A telephone poll carried out on behalf of Foinse [an overhaul of that website is long overdue lads!] shows the public is split over whether or not Irish should be a compulsory subject in schools. The poll revealed [registration cheat] that 65% of people under 34 think that Irish should remain a compulsory subject but [...]

It’s getting horrid close to the official 1.5 releases for Firefox & Thunderbird. The Irish localization teams would appreciate some feedback on the latest versions of their work. You can get 1.5 RC2 versions of Firefox anseo and Thunderbird anseo. It’s available for multiple platforms just make sure you download the Irish files (identified with [...]

I popped in to Irishjobs.ie (the job hunt begins) and spotted their press release of 25 October on the launch of their site which is bilingual. The press release presents results from a recent Irish language survey on IrishJobs.ie and interestingly has shown some quite positive attitudes to the Irish language among jobseekers. I contacted [...]

Cionaodh, who pops in here occasionally, posted this elsewhere. I hope he doesn’t mind me stealing it. Yer man with the handgun is reading Buntús Cainte and doesn’t look to be coping so well with it. Irish isn’t that tough, is it? Original image from An Taibhdhearc.

For anyone interested we’ve put screen shots of Open Office in Irish online. Localization is not yet complete but Kevin Scannell & lads have been doing a fantastic job so far on what is a pretty big project. If you have good Irish you might consider getting involved and helping out with translating or testing.

Co. Limerick is to get her first first Irish medium secondary school, Gaelcholaiste Luimnigh, which will open in September 2006! The opening of any new Irish medium school is good news for the language IMO.

J.R.R Tolkien’s The Hobbitt is currently being translated into Irish and should be available before the end of the year. I don’t know about you but I think it’s great that such books (Tolkiens, JKRowlings etc) are being translated into Irish, they might encourage more interest in the language amongst our younger speakers/learners.

Following letter is from Fidelma Ní Ghallchobhair, Foras na Gaeilge, announcing the release of the Irish language pack for MS Office 2003.

As reported recently the Gardaí are dropping their Irish language requirement for recruits from ethnic communities. Makes sense, Ireland is becoming more multi-cultural and should have a more representative police force. However, there has actually been an objection to the dropping of the requirement but not from where you’d expect. iMeasc, an organisation of Irish-speaking [...]

I thought this was worth passing on … for any U.S. based folk interested in the Irish language: New Irish Gaelic Classes For Aall Begin 9/15/05 The Gerry Tobin Irish Language School’s new semester of free, weekly Irish language classes for all begins Thursday 9/15/05, in the AOH Hall at 27 Locust Avenue in Babylon, [...]