Calling all young translators – the 2022 all-island ‘Aistritheoirí Óga’ (Young Translators) competition is now open

Launching the fifth edition of the all-island ‘Aistritheoirí Óga’ (Young Translators) competition, Jack Chambers TD, Minister of State for the Gaeltacht and Sport said:

“This is a historic year for the Irish speaking community. In conjunction with the EU institutions, the Government has undertaken significant work over the past six years in order to end the derogation on the use of Irish in the EU institutions. That objective will be achieved at the end of this year and language-related employment opportunities for young Irish speakers will be created on an ongoing basis as a result."

Speaking about the Aistritheoirí Óga competition, Seán Hade, Head of the Irish Language Department at the European Commission spoke of "the opportunity it creates for participating students to get a sense of what it is like to work as a translator in the EU institutions".  He encouraged students with a high level of Irish to "make use of the languages they have learned" and "to experience, first-hand, some  of the linguistic puzzles Irish-language translators in the EU institutions have to solve on a daily basis."

The Minister of State spoke of the important role of the competition in "encouraging young people to work in the translation sector when their education is complete."

The competition

The ‘Aistritheoirí Óga' (Young Translators) translation competition is organised jointly by the European Commission and the Irish Government. It is open to students across the island of Ireland who were at least 15 years of age on 1 September 2021 and who have the ability to translate from English into Irish, or from a range of other European languages into Irish.

The competition has three goals: to promote a high standard of Irish, to encourage multilingualism among secondary school students and to encourage their interest in careers with Irish.

There are six categories in the competition: the best translation from English into Irish in each province, the best overall translation across the island of Ireland and the best translation from a language other than English into Irish.

All schools wishing to participate should register by 28 January 2022 by sending an email to DGT-GA-AISTRITHEOIRI-OGAec [dot] europa [dot] eu (DGT-GA-AISTRITHEOIRI-OGA[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu).

The competition will take place on Thursday, 3 March 2022.

At the awards ceremony in April 2022, the Minister of State for the Gaeltacht and Sport will present the winners with their prizes – a perpetual trophy for the overall winner and a Samsung tablet for each of the other category winners.

Further information about the competition, the registration process and the rules of the competition can be found here.  Examples of previous competition texts can be found here.

Background to the competition

The first edition of this competition was launched in October 2017.

The competition is part of a wider effort to raise awareness of the status of the Irish language as an official language of the European Union (EU) and the resulting career opportunities. Regulation 2015/2264 of the Council of the European Union determined that the Irish language will have full status as an official language of the EU by 2022 and that all legislation enacted in the EU will be translated into Irish from that date, as is already the case for the other 23 official languages. The EU institutions will continue to recruit Irish-language staff to fill language-related positions.

Further information

Career opportunities with Irish in the EU institutions.