Conchúr Ó Giollagáin

Conchúr Ó Giollagáin was appointed to the Gaelic Research Professorship in the University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland in April 2014. He is also the academic director of Soillse, a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research project. He is based at Scotland’s national college for Gàidhlig, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, on the Isle of Skye.

Conchúr Ó Giollagáin has led extensive research projects and post-graduate initiatives in language planning and minority language culture and sociology. He has written extensively on issues concerning the sustainability of minority cultures, especially the Gaeltacht communities in Ireland.

Conchúr previously lectured in the School of Political Science and Sociology in the National University of Ireland Galway on the sociology of language. His teaching and research interests include language planning, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. Previously, he was the Head of the Language Planning Unit in Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, where he devised and lead Ireland’s first MA programme in Language Planning. He also contributed to the development of the Acadamh’s MA in Language Sciences. He co-authored the government-commissioned Gaeltacht survey Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Use of Irish in the Gaeltacht (2007). Conchúr received his PhD in Modern Irish from UCD and he also lectured in the Department of Irish in St. Patrick’s College, Dublin City University, and in the Department of Celtic Studies in the Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. He is an external fellow of the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where he has contributed to a variety of research projects examining different aspects of the language dynamics and linguistic anthropology of minority language culture.