Nidge takes on Joe in Gaeltacht showdown

A cartoon featuring the RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta broadcaster Máirtín Tom Sheáinín interviewing himself has proved the biggest hit so far for Tuairisc.ie, the new online news service in Irish.

The website's second cartoon, which was released last night, features the unlikely duo of Joe McHugh, the Minister for the Gaeltacht, and Nidge, the fictional gangland leader from the popular RTÉ drama Love/Hate.

Editor Seán Tadhg Ó Gairbhí is hoping that the new animation will prove as popular as the Máirtín Tom Sheáinín animation.

“ We’ve been delighted with the response so far. The premise is simple, if a little surreal: Joe McHugh and Nidge end up in the Gaeltacht for different reasons. The Minister is a bit more enthuasiastic about learning the language than Nidge, which leads to some tension,” said Ó Gairbhí.

Joe McHugh famously spent a week learning Irish in the Donegal Gaeltacht during the summer after he was promoted to the Gaeltacht ministry by Enda Kenny despite being less than fluent in the langauge.

Tuairisc.ie was launched on the 9th of October by former head of TG4 and RTÉ, Cathal Goan, who urged the new website to keep a close eye on the Government and their Irish-language policy in particular.

The editor of Tuairisc.ie was “very pleased” with the reaction to the new service: “We’re delighted with the feedback particularly from people in the Gaeltacht and daily speakers of the language, our core audience. It’s early days and we’re still gathering information, but the figures so far are very encouraging.

“We have a good mix of national and international news, analysis, sport culture and lifestyle. We also have a special section, which is being developed at the moment, for Leaving Certificate students and learners of all ages.”

It is the stories that relate to Irish-language issues that are proving most popular with readers, however.

“That is one of the most striking things about our first few weeks on line. They may protest to the contrary on occasion, but it seems the Irish-speaking community wants news and analysis relating to Irish language issues, issues that are ignored to a large extent by most other media,” said Ó Gairbhí.

Even with the benefit of online analytics, it can still be difficult to predict what the public will take in an interest in: “We spent weeks before our launch preparing FOI requests, researching stories, organizing opinion polls and carefully choosing our contributors. After all that, our biggest ratings success to date has been a three-minute animation of Máirtín Tom Sheáinín interviewing himself!”

LINK - http://tuairisc.ie/fisean-asnc-nidge-vs-joe/