Some Characteristics of the Conference Interpreting Profession in Malta and the Republic of Ireland: a Comparative Overview

With the rise of multilingual international organisations over the past eight decades, the conference interpreting profession has developed accordingly. In the case of the European Union (EU), the range of official languages now includes less widely spoken languages such as Maltese and Irish. Through examination of the domestic professional landscapes of the conference interpreting professions in two EU member states, Malta and the Republic of Ireland, this exploratory contribution offers a comparative overview of the historical and contemporary development of the domestic conference interpreting profession in both countries, together with contextual information regarding multilingualism policy and the specific cases of Maltese and Irish as official languages of the EU. As such, core details regarding education, training, and professional organisations for conference interpreters in both Malta and the Republic of Ireland are outlined and compared, thereby offering a suitable basis for subsequent empirically-based research.