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AN UPCOMING VISIT to Greenland by US Vice President JD Vance’s wife Usha Vance, along with National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, has been denounced by the country’s Prime Minister Mute Egere.
The Office of the Second Lady of the US issued a statement today announcing Thursday’s trip, saying the delegation would be visiting historical sites, learning about Greenland’s culture and attending its national dog sled race.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright will also be joining the delegation.
“It should be said clearly that our integrity and democracy must be respected without foreign interference,” Egede said, adding that this week’s visit “cannot be seen as just a private visit”.
Negotiations over the formation of a new government are ongoing in Greenland following elections held earlier this month that saw the centre-right Democrats come out on top.
— Second Lady Usha Vance (@SLOTUS) March 23, 2025
Since returning to the White House in January, US President Donald Trump has said he wants to take control of the world’s largest island “one way or the other”, and refused to rule out using military force to do so.
Trump’s son Donald Jr also made a visit to Greenland in early January.
Egede said Washington had been told there would be “no talks” until a new Greenlandic government was in place.
“We must stand together and stand up against unacceptable treatment. Because we are the ones who decide our own future,” Egede said.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, leader of the Democrats and likely the next Greenlandic prime minister, has previously criticised Trump’s rhetoric as “inappropriate”.
Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory seeking to emancipate itself from Denmark, holds massive untapped mineral and oil reserves, although oil and uranium exploration are banned.
Greenland is also strategically significant in geopolitical terms due to its location in the Arctic. Geographically, it is closer to North America than to Europe and is also home to a US military base.
The country has its own flag, language and institutions. However, Greenland’s judiciary, monetary policy, defence and foreign affairs all remain under Danish control.
The Greenland government also relies on Denmark for more than half of its budget and the subsidies it receives from Copenhagen amount to a fifth of its GDP.
According to polls, most Greenlanders support independence from Denmark but not annexation by Washington.
Denmark has responded to Usha Vance’s planned visit by sending extra personnel and sniffer dogs to Greenland, in order to beef up security, the chief spokesman for Denmark’s national police said today.
Rene Gyldensten said that the extra officers, deployed the day before, were part of regular steps taken during visits by dignitaries to Greenland, a self-governing, mineral-rich territory of American ally Denmark.
Citing office procedure, they declined to specify the number of extra police flown on the chartered flight.
With reporting from AFP and Press Association
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A very interesting read!
Excellent, interesting article.
Have you been to the outskirts of Corey lately? Yolanda is alive and well and still spoken.
Gorey, not Corey. And I’m not joking either. The author might find it interesting to visit some people there. Look for French sounding names in the phone book.
Gorey, not Corey. And I’m not joking either. The author might find it interesting to visit some people there. Look for French sounding names in the phone book.
RTE had a documentary on Yola a couple of years ago, here’s the link http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/radio-documentary-yola-language-wexford.html
Hi michael i’m interested in your comment that yola is still spoken in gorey as I know a group of our settlers spoke a sub dialect in that area, are you certain it is still spoken there?
Are you kidding. Their word for “Women” was “Moans”?? I can’t see that re-entering common parlance
You mean thats a queern interesting read.
Ah sure that’s deadly deash..
Well yola, which I originally read as YOLO, reads like Afrikaans.
G’wan ya Baldoon!
It reads nowhere near Afrikaans. Ek weet omdat ek praat en lees dit. .
Radio 1 made a very good documentary on Yola. As far as I know it’s one of the Curious Ear documentaries and it’s available on the Rte website
Explains the odd way of saying words in wexford
especially the emphasis on the last word which is a point of pride in the areas south of wexford town
I still find it hard to spell many words because the idosyncratic way words are pronunced in the region
I see you were named in Yola…
Fascinating! Would love to hear more about Fingalian!!
Here ya go. Thought there would be more Norse in it given the Viking influence but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Just shows you how much the home countries of the British Isles are intertwined with each other.
Some of the Yola words look familiar – ‘truckle’ and ‘besom’ for example. A besom was a brush and a truckle was a small bed as far as I can recall. Fascinating dialects and a great article from Know Thy Place !
Fingallian … still exists today im sure … ma wheres me fcking dole card
sure tis a language like ulster scots is a language
Yola is seemingly very much alive with the youths of today. Oh, sorry, that’s YOLO….
Really interesting read!!
Surely we require compulsory education of our young in these ancient languages in case they out?
Old English for loyalists is priques
I’ve been studying Dutch for more than a year now and it is remarkable to pick out some of the similarities in Yola.
Frisian is worth a quick glance for comparison. Don’t think is spoken any longer but reads like a halfway tongue between Nederlands and English.
http://homepage.eircom.net/~yolawexford/aboutyola.htm
link to yola park in wexford
high quality acurate map there
That song about the hurling match just sounded beautiful…
Yola sounds very similar to the west country dialect of England, heard in Somerset and Devon.
I grew up in Fingal. Many of the people there were of Norse descent, and proud of it. I would hope that there would be an article on old Fingallian.
Luro ….way to go!
Sounds like Welsh to me
hey everybody I am a native of forth and bargy and can understand yola well. I have an old document written in yola which I translated thats on my yola language facebook page if anyone wants to have a look. The document states that the language was brought over by settlers from heege in west friesland who intermingled with settlers from hogham in kent and with settlers from somerset. It was written by a native yola speaker from the Kilrane area of co. Wexford in the 1800′s just before the language was replaced with modern English.
hey everybody I am a native of forth and bargy and can speak, write and read yola. I have an old document written in yola which I translated thats on my yola language facebook page if anyone wants to have a look. The document states that the language was brought over by settlers from heege in west friesland who intermingled with settlers from hogham in kent and with settlers from somerset. It was written by a native yola speaker from the Kilrane area of co. Wexford in the 1800′s just before the language was replaced with modern English.
Fow y’arthe Ivery óán? yith unnerstóáne thee dhicke, hav óa lúke adh mee yólaw taulké paage
hi if you like yola have a look at my facebook yola language page, theres plenty of rare poems and documents in yola.. if you have any yola yourself talk in yola as I can speak it too.. thanks
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Yola-Language/1582035255363825
i’ve also made a yola language dictionary and I am starting a memrise course if anyone wants to learn the language
have your say