Tech for Good · Irish language · 2026

Cupán Focail: order your coffee in Irish.

A café finder and phrase trainer built at the Craicathon in Dublin, for everyone with a cúpla focal and nowhere to use them.

Start a conversationVisit cupanfocail.com
Cupán Focail app homepage: order coffee with your Irish
Overview

Cupán Focail means a cup of words. It is a discovery and learning app built around one simple idea: what if you could find somewhere in Ireland to order your coffee in Irish, and actually feel confident doing it? We built it in a day at the Craicathon, one of Ireland’s first hackathons dedicated to the Irish language, and we have been pushing it forward since.

What
A café finder and phrase trainer for ordering as Gaeilge
Built at
Craicathon, Dogpatch Labs, Dublin (21 March 2026)
Occasion
Seachtain na Gaeilge 2026
Team
David Shawe and Nicola Moore, the only team down from Ulster
Live at
cupanfocail.com, on desktop and mobile
Status
Working prototype, looking for launch venues
01 · The idea

Tá dhá cheist agam.

After their own name, the first words most people learn in Irish are usually how to order a pint of Guinness or a cup of tea. Coffee doesn’t get much of a look in. We thought it was time to change that. So, two questions:

  1. Do you have Irish and have been wanting to speak it more in real life?
  2. Or have you wanted to learn, but you’re just not a fan of grumpy Gen Z birds on your phone?

If you answered yes to either, Cupán Focail was built for you.

Cupán Focail at the Craicathon hackathon in Dublin for Irish language and tech
The Craicathon at Dogpatch Labs: coders, Irish speakers, designers and musicians building for the language in a single day.

Honestly my favourite app of the day. And that’s saying something.

Niall Larkin, at the Craicathon, Dublin

What it does

Two sides to one app: customers who want to use their cúpla focal, and cafés ready to welcome them.

  1. Find your spot

    A map of Irish-speaking cafés across Ireland. Places like Café Cú in North Belfast, An Cultúrlann, the Raidió na Gaeltachta café, and spots deep in the Gaeltacht in Dún na nGall.

  2. Learn your lines

    Ba mhaith liom, le do thoil, go raibh maith agat, plus full ordering scenarios to practise. Focused entirely on the one conversation that gets you through the door.

  3. Earn your stamps

    Order in Irish, earn a stamp. Stamps unlock following friends and cafés, and notifications about meetups and events. Community built right in.

  4. Train the baristas

    Free staff training as Gaeilge: audio guides, scenario walkthroughs, and the option to bring in a native speaker or múinteoir for in-person sessions.

The app

Built at the hackathon and still a prototype, but a working one, on desktop and mobile.

  • Cupán Focail interactive map showing Irish-speaking cafés in Belfast
    Find a café: Irish-speaking venues mapped across the island, starting in Belfast.
  • Cupán Focail Irish language learning module with common ordering phrases
    The learning module: the phrases you need for one conversation.
  • Cupán Focail user profile showing stamps and points earned from ordering in Irish
    Your profile: stamps earned, cafés visited, friends followed.
  • Cupán Focail onboarding screen for selecting your Irish language level
    Onboarding asks one thing: how much Irish have you?
  • Cupán Focail venue registration page for café owners to join the Irish-speaking community
    Venue registration, for cafés that want to be found.
02 · Why it matters

The language lives in everyday moments.

The Irish language doesn’t belong only in classrooms or on exam papers. It lives in the space between a customer and a barista, in a quick slán go fóill as you leave, in the quiet confidence of knowing you can walk into a café and order your coffee in your own language.

At the Craicathon we had a brilliant conversation with Daithí de Buitléir, who told us about Gaeilge365 and the recent Give Gaeilge a Go campaign in Dublin. What he shared stopped us in our tracks: local businesses that became known as Irish-speaking spaces were seeing real uplifts in footfall and community engagement. There is a genuine case that an app like Cupán Focail could give coffee shops a competitive advantage, if they are willing to bet on culture and community over loyalty points.

There are thousands of people across Ireland with a cúpla focal and a genuine desire to use them. There are coffee shops who would love to be part of something bigger than loyalty cards. Cupán Focail connects both.

03 · Get involved

Know a café that would be up for it?

You can try it now at cupanfocail.com. It is very much a prototype. But the ideas are solid, the feedback has been brilliant, and we are keen to push it forward. If you know any coffee shops, pubs, restaurants or community spaces that would be interested in getting involved before we launch, please connect the dots.

Cupán Focail sits with our Tech for Good work for the same reason FixIT and Moira Community do: it is a small, specific tool built with a community rather than for one. You can read the full story, as we told it at the time, in Reviving the Irish language one cupán caife at a time, or see how we approach web app & MVP development.

Get in touch

Go raibh maith agaibh as léamh.

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Written along the way, as it happened. Nothing tidied up afterwards.

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