Ground-Breaking New Radio Show To Teach Internet "As Gaeilge"

http://anlionra.com

Radio listeners across Ireland will join internet users worldwide next Monday, as they tune in to the first episode of a new series focusing on the social aspects of the internet.

It's the first time an Irish radio series has been devoted exclusively to the phenomenon of "online social networking", of which the best known example in recent months has been Bebo. What's more: all 59 episodes of the show will be in Irish.

The programme is called An Líonra Sóisialta, which translates to The Social Network. It will broadcast a 12 minute episode each day for 12 weeks.

So far, 7 Irish radio stations have confirmed that they will broadcast the show and its producer believes several more will join over the next few weeks as the series gathers steam.

Thanks to the internet, however, the show will be available to anyone who wants to hear it, anywhere in the world. An Líonra Sóisialta will also be a "podcast" – a downloadable MP3 sound file that users can listen to on their PC, or copy to a mobile device to enjoy at their convenience.

The new series is the brainchild of independent producer Conn Ó Muíneacháin from Ennis, County Clare. After a successful career in local radio, he gave up broadcasting for the computer industry. 10 years later, he sees the two fields converging as technology has put the media into the hands of anyone who has access to the internet.

"Anyone can publish. Anyone can speak. Like a letters page, or a phone-in show, the internet gives the public a voice. The difference is that there are no editors or programme controllers."

To some this sounds like a recipe for anarchy. How is all this self-published material organised? How can the consumer be helped to find information which is useful and interesting to them?

"That's the most exciting thing about it", says Conn. "Nobody knows for sure! The tools and rules are being developed as we speak. New services and business models are launched every week. Some fail. Some develop and grow. All of them help us to understand how this new kind of media is supposed to work."
These kinds of ideas are discussed daily in the "blogosphere" – the global community of self-published websites: weblogs, or simply "blogs". They are familiar to people who collect the "feeds" from scores of such sites for easy reading in "aggregators". They are debated in interviews and panel discussions on podcasts.

Conn Ó Muíneacháin wants to bring this discussion to a wider audience. "An Líonra Sóisialta is designed for non-technical people. It's for people who are interested in media, but not necessarily in technology. It will introduce new ideas gently with short daily episodes over 12 weeks."

But why do it in Irish? "Irish is why I became interested in citizen media in the first place. People employed in Irish language media do a wonderful job with limited resources. But the choice isn't there. And what is there may be broadcast at a time, or published in a way, that does not suit someone who would otherwise be interested. But if you look at the web, you see that there is a global community of Irish speakers and learners who are contributing their own efforts to media in the Irish language."

As an experiment, last year Conn launched An tImeall, the first podcast in the Irish language. The project has been extremely successful, reaching a global audience. In March, the site was honoured for it's use of Irish at the inaugural Irish Blog Awards.

In addition to the radio show and podcast, An Líonra Sóisialta will also have a daily feature in the Irish language newspaper Lá. There's also a website: AnLionra.com. Over the next few weeks the site will grow and develop as it becomes the focus for audience participation.

And participation, Conn says, is the key. "These new forms of media make much less distinction between producer and consumer. An Líonra Sóisialta will encourage audience participation in every way possible: by phone, by text, by mail or by leaving a comment on the website." The series has been planned to appeal to people with a wide range of abilities in Irish, and in particular, it has been designed to be suitable for use as discussion material for Irish classes at Transition Year level in Irish schools.

Conn will co-present the show with Fiona Ní Chéirín, a native of An Spidéal, Co. Galway, and a recent graduate of the multimedia degree programme at Tipperary Institute.

The series has been provisionally approved for funding under the "Sound and Vision" scheme operated by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.

The 7 radio stations which have confirmed their participation in An Líonra Sóisialta are: Flirt FM in Galway, Raidio na Life in Dublin, Ocean FM (Sligo, North Leitrim, South Donegal), Clare FM, KCLR (Kilkenny and Carlow), Wired FM in Limerick, and Raidio Fáilte, Belfast's new Irish language station which launched last Friday.

