Following the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union at the end of January, the EU has announced that Irish English will replace British English as the union’s primary working language.
The change, effective immediately, was announced on Monday by European Commission president Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, who says the unity of the 27 remaining countries is “grand” despite Brexit and the years of the UK “foostering about.”
“The British are just after leaving, and fair play to them for getting what they wanted,” she said. “They’ve been part of this union for donkey’s years, so I amn’t saying that we won’t miss them.”
“But we’ll be needing an English that’s more reflective of what now be our biggest English-speaking country, the Republic of Ireland,” she continued. “Starting today, all of yous will switch to Hiberno-English for all meetings and the drafting of documents, translations, and the like.”
Commission interpreter Gamini Saol says that for her, switching to Irish English won’t be much trouble as she spent six months working at a pub in Limerick.
“It’s just a question of reordering sentences, adding a few words, so it is,” she said. “This is going to be gas.”
The difference can be seen in a statement that was published on the EU homepage in late January, which referred to the UK leader as “Prime Minister Boris Johnson,” but by Feb.1 the words had been changed to “your man.”