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Foclach: Test your 'cúpla focal' with an Irish-language version of Wordle

The developer of Foclach says she's "getting so much enjoyment" out of seeing people speaking Irish thanks to her free online game.
Stephen McNeice
Stephen McNeice

10.01 4 Feb 2022


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Foclach: Test your 'cúpla foca...

Foclach: Test your 'cúpla focal' with an Irish-language version of Wordle

Stephen McNeice
Stephen McNeice

10.01 4 Feb 2022


Share this article


Irish Wordle fans are being challenged to test their cúpla focal with a version of the game as Gaeilge.

Foclach - available to play free on your phone or computer - is based on the hit viral puzzle, which asks players to figure out the five-letter word of the day through a process of elimination.

The rules for Foclach are the same as Wordle: you have six guesses to successfully deduce the word.

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If your guess has a letter in the right place, it will be marked in green.

If your guess has a letter that's in the word but in the wrong place, it will be marked in yellow / orange.

All other letters will be marked in grey, and the main challenge is trying to figure out the word in as few guesses as you can.

There are a few minor differences, however: in particular, you will need to pay attention to your fadas in the Irish version!

Linda Keating, creator of Foclach, told Newstalk Breakfast she was inspired to create this version when she saw Wordle's surge in popularity around a month ago.

She said: “I really like word puzzles myself, so when I saw Wordle I was really intrigued and really enjoyed it.

“I’m a developer, so thought ‘why don’t I make an Irish language version of this?’”

Linda had also seen a comprehensive Irish 'word list' just before Christmas, so she was able to use that as the basis of the answer list for her game.

She said: “All that hard work was done… so it was very easy for me to put these pieces together.

"It was a nice little technical challenge for me to do.”

Remembering your vocab

Wordle made headlines earlier this week when it was bought by the New York Times to add to their popular crossword and word games service.

The deal agreed was said to be in 'the low seven figures'.

The newspaper has pledged to keep the game free for now, while the game's creator Josh Wardle says the game has gotten "bigger than I ever imagined".

Linda is not expecting any kind of deal for her own version, and in fact doesn't think that should ever happen.

She said: “Foclach has been successful I think because we’ve come together and shared all our resources. I took the word list from an open-source source… and then a lot of Irish language speakers have come together and supported it.

“I’m getting so much enjoyment out of watching people play it.

“I’m also getting so much enjoyment out of seeing people speaking Irish online - even when they may not be that good at Irish."

She said she's also seen people getting reacquainted with the language, perhaps years after they last sat in an Irish class in school.

She said: “Within a couple of days, suddenly they’ve jogged their memory and it’s all coming back to them.

“They discover actually that they’re not that rusty, and that they actually know more than they thought that they did."

You can play Linda's game Foclach here, while the original version of Wordle is playable here.


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