Restore Irish Language Lettering

Protect Our Irish Heritage

Do you feel politically represented?

When Will Ireland Be United?

Restore Irish Language Lettering

Many Irish people, even those with an ongoing interest in their language, are unaware of what some have called the “Irish alphabet”, the Cló Gaelach. This was used to write the Irish language in various forms from before the early medieval period right up until the 1950s.

Although at first glance it may look like a unique alphabet, in fact it’s only a typeface or a font, like any one of dozens of different fonts we see every day. It uses fewer letters than the Latin alphabet and adds a few accents and dots over existing letters, but is otherwise a Latin type. It can be Googled as normal and typed on a modern keyboard, and is fairly legible even to people who have never studied it.

In and around the 1960s the Irish government, pressured by business, financial and foreign interests, started to phase out Cló Gaelach font types and replaced them with the Cló Rómhánach, which you’re reading right now.

This maneuver along with the “spelling reforms” introduced at the same time made it very difficult for parents and family to help young children learn Irish in school, since they were now being taught an unfamiliar language, introducing an intergenerational cultural rift which caused immense damage to the continuity of centuries of Irish language publications.

Thankfully we have an opportunity to heal that rift and return the use of the Cló Gaelach to Irish schools and universities, since modern technology has made it easy to use whatever font we prefer.

But what benefits would it bring?

There are many – the Irish language employs sounds which aren’t normally present in the English language, so spelling Irish words through English forces together strange letter combinations, mh, bfh, and so on. These sounds simply don’t have Latin letters to represent them, and letters which are used are often not pronounced at all.

There are more than sixty phonemes in the Irish language, it is phonetically one of the richest languages in Europe. Despite which, to accommodate this splendid variety of sound, the Irish traditionally employ an alphabet of only seventeen letters. The vowel sounds of the language are, for the most part, pure, and little of this can be properly represented with a Latin alphabet except through extensive linguistic mangling.

Reading and learning Irish through the Latin alphabet is simply much more difficult and non-intuitive. It’s far from simple a stylistic preference. For example Dubhthach can be far more easily written and read as Duḃṫaċ, or Lughbhaidh as Luġḃaiḋ.

Gaelchló fonts can be found here: https://www.gaelchlo.com/

We call on the Irish government to reinstate the teaching of the Cló Gaelach to Irish schools and universities as a matter of urgency, and to normalise its use throughout Irish society and culture.

5 have already signed!

Comments

I say with my mother at the dinner table doing my homework, it was at this time she taught me Irish and Irish writing( she left Ireland before the spelling change.
For me Gaeilge should retain its original form. And reinstate its use along with form including the punc.

I think we wish we proud of our language The people struggled so hard to keep it alive I'm thinking is corrupt been doing more overlast hundred years two bring on near language back

This is very important

Ireland needs to be Irish again

An Claíomh Solais means "The Sword of Light", and is named after an Irish newspaper originally published around the beginning of the twentieth century. This project is opening a window to that time, not so long ago, and sharing the hopes, dreams and visions of the men and women who founded the modern Irish Republic.

The project will follow in their footsteps along the path laid down by Hyde, O'Conaire, MacNeill, Cusack and many others through sharing news, ideas, articles of Irish cultural interest and more, as well as helping to support Irish language and cultural initiatives. You can find out more about An Claíomh Solais by clicking on the buttons below, or join our team as we begin the great Gaelic restoration!

Revive the Feiseanna

Statue of Michael Collins to Replace the Spike

Do you feel politically represented?

When Will Ireland Be United?

Collapse of the Terror

British Rule's Last Stages

What the Elections Meant

We have seen how in ancient Ireland the people were themselves the guardians of their land, doing all for themselves according to their own laws and customs, as interpreted by the Brehons, which gave them security, prosperity, and national greatness, and how this was upset by the English determination to blot out Irish ways, when came poverty, demoralisation and a false respect for English standards and habits.

The English power to do this rested on military occupation and on econ
Read more...

The Parting of Goll From His Wife

When they are shut up by Fionn on a sea-girt rock, without chance of escape.

A Dialogue

(Goll speaks)
The end is come; upon this narrow rock
To-morrow I must die;
Wife of the ruddy cheeks and hair of flame,
Leave me to-night and fly.
Seek out the camp of Fionn and of his men
Upon the westward side;
Take there, in time to come, another mate.
Here I abide.

(Goll's wife replies)
Which way, O Goll, is my way, and thou perished?
Alas! few friends have I!
Small praise that woman
Read more...

The Great Lamentation of Deirdre for the Sons of Usna

"As to Deirdre, she was a year in the household of Conchobar, after the death of the Sons of Usna. And though it might be a little thing to raise her head or to bring a smile over her lip, never once did she do it through all that space of time.... She took not sufficiency of food or sleep, nor lifted her head from her knee. When people of amusement were sent to her, she would break out into lamentation:—

Splendid in your eyes may be the impetuous champions
Who resort to Emain after a foray;
More brilliant yet was the return
Of Usna's h
Read more...

Coolock and the Union Jack

In recent days there's been an uproar over the appearance of the Irish tricolour, symbol and standard of the Republic, waving alongside the Union Jack during protest marches in Belfast. Outrage has been expressed in the halls of power from Dáíl Éireann to Stormount to Westminster. And in fairness it is quite a picture – not something you'd see every day.

But what do we really see when we look at this picture? Should we take it at face value or should we have a conversation about the cause and context of this undoubtedly historical event? Not a hi
Read more...

The Irish Flag

The Council of the Irish Citizen Army has resolved, after grave and earnest deliberation, to hoist the green flag of Ireland over Liberty Hall, as over a fortress held for Ireland by the arms of Irishmen. This is a momentous decision in the most serious crisis Ireland has witnessed in our day and generation. It will, we are sure, send a thrill through the hearts of every true Irish man and woman, and send the red blood coursing fiercely along the veins of every lover of the race.

It means that in the midst of and despite the treasons and backslidings of leaders and guides, in the
Read more...

Irish War News

THE IRISH REPUBLIC

Vol. 1. No. 1
DUBLIN, TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 19I6.
One Penny

“IF THE GERMANS CONQUERED ENGLAND.”

In the London “New Statesman” for April 1st, an article is published—“If the Germans Conquered England,” which has the appearance of a very clever piece of satire written by an Irishman. The writer draws a picture of England under German rule, almost every detail of which exactly fits the case of Ireland at the present day. Some of the sentences are so exquisitely appropriate that it is impossibl
Read more...