A non-person in my own name

EVEN though I don’t speak Irish, I decided recently to start using the Irish form of my name.

To that end I started looking into ways of changing my official identification to reflect the Irish form of my identity.

My birth certificate, driver’s licence, bank account and passport were the first documents I tried to change.

Imagine my surprise when I found officialdom weighed in against me. The first hurdle was my birth cert. It seems unless you were registered in Irish at birth, it is impossible to get a copy of your birth cert in Irish.

How difficult would it be to provide a list of translations of names to the General Register Office?

Surely in this day and age it is possible to provide Irish forms of birth certs.

Many parents would have been unaware they had the option of registering their child’s birth in Irish, or were told they could register only in English.

My next hurdle was the Passport Office.

I must prove I had been using the Irish form of my name for two years before I can get a passport in our first official language. To prove this I would have to produce documents with my name in Irish.

The third hurdle was Bank of Ireland. There I was told they would not change my account information until I produced some form of official ID in Irish.

And the official document they wanted to see? A passport of course.

Hurdle number four: the driving licence. I can’t get one without another form of ID — again preferably a passport — in Irish.

It’s a vicious circle — you can’t get a passport without ID and you can’t get ID without a passport.

So much for the Government’s recent declaration that it wants Ireland to be a bilingual society when the civil service and major institutions are doing everything they can to sabotage attempts by citizens to express their national identity. I can’t wait for the canvassers to come to my door looking for a vote.

Seán MacGabhann

Loughbollard

Claonadh

Co Chill Dara