Winners of ‘Aistritheoirí Óga 2024’ (Young Translators) announced

This year's winners come from Antrim, Offaly, Galway and Waterford (see list below).  

Róisín Ní Lionaird from Coláiste na Coiribe in Galway was awarded the overall prize for the best translation in the country.  

Speaking at today’s awards ceremony, Thomas Byrne TD, Minister of State with responsibility for Irish and the Gaeltacht said “I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to all the winners today, and of course to everyone who took part in the competition this year. The winners have shown us their great translating skills and it is encouraging to see young people showing so much interest in the field of translation and that secondary school students are thinking about the employment opportunities in Europe. I have no doubt that we will see some of these fine young people here today again as our colleagues in the European institutions in the years to come.”

Shanna Ní Rabhartaigh of the Irish Language Department at the European Commission said “This important competition has gone from strength to strength since its inauguration seven years ago, as evidenced by the high number of schools that participated this year. The translations produced by the students were of a higher quality than ever before and the Irish-language community can look forward to the work in Irish that will come from this generation in the years to come.”

The Contest

This is the seventh edition of 'Aistritheoirí Óga', a now annual translation contest organised jointly by the European Commission and the Irish Government. The contest has three goals: to promote a high standard of Irish, to encourage multilingualism among secondary school students and to encourage their interest in linguistic professions.  

This year, 79 students from 29 schools took part in the contest, translating from English, French, German and Spanish to Irish.   

There are five categories in the competition: a prize for the best translation from each province and an overall prize for the best translation across the island of Ireland.

The list of 2024 winners:

The background to the competition

The first edition of the contest was launched in October 2017. It is open to pupils who are at least 15 years of age.

The competition is part of a wider effort to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of the full status of the Irish language as an official working language of the European Union. Since 1 January 2022, all legislation which is enacted in the Union is now translated into Irish (as was already the case for the other 23 official languages).  Moving forward the EU institutions need to ensure that they continue to have sufficient qualified staff to fulfil these new obligations.