Carlow man behind first of its kind Irish dictionary
Cormac Breathnach, right, programme manager of An Foclóir Nua Gaeilge and Pádraig Ó Mianáin, chief dictionary editor, meeting President of Ireland Catherine Connolly Photo: Leon Farrell.
“I’M a Tinryland man,” said Cormac Breathnach, who produced the first monolingual Irish dictionary with his team at Foras na Gaeilge.
Cormac, now a lexicologist, attended the Gaelcholáiste Cheatharlach in Carlow, which “opened up my eyes to the possibilities of the language,” he said.
He went on to study psychology at UCD and “spent more time speaking Irish than studying psychology,” he said. Changing track, he completed a master’s in editing and translation of Irish in UCD and landed a job with the publishing side of Foras na Gaeilge.
Cormac, working alongside chief dictionary editor Pádraig Ó Mianáin and a team of editors, began compiling the dictionary in September 2022. It is a remarkable achievement.
“The Irish state is over 100 years old, but it’s the first time we have this dictionary,” noted Cormac.
An initial tranche of 20,000 entries was launched last month at the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin by the President Catherine Connolly.
“We’re so lucky with her,” said Cormac. “She has been a big supporter of the organisation, long before she was even considering becoming president. She’s a great example to us all as she went back and learned Irish as an adult. She’s a really good ambassador for the Irish language,” he said.
Cormac sees how, in Carlow, the language “definitely has blossomed in recent years. There are incredible people around town doing incredible work”.
He points to the weekly coffee morning as Gaeilge in Lambert’s coffee shop, which “gives people opportunity to use their Irish in an informal setting ... in the most natural way possible”.
His big ambition for the new monolingual Irish dictionary is that people use it to start learning Irish through Irish, rather than translating words to English to understand.
“The big challenge for us now is that speakers and learners don’t have experience using monolingual dictionaries. In school, the idea of using monolingual dictionary is quite alien to us in Ireland. Up until now, if you didn’t understand something, you go to an English/Irish dictionary.
“We need to change the minds of learners and teachers and lecturers and the general public that learning Irish through Irish is now an option,” he said.
The main phase of the dictionary project is scheduled to be completed by August 2027, by which time it will comprise 30,000 entries.
“We’re delighted with where we are,” said Cormac. “We just want people to use it now – it’s free.”
is available to access free of charge online at Focloir.ie.
