The Safe Cross Code

The Safe Cross Code in Mayo’s Gaeltachtaí


Liamy MacNally

THE Celtic Tiger is now the Celtic Carcass. Typical! Our luck – when salvation looms, crucifixion is always at hand. Various Messiahs have stepped forward to claim the space vacated by the canny feline. Now we know why they say Bertie is as lucky as a black cat!
Looming on the horizon, while travelling the roads of the Gaeltachtaí of Mayo one cannot help but notice the new signs, proudly offering salvation – or at least pointing the way.  ‘Cuir ort do chrois Sábhála’ they declare as you zoom past on your way to infinity. ‘Put on your safe cross’ is the translation.  While many people laugh at the Irish language and the grá that others have for it, here is ample proof that the Irish language can be a saviour! Without knowing it, the people who erected these signs certainly give a whole new meaning to the ‘Safe Cross Code’ – sung to the tune of ‘Salvation Once Again’. The little menín who make those signs are known as the Vowels.  There are five: A, E, I, O and U. They cover for each other on sick days and holidays, like anywhere else. Sometimes the running order of a word can become a little misplaced. They all know their ‘I’ before ‘E’ ditty, with the ‘C’ exception, but occasionally ‘O’ slips in ahead of ‘I’, as happened in the Mayo Gaeltachtaí. ‘Chrios’ became ‘chrois’ – a belt of the cross rather than the crozier as ‘seat-belt’ becomes ‘cross’!
Alongside this in the main Gaeltacht sign-making factory other road signs also get a little distorted. This column has featured many such examples in the past. Most of them are still in situ, from Béal an Mhuirtead to Bunnahowna (both near Mulranny) and not forgetting Cnoc as one enters the Marian Village of Knock. 
More than two years ago a campaign was stated in earnest to have correct spellings on Mayo road signs in Irish, especially with three Gaeltachtaí in the county. It is such a simple task that one wonders why it should even be an issue, but an issue it has become and still is – for one simple reason, nothing has been done. 
The High Priest of Correct Spelling was none other than Seán Ó Héalaí, the current recipient of the Gradam na Gaeilge Award, honoured as one of the Mayo People of the Year.  Mayo County Council is a co-promoter of the Mayo People of the Year Awards, with the Connaught Telegraph and Rehab. When his award was presented recently, by none other than the Minister for the Gaeltacht, Éamon Ó Cuív, the Minister was loud in his praise for the Achill-born, Castlebar-living former broadcaster and NUJ Life Member!  Dúirt sé as Béarla, so that everyone would understand, that he hoped Mayo County Council ‘would honour Seán in the other way he would love to be honoured and that is by, once and for all, ensuring that the public signs erected by Mayo County Council show correct Irish versions and not some utter gibberish that unfortunately seems to affect so many road signs throughout the country’.
Mayo County Council is streets ahead of other local authorities when it comes to being in a position to rectify this national scandal. A motion, by Cllr Paddy McGuinness, on November 13, 2006, proposed that Mayo County Council would ‘take the lead in a project of auditing all the roads throughout the county’ to ensure that all road signs had correct Irish spellings. Audit? The old road signs with incorrect spellings are still in place. Recently, new ones, equally incorrect and equally as offensive to Irish language lovers, have been erected. These are the ‘salvation’ signs in Gaeltacht areas. ‘Cónra’ na Gaeilge is to blame, says one wag, an organisation now subsumed into the Gaeilge Always Association (GAA) and affiliated to the Irish Comhrá Association (ICA).
The hook and staff of Seán Ó Héaláí are ever-present, leading and freeing the acolytes of the Safe Cross Code. Worries abound about the political wing of Gaeltachtaí, Údarás na Gaeltachta. Do they really know what it is all about? Do they care? And Roinn na Gaeltachta? Re-name it Roinnt na Gaeltachta is a suggestion from a deacon in Translation College.  Theological differences abound in the quest for salvation! Some claim local authorities come under the ‘baptism by desire’ banner while others claim there is only one code – the Safe Cross Code.                  
Mayo County Council has the capacity and the personnel, willing, able and strongly committed to being the first local authority to declare without fear or favour, that there is only one road. That road leads to Calvary… and Resurrection. In the name of the fada, the pall-bearers can become candle-bearers by the simple act of accepting the light, rather than choosing to curse the darkness.