Minister Calleary launches digital version of ‘An Gaodhal’ at the University of Galway
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From: Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht
- Published on: 6 February 2026
- Last updated on: 6 February 2026
- Project delivered by the University of Galway and funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht
- Minister Calleary also launches a new OCR tool for the Irish language
The Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, Dara Calleary TD, today launched a digital version of An Gaodhal, one of the most important Irish-language newspapers of the late nineteenth century.
Funding of almost €47,000 was provided by the Department to support the University of Galway in digitising the entire collection of An Gaodhal (1881-1898), a bilingual Irish-English newspaper founded in New York by Mícheál Ó Lócháin, a native of Milltown, Co. Galway. The project was co-funded by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, the Irish Institute of New York, Glucksman Ireland House, New York University, and the University of Galway.
The An Gaodhal research project supports the goals of the Digital Plan for the Irish Language, that include ensuring total support for the Irish language in the digital sphere in addition to sourcing high-quality language data for future use. As part of this project, new Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology was developed to accurately read the old Gaelic script, which has long been a challenge for researchers.
The digitised newspaper and related resources will be made openly available, so that students, researchers, and the wider public will be able to examine and properly study this material for the first time.
The An Gaodhal collection is online and available to view HERE
Speaking at the launch at the University of Galway, Minister Calleary said:
“This project shows how modern technology can be used to protect and strengthen the Irish language. By providing ‘An Gaodhal’ online in a digital format, we are opening up the linguistic and cultural history of the language to a new audience.
“Another wonderful result of the work undertaken for this project was the development of a new OCR tool for Irish; such developments closely tie in with one of my Department’s objectives regarding modern technological facilities being created for Irish, so that it keeps pace with the modern languages of the world.”
The project’s research associate, Dr Deirdre Ní Chonghaile, said:
“Irish and English are side by side on the newspaper’s pages as well as various dialects and the pre-standardised Irish spelling, totalling almost 1.8 million words. The volume and diversity of that content strengthens the digital tools which can be derived from it.”
Dr Ní Chonghaile added:
“All are welcome to avail of the models created on Transkribus for free. Now that there are three OCR models available for Irish – Gerard Farrell having published the third in 2023 – we are excited to see them applied to various texts. With a searchable digital version of An Gaodhal being published, we can see how the technology helps us establish an even playing field for various language communities and for historical sources which belong to everyone.”
Notes
Digital Plan for the Irish Language, Speech and Language Technologies 2023-2027
The Digital Plan for the Irish Language presents a vision for how digital speech and language technology can be developed for the Irish language. It explains the research and development needed, and reviews the progress that has been achieved thus far.
The emphasis is on the living language and on the technologies which will help people to learn and use the language in every area of their life. A fundamental principle of the Plan is that the technologies, and the facilities based on them, are made widely available to the Irish language community and learners.