Commercialising the cúpla focal: New speakers, language ownership, and the promotion of Irish as a business resource

This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in two Irish towns to examine the mobilisation of the Irish language as a resource for business by new speakers of Irish. We examine how local community-level Irish language advocacy organisations have implemented initiatives to specifically promote the use of Irish in business, primarily as visual commercial engagement with the language paired with the use of the cupla focal. The article explores how new speakers of Irish understand what might be perceived as the tokenistic mobilisation of Irish and what value they invest in their efforts to use the cupla focal. We explore tensions over language ownership that emerge as more fluent proprietors of ‘bilingual businesses’ position themselves in relation to the ‘newness’ of these speakers.