Some Transfer Problems in translating between English and Irish

There are two native languages in Ireland, Irish and English. All parliamentary proceedings have to appear in both languages. Owing to the sheer volume of work, and the fact that there is an insufficient number of translators capable of performing the task, there is currently a five year backlog in translation. It is apparent that the translators’ workload could be significantly alleviated if an English-Irish MT system were to be developed. This paper outlines some of the problems involved, and describes future intentions.