26/03/2014

UUP Councillors Leave Meeting Over Irish Language Presentation

Three members of the Ulster Unionist Party have said that they "had to make a stand" after they walked out of a Down District Council meeting in protest over an Irish language presentation.

Councillors Walter Lyons, Desmond Patterson and Robert Burgess walked out ahead of a presentation by Linda Ervine, an Irish language development officer invited to speak about the hidden history of Protestants and the Irish language.

The councillors said that leaving the meeting was not meant as an insult to Mrs Ervine, wife of the former Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) leader, Brian Ervine, but that the protest was to "send a message to nationalist councillors."

(MH)

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