http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 75197.html

I think this is short sighted, I know it wasnt selling well but at the same time it was only in a tiny number of shops. It is a valuable resource for a Irish speakers and learners and pretty essential to the normalisation of Irish, for speakers to be able to live a part of their life the same way they could through English.

Ok we still have Foinse, but I think FnaG have missed a gap in the market, Gaelscéals website was the 2nd highest rated Irish language website after TG4.ie (see Gaelscéals Facebook page for more details). I think if the paper was too costly they could have cut the funding but put into producing a world class website & tablet/ smart phone edition where they could have continued building on their good online foundations without the cost printing a paper. Did anyone see their online Video coverage of the Oireachtas? It was brilliant, FnaG are blind for missing the opportunity to build a proper online Irish news/media source. Instead they cut all funding which will see Gaelscéal close alltogether.

Gaelscéal will be Somhairle missed.

Ah! That is a pity. Gaelscéal had writing of a much higher quality than Foinse, in fact Foinse is quite bad to be honest and doesn't feel
like a "real" Irish language newspaper at times, but just a Leaving Cert study aid. I enjoyed getting Gaelscéal every week and reading through it, I'm quite sad to see it go!

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

Agh! Cinneadh gan mhaith ar bith atá ann!

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Ultach mé agus Gaeilg Uladh a labhraim go measardha maith!

Inniú, Amárach, and now Gaelscéal.
The best one ever, in my opinion was the northern based weekly 'Lá' which even had a Scottish page. (Gaidhlic) It was a broadsheet, but even that went under, probably because they swopped the broadsheet for a tabloid version, and also because they stopped the Scottish content. In other words they sanitized it so that it became totally un-interesting.

Until we have a real Irish newspaper, and not an Irish language mouthpiece / learning aid, there will be no hope. A newspaper is something which tells the news, not something which bemoans the state of Irish all of the time. Most of the Irish language content has no news which would interest non- Irish speakers, indeed, it's boring even for Irish speakers. We want to read about the same kind of stuff that's in the Indo (even tho' I never bought that anti-Irish rag in my life) or the other English language papers.

News such as the latest bank-heist, court cases involving drunken drivers, etc. is the kind of stuff most people want to read. In other words, the daily news, warts an' all ! News with relevance to people who aren't especially interested in the Irish language. I know people who buy Gaelscéal to support it, but buy an English language tabloid for the news. The English language tabloids have the news, they don't write about the state of the English language.

If any of the English tabloids wrote about the stuff that Foinse and Gaelscéal writes about, they would be out of business in a week !
Like it or not, I believe that Irish/Scottish (Gaidhlic) should both feature in an Irish paper, it might increase sales.
We need a real Irish paper, even page 3 pin-ups and all, if that's what it takes (and believe me, I've no interest in looking at pin-up girls) We need a paper, even a daily paper in Irish, all they have to do is translate the most popular rag into Irish, that might do the trick, otherwise it's a losing battle. They are so set in their ways and short-sighted in this country it's unbelievable. I have often bought Gaelscéal to support it, but not to read the news, which it doesn't have.
I believe a weekly Irish paper to begin, then a daily if it takes off, but until they produce an Irish language paper that even non-Irish speakers will try to read, they're wasting our money.

A newspaper should be able to survive on it's own merit, not on subsidies. I'll bet some of those people in Gaelscéal are on great wages, our tax money, well this might stir them to get off of their asses, use their imagination, and actually get out there and write a real newspaper, but I very much doubt it.

Yeah I agree there on the news front, it should have the same stories as any other paper, be about what people want to read n not be a mouth piece. But on the other hand a big portion of people buying an irish newspaper are going to be learners, it's certainly a reason I bought it and I suppose they knew this for sales. I think a learners section is pretty essential to any Irish paper

Yes of course, I didn't mean to imply get rid of the learners page. (Why do people take everything so literally) ? In fact there should be lots of learning aids. But have everything else too. Get all those unemployed and unemployable Irish speakers who are on the dole to trawl the courts and write about it. Write about the dope addicts who are in court, who knows, they might even buy it to read about themselves. Put their pics in there too. In no time they'll be reading it in Dublins inner city slums !
Another thing. How did we all learn to read English when growing up ? Why, we read the Beano of course, and the Dandy, and all the rest of that English trash. But it WORKED, at least it did for MY generation before TV etc. Why the heck did they not translate all those superman comics ? No imagination, that's why.

I don't think it's necessarily a lack of imagination; unfortunately, it's a lack of a market. Even with resources that are available, the market is very small so often, it is not financially viable for people to create them. The only chance is for someone to do it for the love of it and hope that they will get a grant to cover basic costs, but not to be paid properly for doing it. Indeed I believe that is how much of what is currently produced happens.

The reason why Irish language resources are usually in the Caighdeán (and I have no intention of opening up that can of worms here) is that - unfortunately - the numbers of purchasers in any single dialect are not sufficient to justify the production. I am not talking about the cultural merit - obviously that is completely justified; I am talking about money. Even parents of children in Gaelscoileanna rarely consider buying an Irish language resource for their children as Irish is something they do in school. Sad, but true.

People who care about the language and availablility of resources need to put their money where their mouth is - literally - and support the productions of resources by buying them. Libraries will buy in books if requested too - something people don't always think of.

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It's true that there is, and has been a whole army of people out there who have made a career out of the Irish language and the Gaedhealtachtaí. If there was no money to be got from it, or no grants, I'll bet most of them wouldn't be seen for dust. It's just a job to them.

It's a great pity, in my opinion, that each Gaedhealtacht doesn't have it's own radio station. I don't mean a huge operation that would cost millions, I mean a smaller scale set-up to serve the local Gaedhealtacht and it's particular dialect. It wouldn't be the first time either, as there used to be an illegal one in Ros Muc with the antanna up on Cnoc Mordáin.

Unfortunately Gaelscéal have just gone and proved my point. I say there is no news reporting which would interest most people.
Well last Saturday night / Sunday morning Ros a' Mhíl had the biggest news story since they wasted 15 million on the 'pontoons' at the céibh. The result of the night's event is a young local teen fighting for his life in Beaumont hospital with head injuries. There is a yearly happening in the area to do with a car rally. It's all the talk of Conamara and much further afield, yet there isn't even one word about it in the paper that we all hoped would serve the Irish speaking community. Tada !

No wonder it failed, no news about what everyone is talking about, we had to read about it in the Galway English lang. paper, or hear about it on Radio na Gaedhealtacht.

Why can't they send a reporter to the Tuesday court sitting in Doire an Fhéidh ? They wouldn't even have to be Irish speakers because having spent many an hour in there watching cases being heard I can honestly say I have never heard a word of Irish being spoken, despite the judge speaking passable Irish, and at least some of the cops. As for the punters up before the court for various offences, all of whom speak Irish, not a word. Everything's in English. What a pathetic shower. I suppose I could go on and on and bore everyone with my rants, which won't change anything, but Reg Hindley comes to mind !
It's doubly demoralising to speak with people whom some of you would have heard about, people who have spent a lifetime working with the language, saying that it's on it's last legs.

And I'm only speaking for Conamara, what about the other Gaedhealtachtaí ? Probably I could say the same about them too.