The Gaeltacht regions are official regions of Ireland where the Irish language is the community language. The regions, unfortunately seem to be losing strength to the English language as every year go by. On the positive side, new Irish language communities are appearing in urban areas such as in Belfast.
If you’re interested in visiting the Gaeltacht, check out GaeltachtTravel.com. It’s an in-depth guide (with nice photos) on the Gaeltacht regions of Ireland.
Irish Dictionary.org is now online! It is a new collaborative Irish dictionary. It’s starting empty, but will gradually build up as it learns what words are most sought after.
There are not that many Irish dictionaries available online. There’s Focal.ie, An Foclóir Beag, and EnglishIrishDictionary.com, for example. But that’s about it.
All of these dictionaries are closed. They do not harness the power of the Internet masses, of the large Irish-speaking community online. They don’t make their databases freely available to the Irish language community, either.
Here’s where a collaborative dictionary could help. Such a dictionary would be empowered by its users. It could keep up-to-date with current word usage. Wiktionary is such an effort, but it’s not very easy to quickly search through.
Here’s where Foclóir Gaeilge.ie comes in. It will be an Irish collaborative dictionary. With a simplicity for searching, and a simplicity for adding to it. Simple as that.
The dictionary will be accessible through both Irish and English language interfaces.
Here’s a sneak preview: http://www.focloirgaeilge.ie
This blog is only in its infancy, but I’d still like to point you towards the site’s top 3 articles. Enjoy! Bainigí taithneamh astu!
Believe it or not, the last official English-Irish dictionary to be published was 50 years ago, but Tomás de Bhalraithe (see English-Irish Dictionary reviews).
The dictionary project (see foclóir.ie) has been undertaken by Foras na Gaeilge, the body responsible for the promotion of the Irish language throughout the whole island of Ireland. Part of their responsibility is to develop Irish dictionaries.
