What about Glór?
Glór means voice in Irish, but it also carries a sense of presence, of sound that travels and is received.
In Irish literature, voice is never taken for granted. It is something that must be carried, protected, and made audible—especially when the space to speak is fragile.Glór is built on that same understanding. Participation is not noise, it is presence. A voice matters only if it has somewhere to land.
That idea is captured quietly and powerfully in Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill's poem Ceist na Teangan (The Language Issue), where language—and by extension voice—is imagined as something set afloat, entrusted to others, uncertain of where it will arrive. She writes of placing hope "in this little boat of the language," releasing it into a current beyond her control. The poem is not about volume or dominance, it is about whether a voice survives long enough to be heard.
Glór starts from the same place. It is not designed to amplify the loudest speaker, but to create conditions where many voices can surface, register, and be acknowledged. In a room, a lecture, or a conversation, participation only works when people feel their voice can travel, be received, and matter. Glór exists to make that possible: calmly, intentionally, and without noise.
Ceist na Teangan
Cuirim mo dhóchas ar snámh
i mbáidín teangan
faoi mar a leagfá naíonán
i gcliabhán
a bheadh fite fuaite
de dhuilleoga feileastraim
is bitiúmin agus pic
bheith cuimilte lena thóin
ansan é a leagadh síos
i measc na ngiolcach
is coigeal na mban sí
le taobh na habhann,
féachaint n'fheadaraís
cá dtabharfaidh an sruth é,
féachaint, dála Mhaoise,
an bhfóirfidh iníon Fharoinn?
The Language Issue
I place my hope on the water
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant
in a basket of intertwined
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch,
then set the whole thing down amidst
the sedge
and bulrushes by the edge
of a river
only to have it borne hither and thither,
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh's daughter.