You might notice something different about the Galway Advertiser this week as you make your way through its pages.
Right in the heart of the paper, among the stories, people, photographs, opinions and advertisements that make up Galway life every week, you will find something new.
Sobal, our new Irish-language publication, begins its life this week as a four-page supplement, distributed free with 40,000 printed copies of the Galway Advertiser.
It is a small beginning. But small beginnings can carry big ambitions.
The Galway Advertiser has long been an advocate for the Irish language and for its use in everyday life, in business and in our public spaces. Through our annual Gradam Seosaimh Uí Ógartaigh run by Gaillimh le Gaeilge, we have celebrated businesses and organisations that embrace the language. Through our weekly Lar Sráide column, written by the excellent Peadar Mac Fhlannchadha, we have given Irish a regular and familiar presence in the pages of the paper.
Now we want to do more.
Sobal will be edited by Bill Breathnach, and our hope is that it will become a platform for writers — established and emerging — who want to write in Irish, to express opinions, tell stories, review books, films and music, engage with politics and public affairs, and simply explore the extraordinary possibilities of the language.
We want it to be a place for free expression and argument. A place where Irish is not treated as something belonging only to the classroom, the archive or the ceremonial occasion, but as a living language capable of carrying every shade of contemporary Galway life.
And we want Sobai to be a place where photography, culture, creativity and ideas can find a home.
Galway is uniquely placed for such an endeavour. The Advertiser is Ireland’s largest-circulation regional newspaper, and it operates in a city and county that is home to the largest Gaeltacht in Ireland. We are fortunate to have outstanding Irish-language media around us — on radio at Raidio na Gaeltachta, on television through TG4 and across the online world through Tuarisc and many more — all of which have played an enormous role in keeping the magic and vitality of Irish alive.
We now want to play our part.
But Sobal is not intended solely for writers and readers. We want it to become a new space for businesses too: a place where companies can market themselves through Irish, communicate with customers in the language and demonstrate that doing business as Gaeilge is not merely possible, but valuable and exciting.
Four pages may not sound like much.
But the Galway Advertiser itself began with just eight.
Nobody knows where a small publication might lead when it is given room to grow.
The Galway Advertiser remains locally owned, locally staffed and locally managed. The decisions about what we publish are made here, in the heart of Galway, by people who live Galway lives and understand the communities we serve.
With the support of Coimisiún na Meán, and encouraged by our CEO Máire McCarthy, we hope Sobal will grow into something that belongs not simply within the Advertiser, but within the wider Irish-language community of Galway.
So this week, we are opening the door.
If you fancy yourself as a writer as Gaeilge, if you have an opinion you want to express, a story to tell, a photograph to share, a business you want to promote, or simply an idea that deserves to be heard, we would love to hear from you.
Contact Bill at [email protected].
Sobail starts with four pages. Forty thousand copies are carrying those pages into Galway homes, businesses and communities this week.
It is only the beginning.
Fáilte chuig Sobail.
