A Sinn Féin MEP has been described as having “egg on her face” after she was unable to speak Irish after complaining about a non-existent ban on the language. 

Dublin representative Lynn Boylan was invited to speak at a committee meeting in the European Parliament and kicked off her speech with a few pleasantries as Gaeilge. 

She added in English that it was “unfortunate that we can’t use our own language in this committee, but I will continue now in English”.

When Ms Boylan was then informed that she could indeed speak in Irish if she wished, the Sinn Féin MEP said she had not been aware of this and had only prepared to speak English. 

On The Hard Shoulder, Dónal Lynch of the Sunday Independent described the Irish language as a “national bluff”. 

“Millions claim to be able to speak it,” he said. 

“But if you look at the last census, only a couple of hundred thousand speak it very well and it's sort of like a treasured artefact.

“It's something that's trotted out at ceremonies, spoken by politicians. 

“But really, as a tool of communication, it's not something that most of us are comfortable using most of the time.”

Flags of the European Union and its member states fly in the wind in front of the building of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Picture by: Philipp von Ditfurth/DPA/PA Images/Alamy.com.

Mr Lynch added that Ms Boylan’s is “extremely embarrassing” given her inability to at least summarise what she was about to say as Gaeilge. 

“I think you would hope that most people would have the wherewithal to not try to speak Irish if they're not able to to keep going with this,” he said. 

“But I don't sugarcoat what she did and I think I think there was obviously egg on her face. 

“The only thing I was trying to say was that, basically, there is an element of that in a lot of Irish language culture in Ireland.”

An Irish language revival?

While he conceded that a speech to the European Parliament likely involved a lot of technical vocabulary that would hard to translate, Mr Lynch said she should have given the “gist” of her views. 

However, he added that Ms Boylan is not the only person in Ireland who is not “walking the walk” when it comes to Gaeilge. 

“I mean, we have heard a lot recently about an Irish language revival, the success of Kneecap on An Cailín Ciúin and the others,” he said. 

“TikTok accounts that have huge amounts of followers now where people speak Irish - so, it's not as if people don't have enthusiasm for it, they do. 

“I mean, people sing Olé, Olé, Olé - that doesn't mean they mean they speak Spanish.”

Main image: Lynn Boylan. Picture by: Alamy.com.