Irish Sign Language

Uh, beside him, Dr. Andrea Mulligan of the School of Law, who's an expert in medical law and bioethics.

And beside her, Dr. John Bosco Conama, who is director of Trinity's Center for Deaf Studies, and whose work looks at the Irish Sign Language, language rights, equality, and social justice.

And I will take my seat over, uh, at the side.

But I might begin with an opening question for everyone.

Uh, some people have asked me why have I researched that, because that's often how society treats people.

You can find out using comparisons of v- views at th- at that time.

Uh, research, and quality of ISL subtitles, and Irish Sign Language used on the media.

Uh, so you can see it's very, very varied.

Kicking off yesterday, the next few days mark Irish Sign Language Awareness Week in Ireland, and it also coincides with International Week of Deaf People.

Alongside awareness campaigns and increased efforts to recognize the rights of deaf communities, this week is a celebration of Irish Sign Language.

My next guests have helped to create a beautiful celebration of Irish language in their film, A Quiet Love, or An Ghrá Ciúin.

Sean Herlihy is a deaf broadcaster and interpreter, and Anne He- Heffernan, an award-winning producer, who will be interpreting for Sean through today's interview.

They had kind of maybe little home signs, their own ways of communicating.

And then my younger sister is, uh, hearing, and she became an ISL interpreter, learning sign from the three of us, from her older siblings."

We're here today celebrating Irish Sign Language Awareness Week, but also the film, A Quiet Love.

Um, you were both producers on the film.

So that's easily available if you search on the National Maternity Hospital website, um, and it provides really good information.

It's available in 12 languages, including Irish Sign Language.

Um, so if anyone wants more information-

Yeah

Dignity is Amanda Coogan's adaptation of the Irish playwright Teresa Deevy's play.

Coogan takes moments from Deevy's original text and transforms them into a series of visual poems in Irish Sign Language.

The production celebrates the richness of ISL and the stories held within the deaf community, while also exploring deaf experience from the history of speech training and the pressure to conform to a hearing world.

Dignity asks who gets to speak, who is heard, and who tells the story.

You know, if you want a cup of tea or you're a bit thirsty or that in school that you had to say it.

Did it feel like a less rich way of communicating?

Now I'm very biased, Rick, I'm very biased because I do think the expressiveness of sign language and of course my mother tongue Irish sign language is incredible.

You know, with English, we have to think word for, you know, it comes out in a linear word and words are, you know, we build the richness of the sentence or the concept through each word that we put together.

We're joined now on the show by Katie Smith, who's a mother from Fiechel, raising awareness of the Irish Sign Language and the importance of communication and inclusion for profoundly deaf children.

Katie's own son faces significant challenges communicating with children his own age, and she's passionate about ensuring that sign language is more widely available in schools and she's also helping to organise a fundraiser on the 25th of September with a fantastic line-up of local performers all in support of Irish Sign Language lessons and also joining us along with Katie is hurling analyst Tommy Gilfoyle and you're both very welcome to the show and Katie, I would love you to maybe tell us a bit about your son and the challenges he faces when communicating with other children his own age.

Hi, yeah, good morning.

So Porrick's like every other lad.

so it's very difficult.

I mean, children like to communicate and they all give him a thumbs up and they'll all give him a smile and they're very inclusive, but he's 10 years old he wants more than just um you know he wants more than just a thumbs up he wants to talk about his hobbies he wants to talk about you know what's going on um he wants to be invited to birthday parties and things like that so um it's it is it is challenging um living in a rural area there aren't many other deaf children around so by introducing some sign language into the village it will make a huge difference to him i mean Like I say, everybody is so supportive.

The amount of people that have said to me, you know, can we get some sign language lessons? And there is actually a scene where the schools can get free sign language lessons and the schools through Languages Connect because Irish sign language is actually the third recognised language of the Irish state.

And I think it'd be fair to say maybe a lot of people don't even realise that.

So I really hope to, if I see a situation where somebody is lonely, I hope to be able to step into it.

I've developed a... wonderful um friendship over the last few years uh with a deaf man in the community that i live in um who uh yeah doesn't uh get to have an awful lot of conversations the people around him don't don't sign um and uh you know sometimes people will write notes to him but he can't always read their handwriting um and so i uh Yeah, he taught me the alphabet in Irish Sign Language.

And so I would spell a word to him and he would sign it back to me.

And I would learn the sign.

I really, I don't, in any formal sense, don't have a very good grasp of Irish sign language as a language.

But what I do have is a good knowledge of how to use signed English, which means that I do get to have a conversation with him.

I get to sit down with him and have a conversation.

And yeah, and just...

And I was very young, I was just finishing college.

And so here in Clare, we set up the Disabled People of Clare and nationally was the Forum of People with Disabilities and the Centre for Independent Living and we were the first three DPOs as they're called nationally and then more flourished and of course the stronger we got at campaigning we were able to highlight the issues we now know the expression nothing about us without us and so through that great work we were able to highlight what was going on internationally what needed to be done and we're campaigning and so it was affecting change and so we are 21 years into the disability act which is a terrible act but in it it did put and the responsibility on local authorities or the state as part time of the building regulations so if i was to choose one outcome from that piece of legislation it would be the physical infrastructure and is significantly improving and there is a recognition of Irish Sign Language for deaf people as well.

But I suppose we recognise state agencies as having responsibility, but then is there sufficient funding and support and resources for community groups, like I think you're alluding to here locally, to have the resources so that every public space no matter whether it's sports, whether it's arts, whether it's work or services, whether we're in a shop or in a cafe, that my euro has the same value as yours.

And the right to participate and our cultural rights, our economic rights, the state has a responsibility to support small businesses and services and community organisations to ensure that we're all compliant with equality legislation.

And then-

It's an ISL, um, Irish Sign Language supported, I think, as well, is it?

Ah, yes.

That's what it was.