This is so cool! I love Conn!! I listen to an tImeall all the time; not like I understand any of it, but it's good practice anyway. XD I think he brings a wonderful modern edge (haha, no pun intended ;-)) to Irish. Thank you for posting, Cionaodh.

Let's hope it uses natives and is of high quality, unlike say Raidió na Life

A Bhearnaigh --

Here's a little sample featuring both hosts:
http://podcasting.ie/imeall/imeall-2006-08-10.mp3

A Chionaodh,
cant hear it untill I get to somehwhere with broadband! Too big...

Bearnaigh, is Conn not a native speaker? My memory's poking me that he isn't, but I have no idea ... :-/

Well I wont knoe till I hear...

Even if he is not, I would hope he is proficient and that those he interviews or gets on are cainteoirí dúchais or chomh maith le (so to speak).

After spending hundreds of euro, like Cionadh, I'm of the opinion that much book resources in Irish are poor; I hope this does not extend to other media, but I fear it will. Most of the people who produce material for Irish have no respect for it -'anything will do atitude'.

This Conn fellow seems to have initiative, and thats good. Getting the radio stations on board is interesting...but are they hosting the show on their site, or actually putting it out on the old fashioned aerwaves?

Oh right...when I went to download it, the screen told me it was 14 megs...when it is really only 1.34.

Anyway, I did down load it...He is clearly not native, that's for sure, maybe from Dublin, and middle class anyway. He seems to have spent some time on the pronounciation, but has a long way to go. Even younger gaeltacht people who use the retroflex r initially, will still use the gaelic broad and slender rs at the end of words. His ls and ns are plain in all positions, only slightly velarised for broad l at times. He seems to use no bilabials at any point

Ideally, all irish media output should be vetted by natives. However, the good thing about the net is that it is a distributed network and innovations can come about with out a centralised authority to put breaks on it.

Hes gettign out and doing something, so fair play from that viewpoint. Additionally, he seems to be networking too. Now, lets have some natives do a podcast!

Anyway, I did down load it...He is clearly not native, that's for sure, maybe from Dublin, and middle class anyway. He seems to have spent some time on the pronounciation, but has a long way to go.

Conn is from An Ráth Mhór, Co. Kerry (just south of Sliabh Luachra) and now resides in Clare.

Fiona is from Tráigh Lí, and now resides in An Spidéal.

I don't hear any Dublin influence in either's Irish, a Bhearnaigh.

I never heard her, so I cant comment

He sounds middle-class, and not very gaelic. the middle class sound very alike around ireland, nowadays.

Is that a Gaeltacht area?

Ah. I see. Unless we are genuine peasants with muck under our nails we must not dare speak Irish, since we middle class bourgousie are not gaelic enough.

I must say I am getting somewhat irritated by "Bearnaigh" laying down the law to us - as far as I am aware, always in English, never in Irish.

Mar a deir an ghaeilge nua, "f**k na begrudgers!"

(Chuala píosa deas ag Seosamh Ó Cuaig ar RnaG i rith na seachtaine - "Ní bhfaigheadh siad away leis sin fadó, mar a deir an ghaeilge nua")

(Message edited by aonghus on September 24, 2006)

(Message edited by aonghus on September 24, 2006)

I'm laying down no law -it is imperative that I can distinguish one thing from another. To me, he didnt have that lovely resonance one hears from many Conemara natives and the lovely blas from Donegal speakers. If Irish and English phonology are merging, thats a shame, I feel.

I commended this fellow on his efforts, but if you read back, I was asking was he indeed native or not? The same arguemtn could be made in reverse (synthetic southern grammar vs. analytic northern grammar or traditional northern sounds vs contemporary southern phonology).

"Unless we are genuine peasants with muck under our nails we must not dare speak Irish, since we middle class bourgousie are not gaelic enough"

I dont know what that comment is all about -where there is class, people find ways to signal their position; *some* rich with yachts and Lear-jets; *some* middle class with postcode and suburban shopping. These things are done for a suite of reasons, but one of them is that others can identify someone as belonging to a particalr class. My comment was to say that he could have been from anywhere, as today the last reminnats of Hiberno-Englsih are been washed away due to the greater percentage living in connected city and suburban housing, plus the influence of the mass media. It is an understandable process, and my remarks were not derogatory nor judgemental. Let him speak liek he wants, but dont tell me how one speaks does not matter, as you know it does.

