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A day in the life | ISL team

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Find out how our Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreters, Caroline O'Leary and Ciara Grant, provide access for the Deaf community.

We both begin our day’s work as Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreters before we leave the house, with essential yoga stretches. Sign language interpreters find themselves repeating a lot of the same movements and that can lend itself to repetitive strain injury. Live interpreting, such as Dáil, Seanad and Committee debates, is high pressure, with high-density information. It’s important for us to use preventative measures such as yoga to help protect our shoulders, necks and hands.

Video still of the Dáil Chamber with ISL interpreter in the foreground

Caroline live interpreting a debate in the Dáil Chamber

Not all of our work is live, though. We start the week with a schedule already mapped out from the weekly planning meeting. We might be interpreting a pre-recorded programme such as one of the documentaries produced by Oireachtas TV. Or we might be creating ISL video translations of text on the Oireachtas website. These videos are embedded on certain pages of the website. This gives the Deaf community, whose first language is ISL, an opportunity to learn about our parliament in a way that is accessible.

ISL interpreter interpreting before a green screen

Ciara interpreting in the studio

Non-live interpreting involves advance preparation, reading the scripts and collaborating on how best to use specific ISL terminology we need. With the Covid-19 pandemic, a whole new set of ISL vocabulary has come into use. Our contact with the Deaf community and our collaboration on a parliamentary glossary project with the Centre for Deaf Studies, Trinity College is important work in ensuring we are using ISL terminology familiar to the Deaf community.

We also have to prepare ourselves before going on camera. We’re representing the Houses of the Oireachtas, so we have to be well-presented, but there are practical considerations too. Green clothes are out because they disappear against the green screen we use in the studio. By trial and error, we’ve found that the ideal outfit is a dress (no fixing) with a high neck and three-quarter length sleeves. Colour wise, jewel tones tend to work best with the green screen.

ISL interpreter interpreting before a green screen

Caroline interpreting in the studio

If it’s a sitting week, we will do live interpreting of Leaders' Questions, Taoiseach's Questions and Questions on promised legislation in the Dáil and Commencement Matters in the Seanad. We also do live interpretation of public sittings of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. If there is a debate on something of particular interest to the Deaf community we would aim to provide live interpretation of that too.

Video still of the Seanad Chamber with ISL interpreter in the foreground

Ciara interpreting for a sitting of the Committee on Disability Matters

With live interpretation, we swap in and out every 15 minutes, and we can work comfortably like that for two hours. If it’s likely to go longer, we may require a freelance interpreter to help support us. With live interpreting there is less opportunity to prepare because most of the debates are unscripted. We keep track of the latest news to ensure we are familiar with ISL terminology for the topics making the headlines. As a sign language interpreter, you need to have a lot of strategies and be a bit of a chameleon, adapting quickly to the circumstances. If an unfamiliar word comes up in a live debate we may fingerspell that word, but we interpret the meaning and that is dependent on the context. For example, if someone were to say, “Could you bear with me?" it is not actually about a bear!

Sitting days can be hectic. On other days, we try to break our recording work into segments so we can pace ourselves and make time for preparation. In general, an interpreter works no more than five hours "hands in the air time" per day, and a total of 25 hours per week. This is recommended in the Council of Irish Sign Language Interpreters' Occupational Health & Safety Policy. This is to avoid burn out and injury, but there are some exceptions we make allowances for, such as Budget Day.

Video still of flagposts on Leinster Lawn with ISL interpreter in the foreground

Ciara interpreting for an Oireachtas TV video

The Irish Sign language Act 2017 has raised awareness of the need to provide Deaf people with access to the same information as everybody else. Live captioning is not a panacea. ISL is a distinct language with its own grammar and syntax unique to Ireland and not based on English or the Irish language. Countries of the world each have their own signed language. Since the Act came in, ISL is recognised as an indigenous language of Ireland.

Video still of the Dáil Chamber with the Chairperson signing and an ISL interpreter in the foreground

Caroline interpreting for a sitting of Seanad Éireann

We are very excited about providing ISL in the Oireachtas. With the Oireachtas education officer, we have interpreted the Exploring Democracy programme remotely to Deaf transition year students. Deaf children are now learning about politics because they have access. The Deaf community have more access to parliamentary proceedings and can observe how government is working. This opens a gateway to the future when we may well have a Deaf politician.

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