This year Wikimedia Community Ireland hosted the Celtic Knot Wikimedia Languages Conference, in partnership with Wikimedia UK supported by funding from the Wikimedia Foundation.
Wikimedians, language activists, policy-makers, and researchers, gathered in the historic city of Waterford, Ireland, from, September 25th to 27th for three days of learning, discussion and cultural exchange. The conference took place at the Tower Hotel, in the historical city centre overlooking the iconic Reginald’s Tower.
The conference has been running since 2017, beginning as a collaboration between Wikimedia UK and the University of Edinburgh. Over the years it has been hosted in Wales and Cornwall, and due to the pandemic moved online. Having broadened its international reach as an online event, the conference was revitalised as a hybrid event.
Almost 150 people attended Celtic Knot throughout the three days.
We welcomed 63 delegates to Ireland including, 26 scholarship recipients. 71 participants tuned in online including, 29 digital scholars.
International delegates travelled from near and far with Wikimedians from Malaysia to Wales and everywhere in between travelling to the event.
A key challenge within Wikimedia is that not all 345 language Wikipedias are as well supported or well developed as English Wikipedia. The goals of Celtic Knot were originally to strengthen Celtic language communities by providing a forum for discussion, learning and promoting the expansion of projects. The reach of Celtic Knot has now expanded to include many more minority and indigenous language groups.
The Celtic Knot Conference aims to strengthen Celtic and minority language communities within Wikimedia by providing a forum for knowledge exchange, and connection and promoting the expansion of Celtic, minority and indigenous language projects.
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Celtic Knot 2024 Key Themes and Vision
While providing a platform for many Celtic and minority language communities to ‘knot’ together, this year’s conference, hosted in Ireland, focused on the Irish language and cultural heritage, as has been the tradition with each iteration of Celtic Knot.
In addition to Gaeilge, languages represented included Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Manx, Scots Gaelic, Basque, Saami, Dagbani, Bunduliwan and many more. A total of 35 languages were represented. All six Celtic Languages were present and a total of 20 minority languages taking part.
The Celtic Knot Language Conference is a gathering that acknowledges the diversity of Celtic language communities and their presence within the global Wikimedia ecosystem. Rooted in the spirit of collaboration and community empowerment, the event serves as a nexus for Wikimedians and language activists to come together and explore innovative approaches to language preservation, promotion, and recognition of Celtic and minority languages in the digital space.
The conference structure devoted each of its three days to a thematic focus on the past, present and future. This meant the program covered explorations of historical legacies learnings from experience, celebration of community incentives, current challenges and finished off with envisioning future solutions to overcome these barriers, and opportunities for collaboration.
Keynote Speakers at Celtic Knot 2024
Our first keynote speaker is someone who has become a bit of a legend within Vicipead. Dr Kevin Scannell is a leading mind in tech for under-resourced languages and has revolutionised how Gaelic languages interact with modern technology. He brought to light some imminent challenges that AI is increasingly confronting minoritised languages such as Irish. For example unequal distribution of knowledge and thus power. If every word in Irish was committed to paper or computer and fed into a large language model, this would equate to 1 billion words or less. This equates to a knowledge base 30,000 times smaller than the typical LLM.
Another pressing issue is that data in the Irish language that has been included in standard LLMs is of low quality with Wikipedias used as standard to train the model. This is also problematic considering that minoritised language Wikipedias tend to greatly vary in terms of content and language quality, and sources are often polluted with machine translation.
The lynchpin underlying this problem? Scannell explained that major big tech companies, usually operate with non-Irish-speaking researchers who are not too invested about the training data in Irish. The outcome of this is that content generated in Irish is low-quality or completely inadequate. To address this, he presented his work on a solution: the Fiontar project at Dublin City University, where a high-quality, 150-million-word Irish language corpus is being carefully curated and assured for accuracy.
