<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">SignWriting List<DIV>November 7, 2005</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Hello Thierry, Kathleen, Shane, and especially Ingvild!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It is fun to read your messages about SignWriting in Ireland! I have the wonderful and important task, right now, to read-through Ingvild Roald's new textbook on SignWriting...it has not gone to press yet...and I am enjoying editing it, and it is a very good book, Ingvild!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Ingvild was the first person to teach SignWriting in Ireland (that I know of)...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>SignWriting began in Dublin around 1994, with three groups...Ingvild taught the group that Patrick Matthews worked with, at the Linguistic Institute. They had a big project around 1995, and there were a group of Deaf people who learned SignWriting from Ingvild...they used SignWriter DOS on computers in a group...and then two books were published from that research...and the second book, which is a good one, has a dictionary in the back with SignWriting next to life-like illustrations, and that dictionary was written by Patrick Matthews...I will try to write a more formal history of SignWriting in Ireland later, after I finish reading Ingvild's new textbook in Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And yes...5 people came to visit me after the last Deaf Way Conference at Gallaudet...three from Dublin and one from Switizerland-and one from Norway, and Patrick Matthews was one of the three from Dublin...they stayed here as my guests for two weeks and I edited Patrick's book for his dissertation...Happy you met Patrick, Kathleen and Thierry!</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So there has been over a decade of work with SignWriting in Ireland, before we met Shane in Northern Ireland in 2004-2005...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Maybe next time Thierry, you can discuss this with Patrick...I bet Patrick will be glad to know you use SignWriting too...Val ;-)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>PS. Here is an old history write-up on SignWriting in Ireland that needs to be updated:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">HISTORY OF SIGNWRITING IN IRELAND</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Group 1: The Linguistics Institute of Ireland, directed by Eoghan Mac Aogain, had many linguistic projects. One of them, The Irish Sign Language Project, directed by Patrick Matthews, was funded in 1994 by the Irish government. SignWriting was used to create Irish Sign Language dictionaries. Ingvild Roald from Norway taught a SignWriting workshop to the group in 1994. They presented a proposal to the Irish government for a continuation of the project in 1995.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">In Autumn, 1996, the Irish Sign Language Project came to a close. Two very impressive volumes were published, one on the history of the Deaf Community in Ireland, and the second on the language. The second publication included a dictionary of ISL in life-like illustrations along side of SignWriting...by Patrick Matthews. As far as we know, that was the first publication to use SignWriting in Ireland.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">------------------</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Group 2: The Irish Deaf Society, directed by Helena Saunders, a separate group in Dublin, also used Sign Writing. They made plans for over 20 Deaf signers to learn SignWriting. They were disappointed when more funding could not be found.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">-------------------</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Group 3: The Sign Language Association of Ireland, directed at the time by Hugh Buckley, began to use the SignWriter Computer Program, starting in the Fall, 1995. </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">------------------------</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Group 4: A decade later, in 2004-2005, interest started to stir in Northern Ireland...I will let Shane accurately tell us how that happened... ;-))))</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And the rest is history to be written!! smile...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Val ;-)</DIV></BODY></HTML>