Minister Dara Calleary announces funding of €2 million for ABAIR project

Posted on: 10 December 2025

Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, Dara Calleary, announced over €2 million, over a five-year period, for Trinity's ABAIR project.

Based in the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, ABAIR focuses on developing a range of speech technologies and language facilities, and providing them to the Irish-speaking community. The project is led by Prof. Ailbhe Ní Chasaide and Dr Neasa Ní Chiaráin.

Prof. Ailbhe Ní Chasaide, Minister Calleary and Assistant Professor Neasa Ní Chiaráin.

The ABAIR.ie website provides educational facilities for Irish language teachers and learners. ABAIR voices and linguistic technologies are used for the acquisition of speech, writing, listening and reading skills.

Minister Calleary congratulated the team at the Phonetics and Speech Laboratory of Trinity for the ambitious and forward-thinking work they are undertaking, and said: 

“Irish-language technology and resources are vital for ensuring that the language benefits from the possibilities created by technologies for people who wish to learn and use the language in every area of their lives. The core speech and language systems being developed by ABAIR are especially important, and they will enable us to provide bilingual services to public bodies, to the education sector and to the accessibility sector.”

Speaking about the new funding for ABAIR, the Provost of Trinity Dr Linda Doyle, said:

“It is fantastic to see this announcement of funding for the ABAIR IV initiative from the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht.

“This funding acknowledges the important and pioneering work being carried out by the ABAIR research team to develop state-of-the-art AI technologies for the Irish language. Fusing technology and Irish language linguistics, this interdisciplinary team is producing advanced technologies, which are faithful to the structure of the language, to the native dialects and to the needs of a host of different end users.”

Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, Dara Calleary

In recent years, the ABAIR team has developed facilities for people with disabilities and people with learning difficulties, such as Geabaire – an AAC communications system (with spoken output) for those without speech, which is currently needed for autistic children; and a screenreader for those without sight.

At the event in Trinity, Minister Calleary also launched two new speech technologies developed by ABAIR. Two new synthetic ABAIR voices – Na Déise (Waterford voice) and Gaoth Dobhair (Donegal, voice, male). He also launched 'Fotheidil' – a new platform to auto-transcribe audio and/or video files. It uses the speech recognition system ABAIR-ÉIST.

Over the next five years, ABAIR will focus on additional developments in speech and language technologies for the Irish language, as well as developing native Large Language Models.

Irish language version available here. 

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