A bay in Co Donegal showing a beach on a sunny day with green landscape and white houses in the distance.
Image: © Andrew/Stock.adobe.com

New Gteic digital hub opens in Donegal Gaeltacht

1 Apr 2022

The new hub has 18 shared office spaces, four offices and a canteen. It is one of nine digital hubs being developed in Donegal’s Gaeltecht.

Údarás na Gaeltachta has opened its latest Gteic digital hub in the Donegal town of Dungloe.

Workers in Dungloe, known in Irish as An Clochán Liath, will be able to avail of the new Gteic@Na Rosa hub. Its opening today (1 April) makes it one of the 27 Gteic hubs opened or set to open in Gaeltacht areas of Ireland by the middle of this year.

Gteic@Na Rosa is also one of nine digital hubs being developed by Údarás na Gaeltachta in the Irish-speaking regions of Donegal, with the official launch of Gteic@An Tearmann taking place earlier this week.

The new digital hub has 18 shared office spaces, four offices and a canteen. Users of the hub can avail of the facilities already available in the building, including a meeting room and café.

The hub has been developed in a unit with an existing supermarket, clothing store, café and retail outlets. It has high-speed broadband as well as meeting and video conferencing facilities, telephone kiosks and shared creative spaces.

Speaking at the opening of the hub, Government chief whip and Minister of State for the Gaeltacht and Sport Jack Chambers, TD, said that the hub would be a “great resource” for the area.

The Gteic network was launched in 2019 by Údarás na Gaeltachta to “reinvigorate” Gaeltacht areas and create spaces for entrepreneurs and remote workers around the country.

Last year, the Government agency received a €250,000 grant to redevelop 10 existing Gteic hubs in Galway, Mayo and Donegal. The move was part of a larger drive by the Government to boost innovation and remote working in rural areas and small towns.

Last July, Gteic@Acaill opened in Co Mayo providing space for 40 workers and work began on the Gteic@Baile an Sceilg hub in Ballinskelligs.

The State’s investment strategy has provided a significant jobs boost to Gaeltacht areas across the country, according to Údarás na Gaeltachta’s end of year statement from 2021. At the beginning of this year, the agency said that its network of hubs was facilitating more than 320 remote workers.

Údarás na Gaeltachta CEO Mícheál Ó hÉanaigh said he hoped that the continued development of facilities like Gteic@Na Rosa would “support job creation, provide opportunities for remote workers and enable the Gaeltacht diaspora to return and take up life at home”.

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Blathnaid O’Dea
By Blathnaid O’Dea

Blathnaid O’Dea joined Silicon Republic in 2021 as Careers reporter, coming from a background in the Humanities. She likes people, pranking, pictures of puffins – and apparently alliteration.

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