The potty tale of Harry in Irish

It's a challenge that may be beyond even Harry Potter's magical powers.

An evil hag called Peig Sayers has stolen the happiness of several generations of Irish students, in a deranged attempt to achieve immortality. Once compulsory, her story has been downgraded to optional status by brave educationalists, but continues to haunt school corridors across the land.

Can Harry now finish the job, finally banishing Peig back to the Isles of Blasket and replacing her on the curriculum himself?

Yes, it seems far-fetched. Yet the possibility arises because JK Rowling's epoch-making debut novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has just been translated into Irish.

Complete with rave review on the cover from the Times Literary Supplement ("Is iontach go deo an cuimhneamh é Hogwarts"), the book will shortly appear on bookshelves here as Harry Potter agus an Orchloch.

And while talk of its inclusion in the curriculum might be premature, publishers Bloombury have already nudged the Department of Education's elbow, despatching copies to a gaelscoil in north Dublin as an experiment.

Irish is not the first minority language to get its own version of Harry's adventures. The Philosopher's Stone has already been translated into ancient Greek, ancient Latin, and modern Welsh.

The Irish edition is by Máire Nic Mhaoláin, researcher in Irish at the University of Ulster, whose job was made easier as the publishers forbade any translation of names and proper nouns. "Except for the ghosts - I got away with renaming some of them," she said.

The book will be officially launched in Galway early next month. In the meantime, Bloomsbury refuses to discuss expected sales, but the print-run is believed to be 10,000. A spokesman said that, for now, there are no plans to translate other titles in the series.