The start of the New Year is not only a time when many of us adopt personal resolutions, it often heralds changes at the national level, too. This year, it also marks an important milestone for Irish as an official EU language. On 1 January 2022, the ‘Irish derogation’ ended after a phasing-out process that lasted several years. The derogation was a partial and temporary exemption from the obligation to publish every piece of EU legislation in all the official languages. As a result, after enjoying a somewhat particular status for many years, Irish is now on a par with the other 23 official languages of the Union.
But let’s go back a bit. When Ireland joined the European Communities in 1973, the Irish language was not included in accession talks and, consequently, only the accession act and the Treaties were translated into Irish. After the historic enlargement in 2004, there were increasing calls for Irish to become an official language of the EU. In 2007, Irish obtained its status as an official EU language. However, for practical reasons and due to a lack of human resources, only a limited number of texts were translated into Irish. This situation was justified by the ‘Irish derogation’. Then in 2015, a Council Regulation was adopted which required the institutions to phase out the derogation by the end of 2021.
This lead to a dramatic increase in Irish capacity within the European Commission, especially in the Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) and the Publications Office (PO). To ensure high-quality translation of all legal texts in the Commission, the demand for Irish-language translators, proofreaders and legal specialists skyrocketed. The increasing volume of translation into Irish in the Commission speaks for itself: in 2021 it was four times higher than in 2016 and is expected to double again in 2022.
The interpretation services of the EU Institutions have also been working hard to expand the pool of interpreters with Irish in their language combination, although as they are demand-driven services, Irish will be provided only in meetings for which it is requested. Against this backdrop, SCIC has been cooperating very closely with the National University of Ireland in Galway (NUIG), the only university in the world offering a postgraduate interpreting course with Irish.
All the relevant departments in the Commission and other EU institutions have proved resourceful in their search for qualified Irish-speakers: they have launched competitions, cooperated closely with the Irish authorities and universities and even formed a team of translators who work remotely from Ireland (Grange). The change in the status of Irish also meant that the digital tools had to be aligned with the new language requirements. Punctuation checkers, translation memories, terminology databases (such as IATE) and the Commission’s internal machine translation system needed to be brought up to speed. This was by no means easy, but now that DGT has a dedicated and full team of Irish language specialists, the road ahead for Irish in the EU is clear.
Irish people both within the institutions and beyond have welcomed the end of the ‘Irish derogation’. After years of special status and the struggle for recognition, this new step is an important milestone for Irish-speakers. One of the fundamental principles of the EU is the possibility for citizens to participate in the European project using their own language – and from 2022 onwards, this will finally be fully possible for Irish-speakers.
If you would like to learn more about Irish and interpreting in the EU, you might want to check out some of our resources on the KCI – such as ‘A day in the life on an Irish interpreter’ or ‘Job opportunities with Irish in the EU institutions’ (also available by simply typing ‘Irish’ in the KCI search bar).
You can also consult the Irish version of the KCI and listen to this beautiful language in our Speech Repository where there is a collection of 37 speeches in Irish for your interpretation practice.
You can find additional information here.