Two years, five words, six determined people. It’s taken a court challenge, media campaign and their case raised in the British parliament – but a family’s long wait to have Irish inscribed on their mother’s headstone finally ended today.
And the Keanes of Coventry are delighted the headstone has been raised above Margaret Keane’s grave on St Patrick’s Day because a lifetime in England never diluted her pride in her Irish identity.
The marker carries the words in ár gcroíthe go deo (forever in our hearts) – a phrase which a judge in a Church of England ecclesiastical court banned them from using without a translation, suggesting it would be read as a political statement.
‘Irish heart, Coventry home” is how barrister Caoilfhionn Gallagher evoked identity for her clients, the Keane family, during a landmark case in Britain this week about the Irish language.