"The Center has been contracted to produce the Colloquial Irish language learning package by Routledge, an imprint of the international publisher Taylor & Francis. Routledge has books and CDs published for learning nearly 60 languages, but Irish was not represented in this collection. Routledge approached the Center last year asking us to prepare a proposal. Profs. Ihde & Gillen, Dr. Blyn-LaDrew, and Ms. Ní Neachtain are working on the project. This project is expected to be completed by October 2006."

http://www.lehman.edu/lehman/irishamericanstudies/gae.html

Do they have any published research, a Pheadar?

Togha a Pheadair, I look forward to hearing this course.

Thomas W. Ihde
http://www.lehman.edu/lehman/newsroom/ihde.html

Roslyn Blyn-LaDrew
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/fp.php?id=41

Máire Ní Neachtain
http://www.channelviewpublications.org/cils/007/0155/cils0070155.pdf

I consider it more likely that the Yeti and Nessie land in an UFO on Trafalgar Square than that any Irish course by Routledge is published next October. :-/

Routledge is notorious for talking very much about their upcoming releases but it always results in either
a. The whole project is postponed indefinitely
b. The book is finally published, but about a year after when it was meant to be.

If Colloquial Irish is going to be of the same standard as some of the recent courses in the Colloquial series, it will just be a waste of time and money.

I believe that Thomas W. Ihde, Roslyn Blyn-LaDrew, and
Máire Ní Neachtain will work very hard to make this project a valuable resource for all Irish speakers and learners of the language.

Although I do not know Máire Ní Neachtain and cannot speak about the Routledge publications, I have served with Professor Thomas W. Ihde on a panel on Irish language and literature and have spoken with Professor Roslyn Blyn-LaDrew at a Gaeilge immersion event. Both professors possess rich backgrounds in language instruction and are fluent speakers. I am eagerly awaiting the completion of their project.

I'm sure the statement that "This project is expected to be completed by October 2006" doesn't mean it will be published then, but more likely that the master recordings and the word-processed text are supposed to be finished and submitted by then, if possible, so Routledge can begin their final formatting in preparation of the camera-ready copy, and schedule production of the CDs and all that. If that deadline is met, maybe Routledge will have the first run produced by around December 2007, and release it around January or February 2008 if all goes well, or something like that.

"If Colloquial Irish is going to be of the same standard as some of the recent courses in the Colloquial series, it will just be a waste of time and money."

If it's just a rehash of Learning Irish, limited to the same subdialect area, with half as much material and a couple hundred typographical errors, it will still be worth an attentive look and listen. They really should include speakers from Western Cois Fhairrge, Iorras Aithneach, Joyce Country and Mayo. I can't say I expect that much, but it will be disappointing if they use nothing but the *"Chua m'air agus mo dhreáir síos a' bór go teach a' tsaoir chló tranúna De Dúna 'gus d'fhan a' triúr acab ánn gur i' siad a ndóin agus 'na dhia sin bhíodar ag ól 's ag imirt chártaí go dtí 'n mheán oí" variety. There's nothing wrong with that kind of pronunciation, but it would be nice to let more people know that that's not all there is to Cois Fhairrge Irish, which is not all there is to Conamara Irish or Galway Irish, which is not all there is to Connaught Irish.