Anglo-Irish relations have reached an all-time high with the news that a British company has won a contract for work on a new English-Irish dictionary for Foras na Gaeilge.
The dictionary will be aimed at a wide readership and comes almost 50 years after de Bhaldraithe's English-Irish Dictionary was published.
LexMC, based in Lewes, East Sussex, tendered for phase 2A of the project and won the contract ahead of an Irish and an Indian company.
Project manager Cathal Convery said this phase of work involved writing the English half of the dictionary. The next phase would involve translating the words into Irish, while the final phase would involve editing.
"It does seem strange that we should offer the contract to an English company, but this phase does not require any expertise in the Irish language," he said.
Mr Convery said the project needed people with substantial experience in lexicography. "That level of expertise is not easily found," he said.
According to Foras na Gaeilge, LexMC's directors have an unrivalled portfolio of experience of production of dictionaries "and an outstanding record of innovation in the fields of lexicography and lexical computing".
However, the contract stipulates that the LexMC team will have to include someone who is fluent in Hiberno-English. Mr Convery said words such as eejit or press (as in cupboard) might not be familiar to many British people.
He pointed out that LexMC had also worked on phase one of the project, which involved preparatory work such as design.
Foras na Gaeilge expects to issue a request for tenders for the translation stage of the project in April.
LexMC's work on the project is expected to take more than two years. Mr Convery said the new English-Irish dictionary should be ready in late 2011 or early 2012.
It will be published in electronic and print formats and will have 50,000 head words. It will also include all relevant meanings of the words, with examples, as well as grammatical and functional details and other background information.
Mr Convery said de Bhaldraithe's English-Irish Dictionary was now "way out of date" and there was a great need for a new, comprehensive, modern dictionary that would include references to new technologies and other modern innovations.
