Skip to content

m4cd4r4/cupla-focail

BranchesTags

Repository files navigation

Cupla Focail — Irish-English Dictionary

Live: https://cuplafocail.ie · API: https://cuplafocail.ie/api/search

A free, open-source Irish-English dictionary with 135,708 entries across 35 categories. Built from four open data sources and designed to be integrated into Irish language apps, learning tools, and messaging platforms.

Integration Options

Option 1 — Widget (1 line of HTML)

Drop a floating Irish dictionary button onto any web page:

<script src="https://cuplafocail.ie/widget.js" defer></script>

A 🍀 button appears in the bottom-right corner. Click to open a full dictionary panel.

Options via data-* attributes:

<script
  src="https://cuplafocail.ie/widget.js"
  data-position="bottom-left"
  data-color="#16a34a"
  data-category="greetings"
  defer
></script>
Attribute Default Options
data-position bottom-right bottom-left
data-color #16a34a Any CSS color
data-category (none) Any category name

Option 2 — iframe Embed

Embed the full dictionary UI inside your app:

<iframe
  src="https://cuplafocail.ie/embed"
  width="100%"
  height="600"
  style="border:none; border-radius:12px;"
  title="Irish-English Dictionary"
  loading="lazy"
></iframe>

Pre-select a category:

<iframe src="https://cuplafocail.ie/embed?category=greetings" ...></iframe>

Available categories: family, greetings, emotions, conversation, food, home, time, nature, body, school, travel, numbers, colors, common, health, weather, sports, work, places, clothing, music, culture, animals, plants, religion, mythology, science, technology, agriculture, arts, geography, law, politics, military, business

Option 3 — REST API

Language-agnostic. Works with any backend or mobile app.

# Search (English or Irish, fada-insensitive)
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/search?q=mother
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/search?q=máthair
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/search?q=mathair   # same result

# Filter by category + limit
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/search?q=hello&category=greetings&limit=10

# Filter by data source
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/search?source=lsg,wiktionary

# All categories with counts
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/categories

# All sources with counts
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/sources

# Word of the day (deterministic per calendar day)
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/word-of-the-day

# Single entry by ID
GET https://cuplafocail.ie/api/entry/mathair

Response schema:

{
  "entries": [
    {
      "id": "mathair",
      "irish": "máthair",
      "english": "mother",
      "englishAlt": ["mom", "mam", "mammy"],
      "partOfSpeech": "noun",
      "category": "family",
      "gender": "feminine",
      "pronunciation": "/ˈmˠɑːhəɾʲ/",
      "inflections": ["máthar", "máithreacha", "máitheacha"],
      "source": "curated",
      "searchTerms": ["mathair", "mother", "mom", "mam", "mammy", "mathar", "maithreacha"]
    }
  ],
  "total": 3,
  "query": "mother"
}

All API endpoints return Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * — safe to call from any origin.

Option 4 — npm Package (TypeScript/JavaScript)

Zero dependencies, works in React, Vue, Svelte, Next.js, Node.js, Deno:

npm install irish-dictionary
import { DICTIONARY_ENTRIES, search, wordOfTheDay } from 'irish-dictionary';

// Search English -> Irish
const results = search(DICTIONARY_ENTRIES, 'mother');

// Search Irish -> English (fada-insensitive)
const results2 = search(DICTIONARY_ENTRIES, 'mathair');

// Filter by category
const family = search(DICTIONARY_ENTRIES, '', { category: 'family', limit: 50 });

// Word of the day
const wotd = wordOfTheDay(DICTIONARY_ENTRIES);
console.log(`${wotd.irish} - ${wotd.english}`);

-> npm package repo

Data

135,708 entries across 35 categories from four open data sources:

Source License Entries Notes
Hand-curated MIT 28,553 Original entries — highest quality
LSG Irish WordNet GFDL 1.2+ 73,863 Irish WordNet with noun/verb/adj/adv
Wiktextract (kaikki.org) CC BY-SA 4.0 33,292 IPA pronunciations, inflected forms
ParaCrawl v9 CC0 — Pending (Phase 5)

Coverage by category:

Category Irish Entries
common coitianta 105,273
body corp 2,966
food bia 2,559
colors dathanna 2,008
time am 1,457
nature nádúr 1,533
animals ainmhithe 1,738
numbers uimhreacha 1,614
home baile 1,310
arts ealaíona 1,290
travel taisteal 1,283
school scoil 1,152
weather aimsir 1,124
sports spórt 1,016
clothing éadaí 968
family teaghlach 959
health sláinte 848
military míleata 813
health sláinte 848
conversation comhrá 752
work obair 601
places áiteanna 593
emotions mothúcháin 527
geography tíreolaíocht 466
plants plandaí 415
greetings beannachtaí 379
law dlí 378
music ceol 612
culture cultúr 329
religion reiligiún 137
agriculture talmhaíocht 144
technology teicneolaíocht 133
business gnó 147
politics polaitíocht 95
mythology miotaseolaíocht 58
science eolaíocht 31

Entry structure:

interface DictionaryEntry {
  id: string;               // ASCII slug: "mathair"
  irish: string;            // with fadas: "máthair"
  english: string;          // primary: "mother"
  englishAlt?: string[];    // alternatives: ["mom", "mam"]
  partOfSpeech: PartOfSpeech;
  category: DictionaryCategory;
  gender?: 'masculine' | 'feminine';
  pronunciation?: string;   // IPA: "/ˈmˠɑːhəɾʲ/" (13k+ entries)
  inflections?: string[];   // declined/conjugated forms (97k+ entries)
  source?: DataSource;      // 'curated' | 'lsg' | 'wiktionary' | 'paracrawl'
  searchTerms: string[];    // pre-computed, fada-stripped, lowercase
}

Data Pipeline

The dictionary is built from open data sources using a Python pipeline in scripts/:

cd scripts
pip install -r requirements.txt

python import_lsg.py        # LSG Irish WordNet (.po files)
python import_wiktionary.py # kaikki.org JSONL dump (~111 MB)
python import_gramadan.py   # BuNaMo morphology (inflections)
python merge.py             # merge all sources -> irish-dictionary-data.json

Output: src/data/irish-dictionary-data.json (53 MB, ~136k entries)

Local Development

git clone https://github.com/m4cd4r4/cupla-focail
cd cupla-focail
npm install
npm run dev        # -> http://localhost:5173

Routes:

  • / — Full demo app
  • /embed — Minimal iframe-embeddable view
  • /embed?category=greetings — Pre-filtered embed
  • /api/search?q=mother — REST API (Vercel Functions)
  • /widget.js — Embeddable floating button script

Deploy Your Own

One-click deploy to Vercel (free):

Deploy with Vercel

# Or via CLI
npm install -g vercel
vercel --prod

Domain & DNS Configuration

cuplafocail.ie is registered at hostingireland.ie and pointed to Vercel.

DNS Records

Name TTL Type Record
cuplafocail.ie 14400 A 76.76.21.21
www.cuplafocail.ie 14400 CNAME cname.vercel-dns.com

Tech Stack

  • Vite + React 18 + TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS — dark Celtic theme
  • React Router — / and /embed routes
  • Vercel — hosting + Node.js serverless API function
  • Python data pipeline — scripts/ (import_lsg, import_wiktionary, import_gramadan, merge)

Contributing

Contributions welcome — especially:

  • Additional curated entries (accuracy over quantity)
  • Example sentences
  • Grammar notes (verb conjugations, declensions)
  • Corrections to existing entries

Please open an issue before large PRs.

Related

  • irish-dictionary — npm package (data + search logic only)
  • Chlann — Irish-language family messaging app (where this dictionary originated)

License

MIT © Macdara Mac Domhnaill

Dictionary data licenses:

  • LSG Irish WordNet entries: GFDL 1.2+ (tagged source: 'lsg')
  • Wiktextract entries: CC BY-SA 4.0 (tagged source: 'wiktionary')
  • Hand-curated + ParaCrawl entries: MIT / CC0

Go n-éirí leat le do chuid Gaeilge! — Good luck with your Irish!

About

Foclóir — Irish-English Dictionary. Free demo app, embeddable widget, REST API, and npm package. 2003 curated entries, 22 categories.

cuplafocail.ie

Topics

ireland gaelic gaeilge irish-language

Resources

Readme
Activity

Stars

0 stars

Watchers

0 watching

Forks

0 forks
Report repository

Releases

No releases published

Packages

 
 
 

Contributors

Languages