I was asking a question about him, why not? He is making a product, should I not question its quality? Why would a non-native learner have more credibility than a native? That position says more about you than me. I spent 45 euro on Turas Teanga the other day, and it was just a mish-mash of scenes. One was from Gaoth Dobhair where the children answered in English once, and then said nothing else in irish except for goodbye as they left the library. Thats not acceptable in a language product. Period.

I'm not going to learn from learners, and that's my position, however 'quaint' you find it.

"Bearnaigh laying down the law to us - as far as I am aware, always in English, never in Irish". I'm not fluent in Irish, I;ve made no attempt to pretend otherwise. I can only go on dialect studies till I visit the Gaeltacht in the comming months. Why native speech is so horendous, I don't know. Perhaps you find the rural Gaels backward.

"Mar a deir an ghaeilge nua, "f**k na begrudgers!"
(Message edited by aonghus on September 24, 2006)

(Message edited by aonghus on September 24, 2006)

Edit any vitriol you want, mock my baptised name if you will, but I'm going to be pleasent regardless, and on the rare occasion I can be (knowledge permitting), helpful.

I take offense at this comment:

quote:

He sounds middle-class, and not very gaelic.

I don't find rural or any other Gaels backward.

But the fact of the matter is that it is "learners" (by your definition, not mine) like Conn, Éamon Ó Cuiv, Padraig Ó hAoláin, Pól Ó Foighill, etc. etc. who have been responsible for a lot of positive developments in the retention of the Gaeltacht and of Irish.

I find your arbitrary attitude, based on book studies, of who may be allowed to speak Irish in public, offensive. That may be not what you intend, but that is what is comes across as.

For the record, I edited typos.

Bearnaigh, it's interesting that your able to pinpoint such specific pronunciation errors. Are these features the only points, in your opinion, that make Conn's speach substandard to a native's? I've notice quite a few members on the Daltaí make such remarks ... "oh, the R isn't very Gaelic. They don't pronounce slender L correctly" ... etc. I'm just sort of struck by what seems to be extreme critism, but I always thought it's because I don't know enough about Irish; maybe these fluent speakers' pronunciation really is as horrible, as some try to make it out.

Can you illustrate how Conn would sound in comparison to someone who is a fluent, yet non-native speaker of English with a foreign accent? I mean, no one's ever going to criticize such a speaker for their faults in pronunciation. My German teacher had the most brilliant English I've ever heard, but a noticeable accent. Yet who's going to tell her, "oh you don't quite have the American r down; you should work on that"? So I don't understand why we do that with Irish, or maybe I'm not grasping the differences of quality.

"That may be not what you intend"

No, Aonghus, it was not an attack on anyone, but I feel writing in a direct fashion is more definite of a style.

"learners"

I was talking about all the products in shops which seem professional at first glance and whihc later turn out ot be poor, rather than fluent teachers or linguists or others with high profiency creating material like podcasts which are not professionally produced, but are still are content rich. I should have made that clear.

"who may be allowed to speak Irish in public"

I cant stop anyone doing anything in public, but my comments were more to the effect that I hope language products, in major or minority languages, would now start to get better as a greater number of people make their own material, outside the club of Belitz etc with the hope better learing material would arrive. In terms of radio, it was a prayer that the fluent would be on it (meaning there would be standards). Standards help ensure quality, I feel, if the people involved are good enough to be uplifted by the standards

"Offence: He sounds middle-class, and not very gaelic."

Would it be less offensive if I said "he sounds like a comtemporary Irish person, thus divergent from traditional speech when Gaelic was the majority language in ireland"? The country is giving up on local accents, so the tenous link to the old gaelic sounds is lessening. The logic was that he could not have sounded gaelic (for the most part) as he sounded contemporary. There was no insult there, just an overservation. I'd not qualified to critique him, as such, but rather I'll admit I have bias towards the older blas.