Prof. Rióna Ní Fhrighil’s presentation drew on her work with the Republic of Conscience: Human Rights and Modern Irish Poetry (RoC), funded by the Irish Research Council. RoC investigates how Irish poets, writing in Irish or in English, respond to international human rights violations and crises in their poetry. She highlighted how literary translation is a key part of linguistic activism and cannot be separated from heritage and the expression of historical context. She focused on a poem by poet Seán Ó Ríordáin published in 1971. This poem, ‘Ní Ceadmhach Neamhshuim’, has been translated into English by Frank Sewell as “Against Indifference” and by Greg Delanty under the title “Apathy is Out”. She discusses the human rights context of the poem in 1971 and relates it to contemporary questions of rights in relation to humans and the environment. Her presentation also brought up the pressing issue of Climate change which is a major threat to indigenous and minority languages and is quickly becoming an integral part of Wikimedia Projects and work.
After the presentation, Professor Ní Fhrighil connected with Maristella Gatto with future plans for collaboration being made. Gatto, from Wikimedia Italy who had previously presented her project in collaboration with the University of Bari. An experience particularly relevant as it centred around the careful translation of articles about Irish historical events, such as Bloody Sunday, into Italian using computational analysis of the vocabulary. She emphasised how important it is to realise how nuanced translation can be and the responsibility Wikimedians have to carry it out accurately as these sources can go on to inform other historical accounts and be replicated.
The last Keynote but by no means least is Dr Maggie Glass from TU Dortmund who spoke about the power of virtual communities, such as Vicipéid and the social networking site/ Twitter alternative Bluesky, as breathing spaces to build and strengthen minority languages. She also used Vicipead as an example and demonstrated how minority language communities can thrive on Wikimedia Projects.
Community Updates and Lightning Talks at Celtic Knot
With a focus on inclusivity, and creativity at Celtic Knot this year we wanted to ensure that the Wiki Community member’s voices would be front and central on the podium. A major highlight of the conference was the community updates. Every participant brought something uniquely valuable, and I regret that I do not have more space to write about one!
There were some extremely insightful lightning talks presented about overcoming challenges on Welsh Wikipedia with Siôn Jobbins, the History of the Bahasa Indonesia with Lindan Malik and Translating MediaWiki into Three Saami Languages with Kimberli Mäkäräinen. Among many others which were equally as engaging and valuable (you can find out more here).
Jason Evans, Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Wales Wikimedian kicked things off with a presentation about his impactful work aimed at addressing knowledge gaps on Welsh Wicipedia in collaboration with universities and schools through translation projects. He also presented on using AI-generated summaries to create articles on Welsh Wicipedia. It was particularly insightful to learn the ways common misgivings around the use of AI were overcome by introducing ‘safety nets’ in the form of human sign-off on grammar and fact-checking.
Unless we want to reinforce bias, we’ll always need to feed knowledge into the system- Jason Evans on why AI does not make Wikipedia obsolete.
As we know “the biggest knowledge gaps are in the smallest languages”, as presenter Genoveva Galarza Heredero reiterated in her presentation on Abstract Wikipedia using examples from the Dagbani language project. Somehow, she managed to explain how Abstract Wikipedia and community-driven natural language generation can make knowledge available through multiple languages by way of a single contribution to Wikimedia, in a very digestible way.
In his presentation, “Opening Sources in the Breton Language: Offering the ‘Minoritised’ Language to the Majority,” Dr Tristan Loarer highlighted the lack of practical tools for Breton and emphasized the importance of providing high-quality Breton text to enhance AI systems. He discussed the role of Breton transcriptions on Wikisource, the open wiki library, as well as the development of the new DEVRI tool, which offers free access to a bilingual dictionary for Bretan, as fuel to feed the ‘AI beast’.
We were also joined by Caroline Myrick from the Wikimedia Foundation who is doing an immense amount of research into language metrics. She is currently compiling data sets that make it easy to find information about Wiki projects in any language. Her interactive session meant participants could check up on facts about how their own languages using the Wiki language metrics explorer (specially built for Celtic Knot!) without having to use code. It also allows users to keep track of languages in the incubator.
She also went on to present on the Future of Language Incubation with Srishti Sethi who shared the success story of the launch of Kadazandusun Wikipedia in 2024.
➡️Find out more about the Wikimedia Language Incubator here.
Our Basque Wikimedians stuck a balance between bringing a lighthearted energy to the conference whilst presenting the important work they are doing on Euskal Wikipedia. Luistxo Fernandez showed up in full character as Count Von Count and gave participants a crash course in the intricacies of the Basque language, along with introducing us to innovative ways that the gamification of Basque and Welsh- by way of Trivia Apps- can be harnessed to populate Wiki Data with information in said languages. Galder Gonzalez Larrañaga took us through The history of the Basque Country in 100 objects a very impactful initiative that has engaged GLAMs and improved knowledge about Basque Heritage on Wikipedia.
