{"id":115565,"date":"2025-11-01T07:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/115565\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T07:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:28:08","slug":"catherine-connolly-to-make-irish-working-language-of-aras-when-she-takes-office-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/115565\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Connolly to make Irish working language of \u00c1ras when she takes office \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

President-elect Catherine Connolly<\/a> wants Irish to become the working language of \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in once she takes office.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly, a gaeilgeoir for whom the Irish language<\/a> was a core part of her campaign offering, will be inaugurated on Tuesday, November 11th, at Dublin Castle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, a source close to Ms Connolly said \u201cGaeilge is going to be to the fore\u201d in her presidency, along with other key campaign commitments, such as support for the disabled community, and that her team will be looking to have people from within the \u00c1ras staff with Irish \u201cand for it to be the working language of the \u00c1ras\u201d in as much as is possible. <\/p>\n

During the campaign, Ms Connolly referred to the Irish language as \u201ca gift\u201d, telling The Journal podcast that it is a \u201ccompletely different view of the world\u201d. <\/p>\n

A campaign team source said that it was not the case that everyone would have to have Irish to work in the \u00c1ras. <\/p>\n

On Friday, the president-elect told Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta that she hoped to make use of it nonetheless. \u201cI will do my best to bring Irish in from the margins and use it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Catherine Connolly profile: Who is Ireland\u2019s president-elect?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In her first media interview since being elected, Ms Connolly, who rekindled her knowledge of Irish after becoming mayor of Galway, told the station that she was impressed by the effort people made to speak Irish to her during the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like the phrase \u2018c\u00fapla focal\u2019 but the effort they made to speak to me in Irish and use what they had\u201d had made an impression, Ms Connolly said during the interview on Adhmhaidin, Raidi\u00f3 na Gaeltachta\u2019s morning current affairs programme.<\/p>\n

Asked if she would make proficiency in Irish a requirement for her new staff, Ms Connolly said: \u201cI will. I will be focusing in on a lot of things, on people with disabilities and a lot of other things. I don\u2019t have a lot of jobs [to fill], I should say, I am still getting information on that, but Irish will be at the top of the ladder.\u201d<\/p>\n

The details of how it would be implemented are yet to be fully fleshed out, it is understood. Ms Connolly\u2019s team are in the midst of preparing for her inauguration and the opening weeks of her presidency.<\/p>\n

Ms Connolly will have capacity to hire staff alongside the civil servants who work in the \u00c1ras – usually a complement of two hires made directly by the president. <\/p>\n

A working document on her first 100 days has been drawn up, with an intention to make good on the campaign trail promise that the first group of people invited to the \u00c1ras during her presidency will be those with disabilities – ideally before Christmas, it is understood. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President-elect Catherine Connolly wants Irish to become the working language of \u00c1ras an Uachtar\u00e1in once she takes office.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3656,62613,42,34095,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-115565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-catherine-connolly","9":"tag-dublin-castle","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-irish-language","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}