Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 September 2008
1179 Deputy Brian Hayes asked the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs the way the Irish-Irish dictionary project is proceeding; if the project has been established; when it will be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29832/08]
View answerI am assuming that the Deputy is referring to a project to produce an historical Irish-Irish dictionary, Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge, which is proceeding under the auspices of the Royal Irish Academy. In this regard I should say that my Department has provided annual funding from 2005 to the Irish Royal Academy to enable the project to continue. I understand from the Academy that this is a long-term research project and that it is not possible at this stage to identify a definitive completion date. However a number of milestones have been achieved to date including the publication in 2004 of "Corpas na Gaeilge, 1600-1882, the Irish language Corpus" in CD-ROM format, which contains an archive of the 705 extant printed texts for that period. Work has been proceeding since then on the production of a similar archive — of necessity, much larger — for the period 1882-2000.
