One of the biggest Irish dictionaries online englishirishdictionary.com has been offline since at least 5th May 2008.
Does anyone know why it’s offline? Unfortunately they have always been quiet about who’s behind the project.
Please do reply if the site is indeed back online.
There are not that many Irish dictionaries available online. There’s Focal.ie, An Foclóir Beag, and EnglishIrishDictionary.com, for example. But that’s about it.
All of these dictionaries are closed. They do not harness the power of the Internet masses, of the large Irish-speaking community online. They don’t make their databases freely available to the Irish language community, either.
Here’s where a collaborative dictionary could help. Such a dictionary would be empowered by its users. It could keep up-to-date with current word usage. Wiktionary is such an effort, but it’s not very easy to quickly search through.
Here’s where Foclóir Gaeilge.ie comes in. It will be an Irish collaborative dictionary. With a simplicity for searching, and a simplicity for adding to it. Simple as that.
The dictionary will be accessible through both Irish and English language interfaces.
Here’s a sneak preview: http://www.focloirgaeilge.ie
Over at Irish-Sayings.com you can currently pick up for yourself a St. Patrick’s Day Pub Cheat Sheet. Print it off at home, and curse as Gaeilge like a made Irish person. It’s only available for this week only!
It includes such classic gems as Póg mo thóin and Pionnta Guinness, le do thoil. While you there, you can listen to several hundred recordings of three native Irish speakers.
It’s only a bit of craic!
Frontman of the band Hothouse Flowers, Liam Ó Maonlaí, published a 2-CD set for learning conversational Irish. The CDs were published with the Sunday Independent in 2007.
This course has been created to help you learn, or re-learn, a range of simple words, phrases and expressions on everyday topics that can be easily used within your own daily life. There are no accompanying textbooks, so simply listen, repeat and enjoy an cúpla focail for yourself!
The PDF transcripts and MP3 files are now available online, hosted by the Sunday Independent. Get them while they’re still there!
Apart from online media such as TG4 television, and Raidió na Gaeltachta, the Irish language can also be found on social media sites such as YouTube.
YouTube is a great place to find people speaking and practicing Irish. You can also reply to a video with your own video, allowing you to practice with others.
Take a look at this video of two Conemara men talking with a tourist beside them. With my own Munster Irish, I find it very hard to even catch a couple of words. They’re speaking faster than you’d normally hear on Raidió na Gaeltachta:
