Profile: Seán Mistéil, 2008 Convention Speaker

Irish language activist Seán Mistéil is a featured speaker at this year’s IAUC conference. Read his bio below:

Seán Mistéil was born in Belfast in 1964 and raised in Gaeltacht Bhóthar Seoighe, an Irish language speaking community that began as a ’what if?’ among a small group of young Irish speakers and learners and forty years later has become a ’can do’ movement encompassing nursery, elementary and high schools, social clubs, small and large businesses, industries, book stores, shops, cafés, record stores and more. The pulse of the city’s Irish Language revival movement is taken from here: it is the Mayflower of contemporary Gaelic culture in the North of Ireland. Seán’s personal background gives him a unique set of qualifications. Brought up in a bilingual environment, he enjoys and participates fully in both sides of his cultural heritage, and became aware at an early age of the important role played by different codes and conventions in the business of communication.

After graduating from school Seán enrolled in the innovative Graphic Arts program at the University of Ulster, Belfast, where he had the degree of BA conferred upon him in 1986. A member of the Institute of Designers in Ireland, he established a communications partnership in 1990 delivering a broad range of creative and graphic design services throughout Ireland.

Seán’s involvement in community led regeneration has provided him with invaluable inspiration, experience and competence, and a unique track record of involving people in finding practical ways to realize the cultural, educational and urban environments that they want to see. He has been a director of the West Belfast Partnership Board since 2003 and became chair person of Forbairt Feirste in 2001, an organisation which is at the forefront of using the Irish Language to energize cultural and economic assets. In 2006 Seán joined the Management Board of Féíle an Phobail and became Chair Person of Coláiste Feirste in 2007, the only Irish-medium, co-educational high school in the North which caters for pupils aged between 11 and 18.

Seán is the founding chair of Comhar Gobharnóirí Feirste, a new community organisation dedicated to strengthening the role of leadership in Belfast’s Irish language medium education schools.