Northside school calls for shoppers to buy Irish language Christmas cards

A local school is urging Christmas shoppers to deck their halls with festive cards that promote the Irish language.

Parents raising funds for Gaelscoil Áine on Mobhi Road, Drumcondra, are calling on shoppers to seek out cartaí nollaig with greetings in Irish to bring some cúpla focal to people’s homes.

“Christmas greetings in Irish are magical,” said Tarsila Krüse (pictured above), an award-winning children’s book illustrator and parent at Gaelscoil Áine who designed their new card collection for 2023.

“Cards with greetings in Irish really do stand out and help to increase the overall use of this beautiful language.

“We urge all shoppers to find Christmas cards with Irish well-wishes, ideally made locally by schools trying to raise money for classroom facilities like ours at Gaelscoil Áine.

“I designed a fresh set of ten cards this year for my son’s school that create a cosy feeling with drawings that are about getting close and connecting to those we love.”

The card’s cartoon characters include colourful cats and dogs, a book reading hedgehog, hot chocolate drinking birds and a very happy snail carrying Christmas gifts.

Parents at Gaelscoil Áine are selling their cards as a pack of ten different designs for €10 with all proceeds going to fund much needed educational resources and books.

Tarsila Krüse, who is originally from Brazil and living in north Dublin for almost 17 years, previously wrote and illustrated children’s stories for the RTÉ Guide Christmas editions in both 2019 and 2020.

Her work can also be found in books that include My Little Album of Ireland, Percy Péacóg, the award-winning Ná Gabh ar Scoil and Bliain na nAmhrán.

Gaelscoil Áine opened in September 2019 offering parents a new Irish-speaking co-educational and multi-denominational school for their children.

It is temporarily located in a building shared with the third-level Whitehall College of Further Education in Drumcondra while it awaits a permanent building from the Department of Education.

The Gaelscoil Áine Christmas cards can be bought on the Shop in Ireland website at https://www.shopinireland.ie/product/cartai-nollaig-irish-language-christmas-cards/