Word is out about focal.ie

An online tool that allows internet users to search for Irish terms has attracted 2.8 million searches and visitors from 116 countries since its launch in September 2006.

Focal.ie is a joint venture between Dublin City University's Irish-medium teaching and research unit Fiontar and Foras na Gaeilge, with funding also provided from the EU's Interreg programme.

It has 270,000 bilingual terms, searchable in Irish and English, ranging from common terms ("hello" is the number one search) to recent additions such as "broadband".

It has cost about €1 million to develop and has attracted visitors from as far afield as Iran, China, Chile, Jamaica and Tanzania.

The impetus for the project came from Foras na Gaeilge, which has a statutory function to create and ratify terminology in the Irish language.

Looking for an off-the-shelf solution to create a database of terms, it found nothing suitable. At the same time Fiontar, which offers undergraduate courses in business and journalism through Irish, was looking to apply its expertise in Gaeilge and technology.

According to Cathal Furey, a Fiontar lecturer who has been responsible for marketing focal. ie, one of the positive aspects of the project was to show that Irish is a living language.

"Some of the terms in the database were out of date or included typos, but we have been getting great feedback from users who have been showing us where there is gaps in the database."

Although the bulk of traffic (76 per cent) comes from the Republic, Mr Furey says the developers were surprised at the level of international interest.

The site has had 3,418 visits from Brussels and 2,296 visits from Luxembourg, no doubt a byproduct of the new status of Irish as an EU working language.

Underlining the international appeal of the project, the technical lead on the project is Michal Boleslav Mechura, a Czech national who is fluent in Irish.

The technology behind the project has been adapted by Fiontar to develop a national database of Irish place names in collaboration with the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

This will be available at www.logainm.ie from September next year.

© 2007 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times