An event being billed as Ireland's biggest contemporary Irish-language arts festival will be held in Galway city in October.
Feile 2000 is being co-ordinated by the Town Hall Theatre manager, Michael Diskin, and its programme includes a production in Irish of Martin McDonagh's celebrated play The Beauty Queen of Leenane - Banrion Ailinn Lionan - which is being produced by Town Hall, as well as a new play from the Abbey Theatre, an art exhibition featuring work from Irish-speaking artists, and a series of readings, concerts, new films and debates, with Irish, Scottish and Welsh participants.
The aim is to produce a broad-based programme of high-quality Irish-language events, says Mr Diskin, who is neither a native Irish speaker nor a graduate in the language but who is interested in its future and has strong opinions on the role Irish can play in the arts world.
It has already influenced English-language writers such as Synge and Martin McDonagh: now it's time to give it central stage, he says.
While accepting that this festival is aimed at a minority audience he argues that other minority arts groups are catered for successfully and uses the Cuirt Literature Festival, also held in Galway and focusing totally on literature, as an example of this.
He is delighted to have McDonagh's play, which he says has been translated by Connemara's foremost Irish-language writer, Micheal O Conghaile, and which he feels is returning to its roots by being presented in Irish.
Feile 2000 is being supported by local authorities, arts groups and Irish-language bodies in Galway, and TnaG will hold its annual Musician of the Year Award to coincide with the event.