Launch of first-ever Irish dictionary hailed as ‘historic moment’ for the language

It was launched by President Catherine Connolly at a special Foras na Gaeilge event.

An Foclóir Nua Gaeilge is the first monolingual 'Irish-Irish' dictionary, allowing anyone searching for the meaning of an Irish word to do so without turning to English first.

It was launched by President Catherine Connolly at a special Foras na Gaeilge event in the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin earlier this week.

Until now, anyone wishing to look up a word in Irish had to rely on an Irish–English dictionary, meaning that a person seeking the meaning of a phrase as Gaeilge was first required to view it through the lens of English.

President Connolly commented: "A contemporary monolingual dictionary is an essential resource in any living language, in which the language itself and its uniqueness are defined in its own words and by its own community, instead of constantly being defined through the medium of another language.

"This new dictionary places the Irish language and Irish speakers on an equal footing with other modern languages and communities."

She added: "Irish-language dictionary resources are now a model of best practice for other minoritised languages around the world."

Foras na Gaeilge chief dictionary editor Pádraig Ó Mianáin and dictionary programme manager Cormac Breathnach began working on the An Foclóir Nua Gaeilge in September 2022.

The initial portion of 20,000 entries, which comprises of 40,000 word senses, is now live on Focloir.ie, with main phase of 30,000 entries and 80,000 senses scheduled to be completed by August 2027.