The National Relay Station (NRS) was rebranded today as eSTÓR. This national portal  houses translation data for Irish and enables it to be shared and collected among public institutions. The portal was developed by researchers at the SFI ADAPT Centre for AI-Driven Digital Content Technology who continue to lead the project out of Dublin City University.  The new eSTÓR platform enables those working with Irish in public administration across Ireland to collect and share translated documents via a dedicated online platform. This language data, depending on licensing agreements, can be shared nationally and  relayed to the European Commission to improve their eTranslation system for Irish.  Overall, the aim of eSTÓR is to reduce national translation costs and to support the development of translation technology for the Irish language.

The eSTÓR platform serves to improve Irish public services by helping to ensure that more national and European public services are available through Irish.  The result is a greater presence of Irish in public life and a broader Irish ‘digital footprint’ for our native language. In addition, by sharing data as Open Data with eSTÓR, public administrators are helping to strengthen the EU’s data economy.

Speaking about eSTÓR, ADAPT researcher Dr Teresa Lynn said: “I’m really delighted to see this data portal being revamped and relaunched today. The portal was originally established as part of a European project, but since it has taken up its place as the backbone of our AI language data sharing infrastructure, it’s wonderful to see how this redesign specifically addresses our national needs in terms of advancing Irish language technology.”

The rebrand of the NRS to eSTÓR is timely with the recent amendment of the Irish Languages Act, which was signed into Irish law on the 22nd of December 2021 along with the lifting of the Derogation Act on the Irish language in the EU at the beginning of January 2022. eSTÓR will help to provide digital resources for public bodies, and support the growing demand for Irish language translation.