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First English-Irish dictionary published since 1959

Fóras na Gaeilge DictionaryFóras na Gaeilge

The first major English-Irish dictionary to be published since 1959 is to be unveiled by the Irish President Michael D Higgins on Friday.

Pádraig Ó Mianáin, chief editor of the Concise English-Irish Dictionary, said it will "modern Irish as it is spoken".

The publication features 1.8m words across 1,800 pages.

Among the new entries there are translations for social distancing (scaradh sóisialta) and home office (oifig bhaile).

Pádraig Ó Mianáin told RTÉ: "Not alone does it cover modern English, but also modern Irish as it is spoken.

"It reflects modern dictionaries and as older dictionaries would've been much more formal," he continued.

"All modern dictionaries are more democratic, they reflect the language that is spoken.

"The last dictionary that came out in '59 didn't even contain the word 'computer'."

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The dictionary has been produced by Fóras na Gaeilge and contains 30,000 entries.

Mr Ó Mianáin said it was initially due for publication in early 2020, but was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.