Building business with the cúpla focal

The commercial community in Ennis is being urged to show they mean business when it comes to using the cúpla focal in a bid to bring more shoppers to the town.
Inis Dom!, a project organised by the Ennis branch of Conradh na Gaeilge, is set to be launched in the town on October 20 in the Temple Gate Hotel.
The initiative aims to bring businesses together to promote shopping through the medium of Irish in Ennis, and participation is free. Through Inis Dom!, the use and visibility of Irish in the town is set to be increased. It is anticipated this will raise the local and national profile of Ennis as a centre of excellence in the promotion of traditional culture and make it a more attractive visitor destination.
According to Domhnall Ó Loingsigh of Conradh na Gaeilge, Inis, “This is a way of showing that Gaeilge can really be made use of. The name of this project is Inis Dom!, which has two meanings, ‘Ennis for me’ or ‘Tell me about it’.
“Now we want to tell everybody about it, we want to tell people that it’s their language and their choice. The main objective of this is to make Ennis a unique bilingual shopping destination and traders will benefit from the increased focus on the town. We want to make the commercial sector aware of the opportunities that participating in a scheme like this can present.
“The concept is simple, it’s direct and it won’t require any major investment. This is about offering people something different that they won’t get in other shopping towns and making Ennis an even more attractive place to visit.
“Tourists come to Ireland to savour the Irish culture and this is about promoting that culture along with raising product profiles, attracting more customers and developing our unique Ennis brand. This could ultimately raise profit shares for everybody concerned and bring some prosperity to the town,” he explained.
Explaining where the idea for the initiative came from he said, “As part of the Clár as Gaeilge strategic plan, we have always envisaged that the integration of the commercial community of the town is very important in promoting the Irish traditional image of the town.
“When people come into the town and they see Irish on the shop fronts, it portrays a very distinctive traditional image. Furthermore, Ennis is the traditional music capital of the country, renowned for its traditional music and song. It’s only natural that this would branch out to include the Irish language.
“We are also working on the successes of Glór na Gael down through the years. We have won it four times, more than any other town in the country and the time is now right to promote Irish in the commercial sector.
“The promotion of Irish in Ennis as an everyday language has never been as strong. Under the direction of An Clár as Gaeilge Teo, a series of events and opportunities for promoting the language are organised throughout the year, which have had a major public impact and have put Ennis to the forefront of centres of excellence of promotion of Irish in the country.”
He explained that through Inis Dom! a central source of information will be provided to businesses who wish to use the Irish language as a practical and productive business tool.
“We have thought long and hard about how we would approach this, rather than just producing materials and bombarding shop keepers and office operators and proprietors. One of the key elements of the project will be the availability of material and promotional images of Irish. But the other key element is the back-up that we will provide.”
As part of the initiative, participating businesses will receive a number of supports including information on the advantages of marketing through Irish; assistance in devising promotional strategies to meet their own needs; support and advice on an ongoing basis; provision of Irish language advertising material; provision of Irish in-house promotional and information material; a comprehensive translation service and assistance in identifying promotional and advertising opportunities.
The project is being promoted by Conradh na Gaeilge under the An Clár as Gaeilge community partnership scheme and is funded by Foras na Gaeilge as part of the Gnó Means Business programme.
“The Gnó Means Business branding campaign aims to facilitate and increase the practical use of Irish within the business sector. We strongly believe the Irish language can be a great advantage to every type of business in various ways, even if you don’t have fluent Irish.
“Recent times have seen the practice of bilingualism become increasingly popular in both the public and private sectors and accompanying English, the unique characteristics of the Irish language are being effectively harnessed by the business community as a marketing tool on signage, stationery, packaging and advertisements,” he outlined.
He explained that business people who want to get involved can do so at a variety of levels according to their own needs.
“We will be organising a number of seminars down the line to give people an opportunity to brush up on their Irish skills and this will be entirely focused on the needs of servicing customers,” explained Domhnall.
Businesses interested in getting involved with the project are being urged to come along to the launch night and see exactly what is being planned.
Information leaflets are currently being distributed throughout the town and businesses who have not received one are being asked to go to the launch or contact An Clár as Gaeilge for information on 065 6864474.