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(Seo alt ó fhoireann Gaeltachta The Journal. Is féidir leat an bunleagan as Gaeilge a léamh anseo.)
THE CHAIRPERSON of the Irish language organisation in Cork city has said he is confused following the issuing of a statement by the Department of the Gaeltacht in which it was said that no “plan of an acceptable standard had been received” for the city’s application to become a Gaeltacht service town.
According to a list adopted in 2014, 16 Gaeltacht service towns are recognised across the country. These are towns located close to Irish-speaking communities, and it is intended that State and public services through Irish would be available in those towns for the Gaeltacht community and Irish speakers generally.
A grant of up to €100,000 per year is provided to the organisation responsible for implementing the language plan in each Gaeltacht service town to advance that work. Cork is listed among those towns, along with towns such as Tralee in Kerry, Navan in County Meath and Dungarvan in Waterford.
This statement from Gael-Taca represents the latest development in a story in which the organisation — a group founded more than forty years ago to promote the Irish language on the banks of the Lee — has been seeking to have Cork recognised as a Gaeltacht service town under the terms of legislation passed through the Oireachtas in 2012.
In response to a question from The Journal, Dara Calleary, Minister for Rural and Community Development and Gaeltacht Affairs, said that “a language plan of an acceptable standard had not been put together in respect of Cork City.”
That same information was provided in a parliamentary answer given by the Minister to Thomas Gould, Sinn Féin TD for Cork North-Central.
That response left Seán Ó Laoi, chairperson of Gael-Taca, bewildered, and he said:
“I am confused, on behalf of Gael-Taca, that the Minister said such a thing because, to tell the truth, we submitted a precise and comprehensive document to Foras na Gaeilge and to the Department two years ago.”
In the statement issued by the Department in response to a question from The Journal, it was said that “the Minister of State for the Gaeltacht gave notice at the time under Section 9(2)(a) of the Gaeltacht Act in 2017 to begin the process of preparing a language plan for Cork City.”
“This would allow Cork City to achieve Gaeltacht Service Town status under the language planning process.”
Gael-Taca undertook this work and over a period of approximately six months in 2023, they put together what they considered to be a comprehensive language plan. They employed a person — a teacher with a qualification in language planning — and consulted with various groups in the city, including the business community, GAA clubs, youth groups, parents’ associations and others. The aim was to establish what services were needed and to draw up a plan to provide them.
Ó Laoi told The Journal that the plan had been completed by February 2024 and that at that time he had sent it to Foras na Gaeilge and the Department of the Gaeltacht — which was, at that time, part of the Department of Arts, Culture, Sport and Tourism.
Given that the Minister is now questioning whether an “acceptable plan” exists in respect of Cork City, this is the question the chairperson of Gael-Taca is asking.
“Is there any chance that there has been a misunderstanding on the part of Minister Calleary or his advisors? I submitted the appropriate comprehensive document to Foras na Gaeilge and the Department of the Gaeltacht on behalf of Gael-Taca but received no response whatsoever.”
Although Ó Laoi received no response from the Department regarding the plan, he did receive confirmation that the plan had been received by Foras na Gaeilge and that the language institution had forwarded it across the border to the Department by September 2024.
There has been tension in recent years between the Department and Gael-Taca. In March 2024, the Minister with responsibility for the Gaeltacht at the time gave the following response to a question from Thomas Gould:
The Department received a new funding application from Gael-Taca in September 2023. It is the Department’s view, however, that sufficiently robust structures are not in place to avoid governance issues reoccurring. In light of these circumstances, the Department is not in a position to provide grant funding to the organisation.
The Gael-Taca chairman told The Journal that these ‘governance’ issues had had been resolved and no mention is made of them in the latest statement from the Department.
Gaelscoileanna and Irish-medium secondary schools in Cork city were left facing a serious problem last year when it emerged that language support assistants — who help children with little or no Irish who enrol in Irish-language schools — might not be appointed to support them.
The issue stemmed from a rule that prevented language support assistants from being hired in Gaeltacht service towns unless a language plan had been approved by the Minister for the Gaeltacht. No such plan existed for Cork.
Last August, however, Minister Dara Calleary made an announcement — just as pupils, teachers and parents were preparing to protest outside the Department’s headquarters in An Forbacha in Connemara — that Cork city and Ballybofey would be included in the Language Support Assistants Scheme, even though no approved language plan was yet in place for either location.
The Minister referred to this in his latest statement: “Notwithstanding the difficulties encountered in agreeing a language plan for Cork City, my Department agreed in 2025 to extend the provisions of its Language Assistants Scheme to all Irish-medium schools within the city – a decision which was welcomed by all stakeholders.”
Last month, the CEO of Foras na Gaeilge, Seán Ó Coinn, announced that four new towns were beginning their language planning journey. Those towns are Macroom in County Cork, Navan and Athboy in County Meath, and Ballybofey.
“This is a significant step in the language planning process outside the Gaeltacht, and every town that was identified as a potential town in the 2014 consultation process is now on a language planning journey,” Ó Coinn said.
The Journal asked Foras na Gaeilge why Cork city was not included.
“There is still uncertainty around the approach to Cork city, and Foras na Gaeilge is awaiting a decision from the Minister in that regard,” a spokesperson for the organisation told us.
Attention has also been drawn to a meeting held in Westport at the start of March, to which language planning officers from Gaeltacht language planning areas and Gaeltacht service towns were invited. However, no representative from Gael-Taca — the organisation that promotes Irish in Cork city — was invited to attend the event, at which Minister Calleary spoke. Adrian Breathnach, secretary of Gael-Taca, confirmed this to The Journal.
Since the closure of Gael-Taca’s headquarters on Sullivans Quay in the city centre, Irish speakers in Cork city and people from Cork’s Gaeltacht communities in Muskerry and on Cape Clear Island have had no central gathering place. Such a hub exists in every other major city and town in the country — including Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Belfast.
In the response from the Minister to the Sinn Féin TD in the Dáil last week, he outlined what the next steps would be:
“It is my understanding that a proposed course of action is being prepared for my consideration and I expect that a decision will be made regarding how the process can proceed in the city in the near future.”
The Journal’s Gaeltacht initiative is supported by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
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