Andrew Marr apologises for “Gaelic gaffe”
Attending the Labour Party conference recently, broadcaster raised eyebrows with an outburst about a signpost at Edinburgh’s Haymarket railway station that was translated into Gaelic. “Why does Haymarket station have to have the Gaelic for Haymarket under it? It’s ridiculous,” he stated. “The Scots are made up of many different peoples historically.”
In reality, Gaelic was spoken in Edinburgh for 1,000 years and bilingual signposts have been a thing since the mid-90s. They were, in fact, approved by Labour’s Donald Dewar when he was Secretary of State for Scotland.
Nonetheless, Marr’s subsequent apology is complete, saying on X/Twitter: “Sometimes when good friends take you kindly to one side and explain patiently why you are completely wrong, you have to accept that you are completely wrong. I have long thought that what the great Scottish medieval poets called ‘inglis’ and the 20th century ones Lallans, is being pushed aside in modern memory and use… But I got overexcited and was wrong.”
(ML. Source: The Herald Photo DPA 263580403)