- Wikimedia Community Ireland and Rising Voices co-hosted a digital activism workshop at the National Library of Ireland on July 14, 2025, to promote the Irish language (Gaeilge) in digital spaces.
- Participants developed a "roadmap" for future digital advocacy, aiming to bridge the gap between minority and majority language technological resources.
- The event utilized the UNESCO Digital Initiatives for Minority Languages toolkit, addressing the status of Irish as "definitely endangered" according to UNESCO.
Workshop Overview
- The event gathered 20 stakeholders, including representatives from Conradh na Gaeilge, Tuairisc.ie, GaelGoer, ADAPT’s eSTÓR project, Raidió na Life, and Raidió Rí-Rá.
- Discussions centered on the role of digital media, machine translation, and community-led content creation in maintaining language viability.
- ADAPT’s eSTÓR project showcased work on data curation using Vicipéid (Irish Wikipedia) data to improve Irish language machine translation and digital equity.
Content Creation and Activism
- Content creators Laura Pakenham and Cuán de Búrca shared strategies for promoting Irish through social media platforms like TikTok.
- Key themes included overcoming imposter syndrome, normalizing daily Irish usage, and the importance of community building.
- Pakenham advocates for "simple everyday switches" in language use, while de Búrca emphasized that language revitalization can start with small-scale interpersonal interactions.
Roadmap and Future Steps
- The collaboratively created roadmap identifies core challenges such as limited funding, lack of government engagement, and a shortage of accessible digital tools.
- The vision is to establish Irish as a living, visible language integrated into public, educational, and digital services.
- The initiative plans to present these findings and the resulting roadmap to officials overseeing the Irish Government’s Irish Language support schemes and digital planning.