If you meant he doesn't sound like someone from the 16th century, you should of said so.

Of course he doesn't.

quote:

but I feel writing in a direct fashion is more definite of a style.

Then you can hardly complain when people see it as an attack.

Offense is in the ear of the hearer/eye of the reader.

"vetted by" to me smacks of censorship and rejection using an essentially arbitrary standard. People should be encouraged to improve, not criticised for not meeting an unreal ideal. This is an old problem in Irish.

---

Tabhair a dhóthain den ardléann do Ghaeilgeoir agus ní Gaeilgeoir a thuilleadh é ach SCOLÁIRE. Agus, a chairde mo chleibh, is iontach na héanacha iad na scoláirí nuair a bhainnean siad amach beanna arda an léinn mhóir. Tugann siad gráin don uile fhocal den teanga Ghaeilge ach na focla a bhfuil seacht sreama na seanaoise orthu. Níl canúint is fearr leo ná an chanúint atá marbh le céad blian.
Bíonn a chanúint fhéin ag gach duine acu agus murar féidir leat í sin a labhairt leo go clocharach pislíneach mar is dual labhróidh siad Béarla leat. Bíonn Béarla an-bhreá acu go hiondúil. Le fírinne agus leis an gceart bíonn sé acu chomh maith nó níos fearr ná an Ghaeilge féin. Béarla gan chanúint a chleactan siad, rud a chuireann ar a gcumas labhairt le formhór chuile Bhéarlóir. Buntáiste mór é seo gan dabht.
Breandán Ó hEithir, Feabhra 1958

This is pertinent to what we have been discussing:

quote:

This is very important to me. One of the reasons I strive to promote blogging and podcasting in Irish is that I personally use these media to practice and improve my own Irish. I am not a native speaker.

On the other hand, I am not a teacher either, and this is not a language course. It is a grown-up podcast (or radio show - call it what you like!) about a particular subject which happens to be in Irish.

(emphasis mine)

http://www.anlionra.com/2006/09/24/a-word-to-those-not-fluent-in-irish/

"Are these features the only points, in your opinion, that make Conn's speach substandard to a native's?"

"maybe these fluent speakers' pronunciation really is as horrible, as some try to make it out."

To my ear, Irish spoken that does not sound Gaelic is often very ugly, not always, but most of the time. Its a physical aesthetic for me. Tastewise, what people draw to is not linear. People say "Isint that house wonderful?" as if I should agree that what could be a flat-pack white box is automatically attractive. Its clear their taste has been poisioned, ignoring that very often houses are a mark of social position in Ireland, so that 'beauty' is often a synonoym of 'expensive' or 'location', or of having arrived, at whatever level 'arrived' is for the viewer.

To Americans, who sometimes like 'Irish accent', they confuse 'Gaelic' with 'Irish', conflating the two. The difference does not matter as its not the reason they sought out the language.

ON the other hand, to my ear, there is a beauty in the changes in nasal and liquid sounds in Connacht, Ulster, and Waterford -no english speaker comes close. Its a bit of an acquired taste, but like a rare wine, a skill worth cultivating (for me).

As a native English speaker, that these sound differecnes are grammatical makes it more exotic. Words are less like 'rocks', and more like mercury or water -liquid and shifting. Along with the complx sandhi, the mutations, the cases, VSO, prepositional pronouns... it makes Irish so much more baroque than Germanic or Romance languages, and more compelling for those very reasons, reasons some have had cause to distain.

Interests are aesthetic, but some find sweet the parts others discard.

An Líonra Sóisialta and its host Conn Ó Muíneacháin have been nominated for "Best Podcast" at netvision.ie.

If you have enjoyed Conn's podcasts, whether at http://anlionra.com or his earlier work at http://imeall.blogspot.com, please consider giving him your vote:
http://www.netvisionary.ie/votenom.html

The "Best Podcast" category is located toward the bottom of the page.

Déanta.