Your View: Gaelic comes to East Renfrewshire

East Renfrewshire Council is embracing initiatives that will promote Gaelic language and culture, bringing it into modern life, education and business.

Kicking off by integrating a Gaelic page on its website and offering to produce documents translated into Gaelic, the council hopes that schools, business and community groups will run with the idea.

The news has almost evenly divided The Extra readership and social network communities with people having strong views from “a waste of time” to “we must protect our heritage”.

The Extra took to the heart of East Renfrewshire to get the word on the street about East Ren’s plans for the future of Gaelic.

We asked: Is it appropriate to be spending resources this way?

Scott Rutherford, from Giffnock, said: “My grandfather moved here from the Isle of Luing and spoke only Gaelic but I’d rather see a skateboard park at the pavilion.”

For Margaret Young, from Busby, it’s “a very good thing. I’d like to see Gaelic introduced in primary and secondary schools as our second language.”

Clarkston man Tony Benedetti agreed: “Of course it’s a good thing. We shouldn’t lose our heritage just because it’s not in common use. Otherwise, why teach Latin in schools?”

But for Margaret Gibson, from East Kilbride, “There’s no need for it. We have a multiculture that includes European immigrants. We should be promoting learning Polish and Spanish.”

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