO AN TAOISEACH:
__________________

Your address:

Date:

Department of the Taoiseach,

Government Buildings,

Upper Merion St,

Dublin 2.

Dear Taoiseach,

I am writing to ask you to officially recognise Irish Sign Language as the third official language of Ireland and afford it the same status as Irish and English.

Irish Sign Language (ISL) is the first language of approximately 5,000 Irish Deaf people and their families, with an estimated 50,000 friends, relatives and colleagues of Deaf people also using the language on a regular basis.

Irish Sign Language is an indigenous language, naturally developed by Irish Deaf people and has been used in Ireland for hundreds of years. It has it’s own grammar and structure different to Irish and English and is processed, like other languages in the speech centre of the brain.

Using Irish Sign Languages allows Deaf people to communicate and access knowledge, education and information, as many Deaf people have difficulty accessing the other two official languages of this country. I believe that by the Government of this country neglecting to recognise an indigenous language used by a group of its citizens, our basic human rights are being breached.

Over 45 countries internationally have officially recognised their countries sign languages and in this respect Ireland is lagging behind. In fact, ISL has been officially recognised in Northern Ireland along with British Sign Language for four years, it could be argued that this breaches the Good Friday Agreement.

The recognition of ISL is not only a disability issue, as Deaf ISL users consider themselves a cultural and linguistic minority. It is also an equality and language issue. The Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Health and Children, Education and Rural, Community and Gaeltacht Affairs, have all claimed that the recognition of ISL does not fall under their remit so we are asking An Taoiseach to please appoint a Minister or designate a department to take specific responsibility for this and liaise with the Deaf community on the best way forward, be this through a Constitutional referendum or an alternative legislative method which sees ISL being afforded similar rights to Irish and English under the Official Languages Act.

Yours sincerely,

Signed:

Lisa Dunne - ISL Interpreter in Irish Independent

Two worlds collide: A wider knowledge of sign language would make life a whole lot easier for the thousands of profoundly deaf people in this country

By Sue Leonard, Irish Independent, Monday September 01 2008

(Click above link for all the article)

...Lisa Dunne, 24, doesn't remember when she realised that her family was 'different'. An only child of deaf parents, known as a CODA, Lisa was always mixing with her extended family, many of whom are also deaf.

"My dad has two deaf brothers," says Lisa. "One has two children, one is deaf and one hearing, and the other brother has seven children, two hearing and five deaf. We are all very close."
Lisa used sign language to communicate with her parents. She learned it from them naturally, but was it tough, having to do all the talking for her parents?

"Being between the two worlds, these worlds that did not 'get' each other, could be hard," she says. "You are a kind of mediator. It was difficult sometimes, but it wasn't traumatic. I just went with it.

"It's not a strain at the time, but it can be inappropriate," she says. "I would have known bank and insurance details, and my parent's medical details. It is better, if possible, that parents do not always rely on a child to interpret. But often they don't have a choice."

After a year at college studying International Event Management, Lisa realised that the career was not for her. So she studied ISL at Trinity College Dublin, gaining an accreditation to work for a government agency as a freelance sign-language interpreter.

Rewarding
"I love my job," she says. "It takes me everywhere in the country. I might be at a business meeting, at a conference, or in a college signing to a deaf student from the front of the lecture hall," she says.

"It can be rewarding, but some deaf people go through hard times. And because we have to be neutral, there is not a lot we can do at the time. That can be frustrating."
What was it like, though, being brought up in a quiet home?

"Well we still had rows," she says. "We'd become really animated. The best thing, though, was when my friends stayed over. If we came in late we could make as much noise as we liked. My house was really popular!" she laughs.

- Sue Leonard

Interpreting for the IDS Thailand Trek

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, here's an article from the Fingal Independent about the Irish Deaf Society Thailand trek on which I was one of the interpreters. (Oh, also, i didn't tell them i was a 'deaf interpreter'!)

There are also lots of other accounts of the Trek in the most recent Irish Deaf News.

Court Interpreting in Ireland - early references in Dáil debates

I've always found the online database of Oireachtas Debates fascinating when researching Deaf history. You get all kinds of references to the Deaf schools and Deaf people.


Take this savage criticism of a Minister for Justice in 1972 that uses sign language as a tool to satirise:

Mr. Sherwin: I regret that the Minister for Justice has left the Dáil Chamber because I wonder if he has forgotten what I said earlier. I asked what the meaning of “otherwise” was in section (1) (a) which says: “any such statement made orally, in writing or otherwise,”. Can we find out from the Government what
precisely “otherwise” means? So far as my understanding of making a statement goes you can make it either orally or in writing. Is the word “otherwise” included to get at a person who has not the power of speech but would speak in sign language? Will this language, to be interpreted as a
statement to interfere with the course of justice, be under the heading of
“otherwise”? Perhaps the chief superintendent, when he is trying to arrive at a
conviction, is able to interpret a person's dreams. Has he the power of mental
telepathy so that he can ascertain what a person is thinking? Is that what
“otherwise” means?

And I've come across two early-ish mentions of sign language interpreters, too!


All the way back in 1929:

"The question as to whether a man is mute of malice or mute by the act of God is
always a very simple one to determine. There never can be any real doubt about
it. Accordingly, we have left it to the judge to decide as to whether a man is
mute of malice or mute by the act of God. It might, indeed, be argued, that it
is unnecessary to have this provision at all, that if a man is mute in the dock
that there and then a verdict of “not guilty” should be entered on his behalf,
and the trial proceeded with. But there is a possibility that somebody not mute
of malice, but mute by the act of God might be indicted and the court might not
know that fact. He may not have the proper interpreter there to explain to him
the procedure taking place and the nature of the evidence that was being given
against him. In a case like that, somebody who knows the deaf and dumb alphabet or who has been used to conversing with the prisoner is always sworn as an interpreter."

And in 1992 again:

Certainly one of the more revolutionary and unusual aspects of this Bill is the
concept of the introduction of an intermediary, if you like, someone who will
act as conveyor and interpreter of a question to a young witness and who may or
may not have some function in dealing with the response of the witness ... I
have said that the provisions of this Bill are revolutionary. They are not
entirely so because, heretofore, when deaf and mute witnesses gave testimony, people representing the National Association of the Deaf and other agencies would come to court and translate the words for the examiner by way of sign language, sound or touch, by applying the hand of the person to the voice box or throat of the intermediary speaking, or, as has been the case, an interpreter may translate the language of the court into
the language of a foreigner brought before our courts. Therefore, the concept of
an intermediary is not new but is certainly new in these circumstances, in that
it recognises not so much a physical deformity or an infirmity as affecting
language, but rather inability of a witness due to youthfulness or other
difficulties.

ISL AWARENESS WEEK

Just in case you didnt know (and I firmly believe as ISL / English interpreters - we should!):

ISL AWARENESS WEEK



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