“We are delighted to win Gradam Seosaimh Uí Ógartaigh 2018, this award means so much to our team as we have been working towards a bilingual business for the past 4 years. This year, to win the overall award recognises 
the enthusiasm and dedication that we have for the Irish language and realise the importance of promoting Galway as Ireland’s only bilingual city.
In the past year The Connacht Hospitality Group has grown immensely, we are proud to have 7 businesses that are all now using the language, and so many staff that are proud to speak Irish in the workplace. Irish is part of our marketing and digital strategy, and the group has over 300K followers which is a huge influence to have. We really enjoy coming up with quirky video campaigns to promote the language, like or recent Hector and Bundi Aki video and our video of a Canadian member of staff who gets Irish lessons on Shop Street from locals, and a local celeb! All can be viewed on The Connacht Hotel YouTube page. Other ideas such as our #AgFanachtSaConnacht to bring the language into the current social media setting and make it trendy!
This year we introduced a new Irish reading section in our Library area at reception, to complement our Irish Reading library in Friendly Fellows Kids Club. We designed badges of honour for each business to promote on their ads, that we are supporting Galway as a bilingual city, and we have a beautiful mural in the lobby of the hotel to welcome guests, which reads: “Bíonn siúlach scéalach; he who travels has many tales.” This compliments the work that we have incorporated over the past 4 years from our welcome signs, to our menus, from in room information to hotel brochures.
We look forward to continuing our work with Gaillimh le Gaeilge, and our journey is by no means over, we still have lots to do, as the world of marketing evolves so will our use of Irish in it, we plan to have Irish on our website in the coming weeks and look forward to continuing our relationship with the wonderful team in Gaillimh le Gaeilge who provide such critical supports to us! Go raibh míle maith agat!”
Emma Dillon-Leetch, Marketing Manager, The Connacht Hotel