We also had presentations from Irish language activist and founder of the Gaelgoer app Nóirín Ní Bhraoin. A former psychologist and avid geoligor Nóirín introduced some innovative ways she has come up with to encourage the Irish language to be spoken. It is important to note that the context of Irish in Ireland is complicated due to a long history of cultural eradication and linguistic imperialism that took place during the famine. Although Irish is a national language, that is obligatory to study and appears on all official signage and documents, it is only spoken as a first language by 2% of the population, typically in Gaeltacht regions.
Nóirín explained how in order to make it easier for Irish speakers and enthusiasts to recognise each other she began to wear a badge that read “Labhair Gaeilge liom” (“Speak Irish to me”). This led her to conduct a bit of a social experiment where she invited shopkeepers in ten Dublin shops to wear the badges and record how often customers spoke to them in Irish each day. She found that only 3.6 people a day spoke in Irish. This experiment inspired her to develop the Gaelgoer App which allows users to find upcoming Irish events happening all over the world, identify gaeilge-friendly businesses and track down other Irish speakers on the map to connect with. Her presentation was well-received and an inspiring example of how technology can be harnessed to elevate small languages in the digital world.
Eddie Avila from Rising Voices emphasised how important it is for minority languages to have safe spaces in order to thrive in many ways, particularly in terms of digital activism. His talk presented many examples of tangible actions language activists can take including harnessing the power of collaboration, using available resources and preexisting roadmaps, and supporting communities to reach their goals. His presentation also celebrated a huge milestone that happened in 2024, when the Kaqchikel Wikipedia was revitalised. This left participants with an invigorated sense of determination.
Wiki Women Erasmus+ Toolkits Launched
The official launch of the WikiWomen Erasmus + Project took place as part of the program on day two of the conference. This project is an ongoing collaborative effort between Irish, Frisian, and Basque Partners. The goal of WikiWomen is to highlight the gender gap in content and empower students in minority language communities (Gaeltacht regions, Basque, Friesland) to write Wikipedia articles about underrepresented women in their languages.
At Celtic Knot 2024, the WikiWomen Schools Toolkit were launched. These resources are freely accessible to all via Meta-Wiki and will provide educators, students, and GLAMS (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) with free resources and lesson plans to engage with work on their regional language Wikis. The toolkits are designed to be translated into different languages and used internationally.
➡️Check out the WikiWomen Erasmus+ Toolkits here.
The launch was formally opened by the Waterford Metropolitan Mayor Cllr Joe Kelly. In his welcome address, he remarked “The WikiWomen project is an inspiring example of how we can bridge gender gaps and promote language diversity online while connecting communities through shared knowledge and culture.”
Representing Ireland (and the Irish language) in this project are Wikimedia Community Ireland and Coláiste Oiriall in Monaghan. The highlight of the session was a presentation by four students accompanied by their múinteoir, Faela Mhic Dhomhnaill. The students shared their experiences working on the WikiWomen project, including their research on notable women and how it helped them develop both their communication and research skills, through a bilingual presentation in Irish and English.
The presentation was met with praise from all attendees, including John Walsh from Foras na Gaeilge, who described the project and students’ presentation as “absolutely inspirational and exceptional and exemplary.”
Afterwards there was a panel discussion with partners, finishing off with a live demo on behalf of Galder Gonzalez (Wikimedia Euskara) of the WikiWomen Schools Toolkit, showcasing its accessibility and flexibility.
An anecdote post-launch was how intrigued delegates were about the Mayors’ formal attire which included mayoral collars. The Wikipedians quickly got to work on creating a Wiki article about them, and some were even invited to the mayor’s office to see other historical objects that could be highlighted in Wikimedia projects.
➡️See more about the mayor and his chains here.
Language Diversity Hub Meeting at Celtic Knot
The Celtic Knot was delighted to provide space for the Language Diversity Hub meeting to take place along with a session to present updates.
The Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub is a proposed extension of the Wikimedia Language Diversity initiative, aiming to support affiliates and volunteers working on new language versions of Wikipedia. These include indigenous, minority, marginalized, and under-resourced language communities within the movement. The Wikimedia movement faces challenges in supporting underserved languages, despite its linguistic diversity. To address these issues, the Language Diversity Hub unites different voices to create a strategic direction for knowledge equity. The Hub, led by Sadik Shahadu, Mali Brødreskift, Oscar Costero and Tochie Precious provides technical and human support, helps communities secure funding, advocates for their needs, and creates pathways for the sustainability of new languages within the Wikimedia ecosystem.
The session presented the Hub’s Theory of Change and its new strategic plan. The Theory of Change outlined a comprehensive strategy to empower new language communities and ensure their success in Wikimedia projects through collaboration and capacity building. The new strategic direction that was introduced focused on building cohesive support networks, bridging the technical skills gap, and ensuring equitable attention to underserved communities.
Participants left the session with a deeper understanding of the Hub’s governance and strategic direction and learned how they could join the Hub as individuals or affiliates.
Global Initiatives at Celtic Knot: Pitabangan and Wiki Loves Monuments
The event also highlighted two significant global initiatives—Pitabangan and Wiki Loves Monuments. The Pitabangan initiative, organised by the Wikimedia Malaysia User Group, focused on creating and improving articles about Waterford in native languages from around the world. This nine-day global collaboration mirrored the Irish tradition of “meitheal,” where communities come together for collective work, strengthening cultural ties across borders and sharing knowledge in an open forum. The event was a great success with 13 different languages being involved.
Additionally, the Wiki Loves Monuments competition, a global photography contest that encourages people to document cultural heritage sites, showcased stunning images of Irish landmarks. Both initiatives emphasise the role of digital platforms in preserving local culture and history on a global stage.
Zahirulnukman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dance, Music and Art: Cultural Events at Celtic Knot
After the conference sessions, Celtic Knot also offered delegates an array of cultural events in the evenings throughout the week. These events provided a wonderful opportunity to explore the rich cultural heritage of Waterford and to connect and unwind with fellow participants.
During the tours delegates had the chance to enter the Wiki Loves Monuments 2024, photo contest which had a special category dedicated to capturing images of built heritage in Waterford to celebrate Celtic Knot. The judging process is currently underway, with a panel that includes Gary Dempsey of Digital Heritage Age and the Metropolitan Mayor of Waterford Councillor Joe Kelly- so if you entered watch this space!
As part of the conference pack, delegates also received a Freedom of Waterford ticket allowing visitors to enjoy an ‘Epic’ walking tour of the Viking Triangle with an expert guide, taking in 1,000 years of history in 1,000 paces. The Freedom of Waterford ticket also included access to Waterford’s many museums with the Museum of Time and the Medieval Museum being particularly enticing for Wikimedians.
A highlight for many was the lino print workshop with Irish artist Aoife Cawley which took place at the Gallery of Modern Art, Waterford. Aoife Cawley guided and inspired participants to create pieces centred around Irish figures and stories from folklore and mythology. The array of artwork also included creative prints of the crest of Waterford, Celtic designs, the iconic Claddagh ring and Viking boats. Some Wikimedians enjoyed the experience so much that they have been inspired to pursue it upon their return home!
Aoife also commissioned a brand new artwork, especially for the participants of Celtic Knot that depicted the marriage of Aoife and Strongbow. Against Irish law and tradition-Aoife MacMurrough (c. 1145 – 1188), a Princess of Leinster, was forced into marriage with the English lord ‘Strongbow’, earl of Pembroke, in Christchurch Cathedral in Waterford (which participants could visit as part of the walking tour). This was due to a pact between Strongbow and the King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough (c. 1110 – 1171), to help him reclaim his lands. This marriage marked the first significant arrival of the English people and language to Ireland. This evocative print was an interesting reminder of the heritage behind the Irish language and why it has come to be a minority language in Ireland and definitely sparked many a conversation at Celtic Knot.
