The website appears to be down!!

"á chraoladh ó chrann craolta sna sé chontae "
Oh be jaysus, that's a tongue twister! ;)

Good news though, John Wayne movies for the North.

goodness, another British Government language scheme to encourage the Irish language!

I await the flurry of thank-yous and compliments that will surely be forthcoming from the Irish speakers on the board.

anyone know how they got over the copyright issue?

Thanks British Government! (even though you tried to wipe out the language a hundred years ago ;))).

Interesting ;what of the reverse case - how do broadcasting rights work for UTV in its programmes been seen on South's cable networks?

Wow, Northern Ireland is becoming like a proper UK country.

...like Wales!

ok Maca, what did the Brits do in 1905 that was so terrible??

(suspect I'm going to regret asking..)

Notice the smiley. Lets not go down that road anyway.

Hey maca, Nach raibh an Eaglais Caitliceach nios mo ciontach na an Rialtas Briotanach faoi meath an Gaelige sna naou hais deag?

Ian O'Doherty in today's Irish Independent

First the Gaeltacht - next stop Hollywood!

Thursday January 13th 2005

This column is the first to admit that we got it spectacularly wrong when it came to TG4.

We had initially assumed it would become a ridiculous waste of licence-payers' money simply to keep a bunch of militant Gaeilgoiri happy.

But, we're happy to say, TG4 has become arguably Ireland's finest - and certainly most challenging - channel, so it's only fitting that its longest-running domestic production, Ros na Run, has been bought by an American television company.

WYBE Philadelphia, an independent public television station broadcasting to the greater Philadelphia region, has purchased the show and will begin broadcasting it shortly to its potential audience of 2.9 million households. Ros na Run is a soap, Jim, but not as we know it.

Apart from the fact that the female cast are as easy on the eye as anything you might expect from an American eye-candyfest, the acting is top notch, the direction is innovative and the plots are, frankly, so deranged that you couldn't help but fall in love with the show.

From the earliest episodes, when they portrayed a co-habiting gay couple with a maturity and matter-of-factness that has still not been mastered by their English rivals, there was always something impressively cocky about the programme, and that swagger has continued unrelentingly.

At the moment, viewers have been riveted by the storyline which involves a disabled woman paying another woman to have sex with her husband, the aftermath of a murder/suicide, the fact that someone is spiking the local water as well as the usual brand of heroic madness which characterises life in the weirdest village in Ireland.

Given the fact that we are periodically terrified by rumours that The Lyrics Board is being sold to other countries, further lowering our international reputation, it's genuinely cheering to see a great Irish programme get regular international exposure.

Although what the fourth generation Paddys will make of all the sex and language and violence in the auld sod is anyone's guess.

Metacom, to be honest, I don't know! The church certainly did have it's part to play but where you can apportion most blame I just don't know, no doubt British rule also took it's toll on the language (i'm talking more than just 19th C here).
Of course the blame for the state of the language in 2005 lies entirely with the Irish people.


Davros, cool, I never expected Ros to go international.

"Although what the fourth generation Paddys will make of all the sex and language and violence in the auld sod is anyone's guess."

Hey, we love sex and violence no matter where it takes place. We ARE Americans after all. :-)

I hope other PBS stations pick it up eventually, or maybe a cable network. I'd love to see it here.

What was metacom's point about the Church Maca ?

"Ros" sounds a bit like the wonderful Soap from the early '80's, Flamingo Road.

Dav, he was basically asking was the Catholic Church not more at fault than the Brits for the decline of the language. A good point of course.


I only watched Ros in the early days and thought it was awful muck, but apparently it has come on quite a bit. There's even a black guy speaking Irish in it, what's the world coming to at all at all.

I blame O'Connell

And claim that the language was saved from extinction by Presbyterians and the Ordnance Survey

anyway..

I see in the ATN that they have got past the copyright issue by blanking out the programmes where there are liscencing problems. The ATN complain that this is a fraud and that they want the whole of TG4.

Which is classic begrudgery because:
1) these programmes are in English
2) the reason there are liscencing issues are because they are being shown on UK stations anyway

D'Oracle,

I remmeber that UTV on cable used to blank out some programmes that were shown on ROI terrestial stations, although Home and Away is the only one i remember (and it's not on UTV any more)

i used to like RnR, the old men used to dander round speaking in proverbs while the young ones fought over which drugs were best- in Irish of course.. hilarious..