About This Project

Údarás na Gaeltachta (UnG)

Development of the Údarás na Gaeltachta Data Insights Hub

Client Overview:

The overall objective of Údarás na Gaeltachta is to ensure that Irish remains the main communal language of the Gaeltacht and is passed on to future generations. The Údarás endeavours to achieve that objective by funding and fostering a wide range of enterprise development and job creation initiatives and by supporting strategic language, cultural and community-based activities.

Task:

The Gaeltacht region is a uniquely dispersed geographical area consisting of seven counties (Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry, Cork, Waterford and Meath) that account for a total population of 100k (2022). The challenge for People and Place was to offer both an overview of the entire Gaeltacht region and also allow for a detailed analysis at the small area level and address the lack of data sharing across the organisation. There was a need for on-going access to data on demographics, economy, environment, planning and construction, and the location of public, social and cultural services for day-to-day use.

Approach:

To address the data challenge, a central access point (ESRI ArcGIS Hub) for both spatial and non-spatial data was developed for policy development and to monitor strategic objectives. The solution needed to cater to a broad range of users, including management teams and board members for the internal hub, and policymakers and the public for the external hub. A suite of detailed tools and resources were created using custom applications including interactive dashboards, WebMaps and StoryMaps. Eleven thematic dashboards were built to analyse Census 2022 data, integrating summary statistics across the seven Gaeltacht areas, 26 Language Planning Areas, and every Small Area.

Results:

The project has developed a fully bilingual data hub and functions as a research and planning resource for Údarás na Gaeltachta and manages data from many accredited and diverse public sources (CSO, EPA, SEAI, Failte Ireland, WDC, NPWS etc.). It also includes bespoke data generated from the organisation’s internal reporting and monitoring functions. Using a variety of dashboards and mapping tools, the data hub provides an effective and efficient means by which contextual data from multiple external and internal sources can be accessed, compared, interpreted, integrated and presented in an accessible, user-friendly mode (visually and linguistically). It can be used in the development of strategic policy, case-making for funding supports, generating reports on activity which will lead to an improved comprehension across the functional disciplines of the organisation of the challenges faced at individual community levels across the Gaeltacht communities allowing for the generation of relevant comparators and benchmarking exercises.