Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 19 June 2018
615. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the action she has taken to support and preserve spoken Irish; the further steps she is taking to ensure spoken Irish is recorded and preserved for the benefit of future generations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26768/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe 20-Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030 represents the foundation stone of the Government's policy on the Irish language. In that context, by way of supporting the maintenance and development of the Irish language as a community and household language in the Gaeltacht, the implementation of the Strategy is recognised as a key priority in the Programme for a Partnership Government. The Strategy outlines an integrated approach to the Irish language, in which 9 areas of action are specified, including education, the Gaeltacht, the family, public services, the media, technology and the economy. The relevant actions under the Strategy are being implemented by the various stakeholders, including relevant Government Departments.
My Department is currently finalising an action plan for the period 2018-2022 which will contain specified strategic priorities for the next five years along with a timeline for their implementation. It is intended that this action plan will be published shortly.
In terms of directly ensuring that spoken Irish is recorded and preserved for the benefit of future generations, the Department has funded a number of projects in recent years which are relevant to this area, namely:
Logainm.ie - Sound Archive of the Placenames Branch
Logainm.ie is a comprehensive management system for data, archival records and placenames research conducted by the State. It is a public resource for Irish people at home and abroad, and for all those who appreciate the rich heritage of Irish placenames. The sound archive consists of the placenames recordings of my Department's Placenames Branch. It contains more than 1,200 hours of recordings made mainly in the 1960s and 1970s. The recordings were made in 24 counties and placenames were collected from more than 4,000 people during that period.
The audio material and its catalogue were digitised in 2009. As a result of that work, the audio and catalogue material are now available online for the staff of the Placenames Branch and for other researchers. In addition, the Logainm website has associated sound files which allow users to listen to the pronunciation of each placename in Irish and English.
Dúchas.ie
The Dúchas project, co-funded by my Department, with support from the National Lottery and University College Dublin, is the result of a partnership, beginning in 2012, between the National Folklore Collection in UCD, one of the largest folklore collections in the world, UCD Digital Library and Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, the Irish-medium teaching and research unit in DCU. The objective of the project is to digitize the National Folklore Collection and make it available to the public online. To date, almost 500,000 manuscript pages of folklore compiled by schoolchildren in the 1930s have been digitized and published on the duchas.ie website.
Last year, over 11,000 digitised photographs from the The Photographic Collection, were added to the site. The aim of the current phase of the project is to continue the development, digitisation and editorial work, focusing on the Main Manuscript Collection. The collection also has over 12,000 hours of audio recordings and 1,000 hours of video recordings in its archives, many of them in the Irish language. Most of the sound recordings are on tape but other formats are also included and it is envisaged that many of these will be digitised to ensure their ongoing preservation.