The next evening we dusted off our dancing shoes for a traditional Sean-nós dancing workshop with Stéip le Tura (Cuthbert Arutura). With dedicated study over the past 10 years, Tura has become one of Ireland’s Master Sean Nós (traditional Irish) dancers and an aficionado of the Irish language and culture. The combination of African, and American influences, and Irish traditional dance created a powerful and empowering reflection and celebration of diversity. A perfect antidote to sitting in conference rooms delegates were certainly put through their paces learning everything from the moonwalk to African tribal dance and everything in between!
The Event Finished with a Gala Dinner Celebration
The conference came to an end with a gala dinner, where spirits were high and connections made throughout the event flourished. What was a true celebration of a successful conference came with a party atmosphere, with many taking part in a traditional Irish céile led by Tura Arutura. From the siege of Ennis to the walls of Limerick, Tura proved to have the unique gift of helping delegates leave their inhibitions aside thanks to his infectious vibrant energy. Topics of conversation floated around the ballroom that ranged from discussions about linguistic heritage to national cuisines to exciting imaginings for future collaborations. After sharing some typical Irish dishes and a pint of Guinness or two, delegates danced the night away to local Irish trad and a unique blend of Afro-Caribbean beats and Irish rap by UshMush. UshMush’s tunes highlighted the more contemporary side of the Irish music scene and he surprised delegates by event getting out from behind the decks for a dance.
Satellite Events
Alongside the main hybrid event, 5 satellite Events were supported as part of Celtic Knot 2024. These provided the opportunity for those who could not make it to the main event to join in and gather with their language community in their area.
Events included, learning about Wikidata, editing workshops combined with cultural presentations, editathons to improve the content in the language, and live streaming of the conference. They were organised by the Wiki Igbo Community in Nigeria, two on behalf of the Yoruba in Nigeria, the Edo Community in Nigeria and the Dagbani in Ghana. Organisers in Ghana reported efforts to engage the leadership of education to understand and get involved in the language preservation and revitalization processes.
These satellite events were a fantastic way for Wiki language communities to connect with others, participate in the conference, and foster local discussions and collaborations.
➡️Read about a Satellite Event that took place in Ghana in partnership with the leadership of the Nanton Education Directorate, Ghana here.
Alhassan Mohammed Awal, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What’s Next? Outcomes and Future Directions for Celtic Knot
This year’s conference was revitalised and restored to an in-person event post covid, which we hope will continue to be a mainstay within the Wiki conference eco-system. It will provide a much-needed breathing space for small-language communities to gather together and connect with each other and with the Wikimedia Foundation. It provides a space for knowledge exchange which is vital for the growth and visibility of minority and indigenous languages.
To grow and sustain momentum, we hope that as a community we can build on what has been created by Celtic Knot. The reception and excitement that was awakened at the conference make it clear that there is a huge amount of enthusiasm to keep the conference growing.
We hope that the next iteration of Celtic Knot will take place in 2026 to ensure that the conference can return in a developed and rejuvenated way that serves the needs of the community and participants. Wikimedia Community Ireland hopes to remain involved in the organisation of the event along with Wikimedia UK.
We also hope to bring you some smaller localised exchanges throughout 2025 to sustain the spirit of Celtic Knot and continue to connect and collaborate.
Thanks to Everyone who was involved with Celtic Knot 2024!
The Celtic Knot Conference 2024 was a resounding success, bringing together diverse language communities in a spirit of collaboration and innovation. From new technological tools to success stories of smaller languages growing their digital presence, the event demonstrated the power of collective action in preserving linguistic diversity. As we look ahead, the momentum built at this year’s conference will continue to drive forward projects aimed at supporting language sustainability online.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Wikimedia Foundation, especially Chen Almog, Erin Morris and Cornelius Kibelka for for their invaluable support throughout the planning process. A big thank you to the Tower Hotel for hosting us, Frontline Audio Visual Ltd. for helping us share the event widely, and our photography team for capturing the moments.
To all community presenters, speakers, keynote guests, workshop leaders, and musicians—thank you for sharing your expertise and celebrating Celtic languages and culture with us. A special thanks to Wikimedia UK, and Wikimedia Community Ireland for bringing this conference to life.
Finally, to the organising team, who gave their endless creativity, passion, hard work and dedication over the past year to put this event together. What a journey it has been, thank you!
*All photographs are by Benjicarter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons unless stated otherwise. Edited by Sophie Fitzpatrick (Wikimedia Community Ireland).
