The town of Dungarvan in County Waterford is now officially recognised as a Gaeltacht serivce town.
Dungarvan language plan in the ninth langauge plan that has been approved for language planning groups outside of the Gaeltacht. The implementation of the language plan will now take place over the next seven years.
Dún Garbhán le Gaeilge is the lead organisation for the language planning process in the town and it carried out a great deal of research and consultation with the commnity in order to prepare a language plan that would add to the use of the Irish language in Dungarvan. Foras na Gaeilge supported Dún Garbhán le Gaeilge throughout this process, as it does for all Gaeltacht service towns and Irish langauge networks outside of the Gaeltacht throughout the island.
Breandán Mac Craith, Director of Development Services with Foras na Gaeilge said,“The Gaelphobail are growing! The progress that has been made in Dungarvan is wonderful to see and is a source of great pleasure for us to see this language plan being approved and to be in a position to assist Dún Garbhán le Gaeilge to implement it. The success of the Gaelphobal campaign over the past couple of weeks that the public has a great interest in seeing, hearing and speaking more of the Irish language and Dungarvan is hte latest area to begin this journey.
The language plan has now been approved by the Minister of State Jack Chambers which means that the plan can now be implemented. As part of this, Dún Garbhán le Gaeilge will now be able to appoint a language planning officer to co-ordinate the implementation of the measures in the langauge plan.
Communities from Letterkenny, Belfast, Galway, Loughrea, Carntogher, Clondalkin and Ennis have been involved in this campaign so far. With plans now approved in Tralee and in Dungarvan, Gaelphobail are flourishing across the country.
