This article is in partnership with Day Translations.

Mainstream media don’t often feature the Irish language so, when they do, it’s newsworthy in itself.

While Irish or Gaeilge is not commonly spoken by the average person in Ireland, you will hear it in some news broadcast and on public transport, for example. Some public sector jobs may also require knowledge of the Irish language, both spoken and written. Having said that, there are a few regions within the Republic of Ireland where Irish is the main language and English is spoken as a second language (these regions are collectively called Gaeltacht).

In July 2024 the BBC reported that the Irish language needs more attention at EU level. In an article it featured a speech given by the MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Seán Kelly, who urged for more action to ensure that the Irish language has the same weight and importance as the other official EU languages. One of the concerns raised was that people in Northern Ireland who are Irish citizens and who plan to apply for jobs in the European Parliament may have problems doing so, as Northern Ireland is in the UK and therefore in a non-EU country.

There is a lack of qualified professional translators and interpreters that work with the Irish language and recruiting Irish passport holders from Northern Ireland could potentially narrow the skills gap. However, due to uncertainties about the status of Irish citizens in Northern Ireland, their eligibility to apply for European Union jobs requiring the Irish language is still being discussed.

The Irish language has been recognised as an official EU language since 2007 but, because of staff shortages, a large number of documents still haven’t been translated from and into Irish.

Could AI Help Fill the Skills Gap?

Irish public broadcaster RTÈ published an article about using AI to help translate to and from the Irish language. Could this be a temporary solution to a problem that may take years to solve?

Researchers have been working on a unique text-generation system that can produce Irish grammar text without having to use tools such as Chat GPT, which may render some incorrect text and which require huge amounts of processing power and resources.

The Irish language relies on constructs that are sometimes similar to German, French, Spanish and Italian with declinations and compounded words. A word-by-word translation simply couldn’t work with Irish, as a whole sentence has to be taken into account to accurately render the context, time period, actions and who is performing the actions.

There are also variations in verbs according to whether an action is temporary or permanent (for example, “I was born in Ireland” compared to “I’ve been living in Ireland for a year”). A translation system has to take into account all of the rules and irregularities of the Irish language to produce something that makes sense to an Irish speaker.

The Irish government published a 5 year plan that will take it into 2027 for the preservation of the Irish language and its application in the digital age. The government recognises that the Irish language is mostly spoken by older people and to ensure the language’s survival it is essential that younger people embrace it and that technology includes it in future developments.

The government outlined in its plan how technology specialists and linguists can work together to develop systems that will ensure that the Irish language is being carried into the digital age to preserve its use in communities. In fact, communities play an important part in the plan as their engagement will ensure that all cultural aspects of the language are taken into account and that inclusion is at the forefront of any future action.

Even though the Irish language is included in the list of the global endangered languages, the fact that the Irish Republic is fully supporting it and is taking action to its preservation will help more people learn the language and carry it into the future. Additionally, the plan could become a blueprint for other endangered languages in the world.