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History of focal.ie

The www.focal.ie Project (2004-2007) was initiated by FIONTAR, DCU, in partnership with the University of Wales, Lampeter and Foras na Gaeilge. This project was funded by INTERREG IIIA Ireland/Wales in the main, and in part by Foras na Gaeilge.

The full project title was FIONTAR Téarmaí Unedig. The principal objective of the Irish implementation strand of the partnership was to increase access to Information Technology resources among the general public, in this case access to high-level resources in Irish. The principal outcome of the project in Ireland is this integrated database of Irish-language terminology which is available to the general public free of charge. It addresses in particular the needs of business and communication enterprises, of the education sector, the translation industry and other specialist users. The project included a training element in the use of electronic resources for Irish. Terminology for radio and television was also expanded and updated.

The project was delivered in collaboration with a partner in Wales, University of Wales Lampeter. UWL developed lexicographical resources for Welsh at the same time, as part of the project.

FTU was funded under Priority One, Measure Four: Communications and Transport Technology of the Interreg IIIA Ireland/Wales programme. It was co-funded by Foras na Gaeilge and by Fiontar (through the Strategic Initiative Fund of the Higher Education Authority). The Computer Services Department (CSD), DCU worked in collaboration with FIONTAR on this project. The initial phase of the project commenced in October 2004 and was completed in April 2007.

Stage II (2007-8) was undertaken with funding from Foras na Gaeilge. During that stage new material was added to the database, grammatical work was done to bring the database in line with the new rules of the Terminology Committee, and Trades and Technology terms were revised.

Since Focal was first launched in 2006, user numbers have grown steadily. The monthly statistics can be viewed here.