The viral online word puzzle Wordle now has an Irish language version called Foclach which will test your Leaving Cert Irish to the limit.
The five-letter guessing game was inspired by the original English version of Wordle with some slight variations and has taken off in recent weeks with people playing it from all over the world.
It includes the use of fadas, which makes the task of spelling words more complicated and all the more rewarding if you manage to crack the code.
Like Wordle, Foclach allows you six guesses every day to figure out a five-letter word such as ‘madra’ [dog] or 'siopa' [shop].
On each guess the letters will turn green, if you have it in the right space, yellow, if you have the right letter but in the wrong space, and grey, if it’s an incorrect letter.
Foclach also allows you to share your score on Twitter however, rather than the distinctive green and yellow boxes showing a Wordle score, the Irish version has green shamrocks and yellow hearts to indicate the score instead.
Foclach was created by Linda Keating, an Irish web designer, after she enjoyed playing Wordle so much that she realised an Irish version would help her improve her Irish vocabulary.
It has now become hugely popular with Irish speakers across the globe and has up to 10,000 daily users with people playing in countries as far away as Thailand, Costa Rica, Indonesia and many more.
The high volume of traffic to the Foclach site every day recently became so overwhelming that the game had to be switched to a new server overnight.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, Foclach creator Linda Keating said: "I first launched the Irish language version Foclach.com on January 10th but I didn't have any analytics tracking how many people were using it until Monday 25th of January when there were around 2,000 daily players.
"Today I expect it will exceed 10,000 daily players."
She added: "It's a cracker of a game in English, but what's surprised me most is how inclusive it is to all levels of Irish speakers. It seems that no matter what your level of Irish you can fully participate and have fun with the language. Craic is a five letter word," she joked.
Irish speakers on social media are delighted with the new Irish version with people proudly sharing their Foclach scores on Twitter every day.
One person wrote: “I have just found out that there is an Irish-language version [of Wordle], and this is very bad news for my ability to be focused and productive on a Tuesday afternoon.”
Another excited player Tweeted: “I'm sorry but WHO let me live this long without telling me there was Irish wordle?? Foclach!!”
It has also proved to be a hit with Irish teachers, with some posting pictures of their students playing the game in the classroom.
One primary school substitute teacher wrote on Twitter: “I subbed in a 4th Class today and we worked together and got both the Wordle and Foclach word within 4 guesses and there was wholesome bedlam in the class lol they were delighted with life.”
You can play Foclach online here.
