Mother Tongues

Mother Tongues is a social enterprise working to promote multilingualism and intercultural dialogue in Ireland.

Since our foundation in 2017 we have inspired many schools, libraries and community organisations to embrace multilingualism and act as catalysts for change, showing that Ireland welcomes all linguistic and cultural identities, and inspiring future generations of bilingual and multilingual children.

Our goal is to inspire everyone in society to be open to linguistic and cultural diversity and value the benefits that multilingualism brings to individuals, communities and to our society as a whole. Children can reach their full potential by developing English alongside Irish and their family language, but to do so they need parents who are motivated to keep up their mother tongue, teachers who are positive about every language and a society that welcomes linguistic diversity in all its forms.

This is why the projects we develop at Mother Tongues focus on children, by offering them opportunities to develop their language skills, parents, giving them the confidence to transmit their language to their children and teachers, enhancing their awareness of linguistically responsive practice. We work all over Ireland and collaborate with many organisations in the delivery of our programmes.