Gaelsceal

Fuinseog

What do you think of it?

I was very impressed with it at the start but it seems to have gone downhill recently.
They used to have articles that were enjoyable to read like travel articles, but now it seems to be very localised Gaeltacht news and we already have SAOL for that.

With few exceptions it contains few articles of substance and there seems to be a pro Sinn Fein stance to many of the articles. The problem I have with that is that some Irish speakers dislike the SF and IRA label attached to them if they speak Irish.

There also seems to be a lot of moaning about how difficult Gaelgeoiri have it.

Foinse also started off well but soon became a paper only read by Irish teachers.

Aard

I read it initially when it came out, and bought a hard copy once or twice. I've since stopped reading. My main gripes were the standard of the language used and the variety of articles. Having just cast a cursory glance at their site, it seems that the quality of Irish has improved. But the articles are still way too niche for me to care. Like right now, on the front page of the site they have somebody learning Gaidhlig, Féile na gCurrachaí, Sinn Féin, and Craobh Peile. All of which I'd consider a punishment to read. Where's the news about the new household charge, Aer Lingus, or even German cucumbers?

For me, it just doesn't do what it says on the tin. Basically, I just want an Irish version of the Times, or even the Indo.

pog it

It was never meant to be a nationally focussed paper though. They got the funding in order to provide a paper with regional news based on issues of interest to those in the Gaeltacht. I don't live in the Gaeltacht but I'd buy it if there was good quality Irish in it and if I could learn Irish from it.
I buy Foinse because of one column by Micheal Ó Conaola - the Irish is rich and he has a distinguishable 'voice'. I was critical of Gaelscéal at the beginning but last week they had a fantastic edition, interviews with John Boyne and Eimear Ní Chonaola, and some other good stuff so I bought it after I had semi read it in Easons.

Sadly it costs too much to set up a paper. There just aren't enough of us interested to make it commercially viable. I am currently looking into setting up a bilingual regional paper but it's not looking good funding wise, even as a not for profit. I've spoken to a couple of local enterprise/development organisations already and there only seems to be a little bit of help as regards marketing but distribution and production costs are huge.

An gal gréine

Some harsh comments there. I had to have another look at last friday's paper and I found several articles on Obama, others on the forthcoming Presidential election here, the recent election in the Basque country, Greece and the crisis there, the Icelandic volcano, the ex-boss of the IMF, the Irish diaspora, the minimum wage here, the new Seanad, and the national distributor of books in Irish.
While there were 6 pages on the regions, including Leinster, the only one mentioning Sinn Féin was because the first ever Irish-speaking mayor of Belfast is with that party. 2 other Northern articles were on Rosemary Nelson and the Stormont assembly.
I think all the said articles were also in the Times and Indo. Only the 6 regional pages would'nt have made them. I think Gaelscéal are doing a pretty good job and certainly need our support.
Beir bua.

pog it

I mostly agree. If it continues to be as good as it was last week then it's definitely going to worth buying. But last week was the first week I looked through it in Easons and wanted to buy it. I wish them the best of luck and want to see them doing well but it's better to be honest at all times, be it good praise or not. A couple of writers in there are working extremely hard. One of them had several articles in it on Friday and they were all really good quality.

But I would say their biggest shortcoming is that the actual standard of Irish isn't yet equal to what it was in the old Foinse. Hopefully that too changes.

Fuinseog

few people will buy a paper just because of its quality of Irish. It needs to have something to say. Regional news is of limited national appeal.

I wonder about some of the articles.Two weeks ago they had an article in support of two Gaelgeoiri and members of Eirigi who were putting up posters against the queen, despite the prohibition on posters. The Gaelgeoiri in question refused to speak English with the guards and the article was critical that the guards in Dublin could not speak Irish.

An gal gréine

Fuinseog wrote: »

few people will buy a paper just because of its quality of Irish. It needs to have something to say. Regional news is of limited national appeal.

I wonder about some of the articles.Two weeks ago they had an article in support of two Gaelgeoiri and members of Eirigi who were putting up posters against the queen, despite the prohibition on posters. The Gaelgeoiri in question refused to speak English with the guards and the article was critical that the guards in Dublin could not speak Irish.

I think most papers or periodicals in Irish do take a pro language-activist stance and that's why it applied to Éirigí as well. The latter and Sinn Féin are political enemies as far as I can make out. Maybe someone will write to the letters page of Gaelscéal about it.

eirigi Sligeach

Fuinseog wrote: »

few people will buy a paper just because of its quality of Irish. It needs to have something to say. Regional news is of limited national appeal.

