Máire Ní Neachtain, a lecturer of Irish at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, will give a lecture titled “The Road Ahead: An Ghaeltacht as a Bedrock for Irish-Speaking Communities of the future?” on Tuesday, December 4, at 5 p.m. in the Music Building’s Recital Hall. This event is free and open to the community.
The lecture will focus on the role of the traditional Irish-speaking districts of Ireland in the future of language maintenance and revival.
Ní Neachtain is a native speaker of Irish from An Spidéal in County Galway. Her academic interests focus on the sociolinguistics of the Irish language and the acquisition of Irish as a first language. Her research is in the area of Irish language drama, with a particular interest in contemporary Gaeltacht issues and in the traditional arts.
Ní Neachtain is a frequent contributor to Irish language media as a commentator on Gaeltacht affairs and on Irish language literature. She presented Focal Faire, a radio program that explored linguistic matters on RTÉ/ Raidió na Gaeltachta. She is active in community enterprises in An Spidéal and is also on the committee of the Merriman Society. She has served as the co-director of their winter schools for the past number of years.
For more information on this event, call 718-938-1345 or e-mail thomas.ihde@lehman.cuny.edu.
