Letterkenny announced as Gaeltacht Service Town
October 27, 2016
Letterkenny will become a Gaeltacht Service Town, it has been confirmed.
Following a meeting held on Tuesday evening, €20,000 of funding has been secured to implement a range of plans for the town to become a Gaeltacht Service Town.
At the meeting last night (Tuesday), a committee was established to implement the plans that have been discussed for a number of months by interested stakeholders.
A number of ideas were discussed at the meeting including the erection of extra bi-lingual signage and a Gaelic speaking drop-in centre.
Speaking to the Letterkenny Post, newly appointed committee member Cathal Greene said the committee would be laying plans for the next two years to promote the Irish language.
“This is another aspect of promoting Letterkenny, only it’ll be through the medium of Irish,” Mr Greene explained.
Donegal county councillor, Jimmy Kavanagh (FG), who was the only non-Irish speaker at the meeting, welcomed the formation of the committee.
“This is a good initiative that Letterkenny can only benefit from,” Cllr Kavanagh said.
“Letterkenny is well place to be Gaeltacht Service Town, it effectively already is one. More and more people from the Gaeltacht are coming into Letterkenny for different things like shopping and education, so it can only be good thing,” Cllr Kavanagh added.
Údarás na Gaeltachta and Foras na Gaeilge, have been working with relevant organisations to prepare and implement the language plans.
Under the Gaeltacht Act 2012, Gaeltacht Service Towns are defined as those towns situated in or adjacent to Gaeltacht Language Planning Areas and which have a significant role in providing public services, recreational, social and commercial facilities for those areas.