I wonder about some of the articles.Two weeks ago they had an article in support of two Gaelgeoiri and members of Eirigi who were putting up posters against the queen, despite the prohibition on posters. The Gaelgeoiri in question refused to speak English with the guards and the article was critical that the guards in Dublin could not speak Irish.

There was not a prohibition on posters. éirígí were legally entitled to poster as they had Dublin City Council permission and permits to do so.

General Michael Collins

I have only started reading recently, but I must say I am very impressed with it, and will be buying it from now on. Last week it had some great stuff about Obama, and I enjoyed the opinion piece on Pearse (perhaps that was the week before?). There were also good articles on Greece, and the IMF. And if a few pages were devoted to Gaeltachtaí news, so what? I'm not from a Gaeltacht, but I certainly expect such things in and Irish language newspaper.

It's important we look to the revival of the language through every medium possible, and Gaelsceál is available in a good variety of stores across the nation. Anything that encourages people to practice their Irish is a good thing, and this modern looking newspaper which delivers a variety of articles trí mheáin na Gaeilge is a very good thing indeed.

dambarude

This thread has just reminded me to have another look at it. I always find a few articles of interest in it, and it at the very least it looks very professional.

Foinse seems to be aimed solely at Leaving Cert students as far as I can see, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's very little to it really, though they do have some big enough names writing for them.

Fuinseog

General Michael Collins wrote: »

I have only started reading recently, but I must say I am very impressed with it, and will be buying it from now on. Last week it had some great stuff about Obama, and I enjoyed the opinion piece on Pearse (perhaps that was the week before?). There were also good articles on Greece, and the IMF. And if a few pages were devoted to Gaeltachtaí news, so what? I'm not from a Gaeltacht, but I certainly expect such things in and Irish language newspaper.

It's important we look to the revival of the language through every medium possible, and Gaelsceál is available in a good variety of stores across the nation. Anything that encourages people to practice their Irish is a good thing, and this modern looking newspaper which delivers a variety of articles trí mheáin na Gaeilge is a very good thing indeed.

its actually available in very few stores, even in the supposedly bilingual city of Galway.
people will only read it if the articles are remotely interesting,only a minority will read it for the sake of of reading something in Irish.

Fuinseog

eirigi Sligeach wrote: »

There was not a prohibition on posters. éirígí were legally entitled to poster as they had Dublin City Council permission and permits to do so.

if they had permission the guards would not have intervened. Eirigi are a bunch of troublemakers come terrorists and are giving the Irish language a bad name.

dlofnep

Fuinseog wrote: »

Eirigi are a bunch of troublemakers come terrorists

What acts of terrorism are Éirígí responsible for?

As for Gaelscéal - I quite like it, and find it to be a bit broader than Foinse. It's far from regional news. I quite like the Gaidhlig article there 2 or 3 weeks back - it was interesting to see how much I could read.

General Michael Collins

Éirígí are dissident republicans who don't condone violence, so they aren't terrorists, not by a long shot. And, I suppose they're entitled to promote whatever they like.

Foinse is a few pages long and needs to feature a model on the cover every issue. Gaelscéal has a lot more depth.

MacEoghain

Is maith liom Gaelscéal, tá sí cuimsitheach agus tá caighdeán ard ann.

I like Gaelscéal, it is comprehensive and it is of a good quality.

It doesnt take a standard anti-Sinn Féin line but I think as a "32 county" paper that would be counter productive.

I think the regional news is very good - and necessary, but in the same paper you have international reports, economics columnist and alot more.

But I enjoyed all the Irish language papers up to now, so you would expect that I would like it - there will always be begrudgers in Irish speaking circles who dont realise that Irish language publications have 10% of the staff an English language paper would have.

I also like Foinse, very different from Gaelscéal but doing a very different job.

eirigi Sligeach

Fuinseog wrote: »

if they had permission the guards would not have intervened. Eirigi are a bunch of troublemakers come terrorists and are giving the Irish language a bad name.

Fuinseog, we had permission. We had permits from Dublin City Council and the Council informed Gardai who were stealing posters off us that we were legally entitled to poster. What the Gardai were doing was illegal

Gardai taking those posters were a political action by a political police force who were trying to prevent signs of protest. They stole banners out of peoples cars, including that of a councillor.

General Michael Collins

Of course they did. The visit was strong armed to success. It illustrated immaturity of debate in the country that the media ignored the general tension and in some quarters bad feeling toward the visit and pretended all was well while the army locked down everything. That said, once it was to be done it had to be done well. It wasn't the queen that bothered me, but the west brits. And, of course, there was more to the visit than met the eye.