Gaois is a research group which welcomes the participation of students in our work. This is facilitated in two ways:

1. We welcome enquiries from students seeking to arrange an internship or a period of work experience with the research group. Undergraduate and postgraduate students from UCC, UCD, NUI Galway, Notre Dame and DCU itself have spent time with us. Students gain experience on the different projects according to their own interests and to the needs of the team (here’s a blogpost from a former intern). Only students with the necessary language skills needed to work through Irish will be accepted.

2. Research students (M.A. and PhD) are also accepted from time to time. The three lecturers in the research group, Dr Úna Bhreathnach, Dr Gearóid Ó Cleircín and Dr Brian Ó Raghallaigh, have a wide range of interests. Research may be based upon the work of the different projects, on a range of topics such as:

• terminology
• onomastics
• folklore
• digital humanities
• biographies
• corpus work
• lexicography
• crowdsourcing
• phonetics
• phonology
• phraseology
• speech technology
• minority languages
• web resources
• lexical databases
• language technology

Current students

Orlaith Hickey (supervised by Dr Úna Bhreathnach and Dr Pádraig Ó Liatháin): Staidéar ar ról imeallach na mban i mbeathaisnéisí na Gaeilge: Ról Ainm in athshlánú scéalta ban. There are two main aims of this PhD research: to investigate the current role of women in the national database of Irish-language biographies, Ainm.ie, and to add to the number of biographies of women in Ainm.

Teresa Clifford (supervised by Dr Brian Ó Raghallaigh and Dr Mícheál J. Ó Meachair): has a B.A Joint Honours in Modern Irish and Drama Studies from University College Dublin, having written their thesis on Irish teenage discos through a lens of performance studies. They have experience working with Irish multi-word expressions, noncompositionality and data curation through her work with the ADAPT Centre and the eSTÓR project. Their current research focuses include evaluation, ambiguity and NLP.

Graduates

Dr Aindí Mac Giolla Chomhghaill (supervised by Dr Gearóid Ó Cleircín and Dr Brian Ó Raghallaigh): Mionlogainmneacha de bhunús Gaeilge i ngleannta Chontae Bhaile Átha Cliath( (PhD thesis, 2024). Aindí’s research dealt with minor placenames of Irish origin in the glens of south County Dublin. Modern fieldnames (e.g. the collection The Field Names of Glenasmole by Pat Lee, a version of which is available on meitheal.logainm.ie), minor names collected from the last native Irish speakers in the 19th century, minor names collected during the 20th century — some of them from the audio archive of the Folklore Collection — and historical placenames were included. During fieldwork, the pronunciation of each modern name was ascertained locally and further names were collected. From this research a corpus was assembled. Each placename was analysed from a linguistic viewpoint and an Irish form was proposed. These Irish forms were then analysed typologically. The corpus was compared with other collections from the adjoining counties in Leinster from a toponymic viewpoint and attention was drawn to various points of dialectic interest which came to light. Maps and diagrams were created to illustrate various aspects of the research. All of the material will be made freely available on meitheal.logainm.ie.

Dr Michelle Dunne (supervised by Dr Úna Bhreathnach and Dr Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh (UCD)): Saintréithe de Thraidisiún Béil na mBan agus de Ghaeilge Luaigh i gCnuasach Sheáin Mhic Mhathúna (PhD thesis, 2023). Her research looked at information about and from women in the folklore collection Seán Mac Mathúna (1876-1949) collected in north-west Clare. This research gives an insight into the local dialect of Irish which was spoken in the research area. The behaviour and (traditional) role of women and 'ideal' femininity as described in the manuscripts are also investigated.

Dr Jamie Murphy (supervised by Professor Ciarán Mac Murchaidh and Dr Éadaoin Ní Mhuircheartaigh): An bhfuil athghabháil na Gaeilge mar skopos i ndrámaí aistrithe na Gaeilge? Anailís fheidhmiúlach ar chnuasach aistriúchán Gaeilge ó dhrámaí de chuid Martin McDonagh agus J.M. Synge (PhD thesis, 2023). The aim of this thesis is to adjust and remodel a framework which has its origins in functionalism in the field of translation studies. A full sample of translated plays in Irish from J.M. Synge and Martin McDonagh is used to apply this framework. The aim of the thesis, therefore, is to use both extratextual factors relating to both the dramatists and translators, as well as intratextual factors in both the source plays and translated plays, in order to provide an in-depth analysis of the translated works using ‘language reclamation of the Irish language’ as the measuring stick.

Dr Justin Ó Gliasáin (supervisd by Dr Gearóid Ó Cleircín and Dr Aengus Finnegan (UL)): Mionlogainmneacha i mbarúntachtaí Uíbh Fhailí thoir agus Uíbh Fhailí thiar, Contae Chill Dara (PhD thesis, 2022). Justin's research focused on minor placenames of Irish-language origin in Co. Kildare. The aim of this project iwas to assemble a collection of minor placenames and to carry out a linguistic analysis on them.

Dr Katie Ní Loingsigh (supervised by Dr Brian Ó Raghallaigh and Dr Caoilfhionn Nic Pháidín): Tiomsú agus rangú i mbunachar sonraí ar chnuasach nathanna Gaeilge as saothar Pheadair Uí Laoghaire (PhD thesis, 2016). As part of her research, Katie compiled an electronic corpus of Peadar Ó Laoghaire’s published works, she collected a lexicon of phrases from both Dineen’s and Ó Dónaill’s dictionaries, and she created a database of idioms from Peadar Ó Laoghaire’s corpus. The idiom collection can be found here.

Dr Fionnuala de Barra-Cusack (supervised by Dr Dorothy Kenny, SALIS; funded under the Focal project): A user-oriented study of metadata in focal.ie (PhD thesis, 2014). This research fellowship was undertaken with funding from Foras na Gaeilge in order to restructure the domain hierarchy of focal.ie (now téarma.ie).

Cáit Nic Fhionnlaoich (supervised by Dr Caoilfhionn Nic Pháidín): Cóiriú cartlann fuaime logainmneacha (MA thesis, 2012). The aim of this thesis was to make the Sound Archive of the Placenames Branch (1,200 hours of content collected in the period 1961-2000) available online for the staff of the Placenames Branch and for other placename researchers. The Placenames Branch’s original hand-written catalogue was transcribed and edited as a research guide for the online database. The content from Gola in Donegal was selected as a sample set to study. A list of placenames was generated from this set which enabled the provision of further information such as English names, written variations from literature and phonetic variations.

Dr Úna Bhreathnach (supervised by Dr Caoilfhionn Nic Pháidín and Dr Rute Costa (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)): A Best-Practice Model for Term Planning (PhD thesis, 2011). Her research focused on best practice in terminology planning, investigating three case studies: Catalonia’s Termcat, Sweden’s Terminologicentrum TNC and Irish language terminology planning organisations.