Mr. Liam Donnelly:

I thank the committee for inviting us to speak before it on the topic of encouraging the publication and reading of Irish language material. As a bookshop, we will try to describe some of the issues which affect us and therefore the wider trade in stocking books in the Irish language. In Dublin, there are very few bookshops that devote more than a shelf or two to Irish language books. Ourselves and An Siopa Leabhar on Harcourt Street have a larger range than most. Why is this? Most bookshops have a very small surface area and must maximise sales per square foot. Devoting a percentage of this space to Irish language books is a risk that some of these shops are not willing to take as the returns from sales may not materialise.

The next issue is supply. Most books in the Irish language are distributed by Áisíneacht Dáileacháin Leabhar, ÁIS, which does an admirable job in supplying the trade and beyond with Irish language books. However, ordering can only be done by email and telephone. The industry standard is to use teleorder, an electronic ordering system which uses sales or databases used by bookshops. Not using this standard makes it time consuming for the bookshop to place orders as the data has to be transferred from the catalogue to email or even to read out over the phone.

It is just time-consuming for people to place orders and we are all pressed for time. As was mentioned before, Áis also does not have a searchable website through which orders can be made. That is one of the more important things it could do.

The international standard for the identification of books is the International Standard Book Number, ISBN. It is essentially a product identifier used by publishers, booksellers, libraries, Internet retailers and other supply chain participants for ordering, listing, sales records and stock control purposes. The ISBN identifies the registrant as well as the specific title, edition and format. Not all Irish book publishers conform to this standard, which causes issues in reordering and selling of books through electronic point of sale systems. Wholesale adoption of this standard would make it easier to reorder and identify sales.

There is vibrant and active publishing in the Irish language. It is concentrated on children's publishing in the main, then on Irish learning products and then on adult publishing. There appears to be a gap in publishing for those over the age of 10 with little being published for teenagers and young adults. The teenage and young adult market is one of the strongest growing and, in some ways, bravest parts of English language publishing. It tackles complex societal issues that are not tackled through the mainstream educational system. Adult publishing is also not diverse enough. There is a lot of poetry but fewer new fiction voices. Investment to help publishers market, design and commission new work is necessary, as is support for the writers who choose to write in Irish. Cover design in Irish language publishing has been poor but is improving. It needs to appeal to a more visually conscious younger audience.

Some of the most successful books over recent years have been accounts of the joys of learning Irish and books telling of the influence Irish has had on the English language. All of these books were written in English but never translated into Irish. Motherfoclóiris an example. Established publishers in English, including Penguin Ireland, Hachette Ireland, HarperCollins and Gill Books, need to be encouraged to produce books in Irish as part of their offer and encouraged to do translations. Some Irish publishers have produced fine translations of novels in English, French and numerous other languages. This in one way to allow readers to experience the familiar in the unfamiliar. Co-ordination is needed between curriculum developers and publishers to update the curriculum to keep it relevant. Some texts have been on the curriculum for 20 years, for example, Cith is Dealán. It is a wonderful book but I used it in school in 1979 and I do not know if it has any relevance to children today.

Irish language novels should be submitted for international awards to raise the profile of the language. We seem not to celebrate these writers by bringing them to a much wider audience outside of this country. Considering the amount of space given to books in English in all media including print, television and radio, the amount given to books in Irish seems minimal. It feels ghettoised, with the main review coverage in Comharand once a year in Books Irelandtowards the end of the year. That is the limit of the review coverage of Irish language books. National newspapers do not review Irish language books as often as they should. Neither does TV or radio. TG4's last books programme was in 2018. Raidió na Gaeltachta has some but not many. The last local radio station coverage I know of was a show on Donegal's Ocean FM, "Duilleoga", in 2019. That was the only one I could see in recent years. We also need to encourage the use of TikTok, Instagram and so on to promote the books to a younger audience. Having looked at the Seachtain na Gaeilge website, it seems that it is primarily concerned with the spoken language. The website does not celebrate the written word at all, with the exception of a paragraph saying that we have a long and glorious tradition of writing in Ireland. Irish language publishing is active and vibrant but suffers from a lack of visibility in shops and libraries. There is no reason that this cannot be reversed through a more dynamic relationship between the shops, publishers and libraries.