Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in Ireland'sGaeltacht regions, in which 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022.[10]
The total number of people (aged 3 and over) in Ireland who declared they could speak Irish in April 2022 was 1,873,997, representing 40% of respondents, but of these, 472,887 said they never spoke it and a further 551,993 said they only spoke it within the education system.[10] Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on the number of daily users inIreland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in theGaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968.[10] In response to the 2021 census ofNorthern Ireland, 43,557 individuals stated they spoke Irish on a daily basis, 26,286 spoke it on a weekly basis, 47,153 spoke it less often than weekly, and 9,758 said they could speak Irish, but never spoke it.[11] From 2006 to 2008, over 22,000Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as theirfirst language at home, with several times that number claiming "some knowledge" of the language.[12]
InAn Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official [Written]Standard") the name of the language isGaeilge, from the southConnacht form, spelledGaedhilge prior the spelling reform of 1948, in which the silent⟨dh⟩ was removed.Gaedhilge was originally thegenitive ofGaedhealg, the form used inClassical Gaelic.[14] Older spellings includeGaoidhealg[ˈɡeːʝəlˠəɡ] in Classical Gaelic andGoídelc[ˈɡoiðʲelɡ] inOld Irish.Goidelic, used to refer to the language family, is derived from the Old Irish term.
Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include:Gaeilge[ˈɡeːlʲɟə] in Galway,Gaeilg/Gaeilic/Gaeilig[ˈɡeːlʲəc] in Mayo andUlster,Gaelainn/Gaoluinn[ˈɡeːl̪ˠən̠ʲ] in West/Cork, KerryMunster, as well asGaedhealaing in mid and East Kerry/Cork and WaterfordMunster to reflect local pronunciation.[15][16]
Gaeilge as a term can apply to the very closely related languagesScottish Gaelic andManx as well as Irish Gaeilc. When context requires it, these three are distinguished asGaeilge na hAlban,Gaeilge Mhanann andGaeilge na hÉireann respectively.[17]
In English (includingHiberno-English), the language is usually referred to asIrish, as well asGaelic andIrish Gaelic.[18][19] The termIrish Gaelic may be seen when English speakers discuss the relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx).[20]Gaelic is a collective term for the Goidelic languages,[3][21][4][8][22] and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" (/ɜːrs/URS) was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish;[23] as well as Scottish Gaelic.
Written Irish is first attested inOgham inscriptions from the 4th century AD,[24] a stage of the language known asPrimitive Irish. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain.
Primitive Irish underwent a change intoOld Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the 6th century, used theLatin alphabet and is attested primarily inmarginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed someLatin words, some viaOld Welsh, includingecclesiastical terms: examples areeaspag (bishop) fromepiscopus, andDomhnach (Sunday, fromdominica).
By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved intoMiddle Irish, which was spoken throughout Ireland, theIsle of Man and parts ofScotland. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including theUlster Cycle. From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland,Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, andManx on theIsle of Man.
Modern Irish, sometimes called Late Modern Irish, as attested in the work of such writers asGeoffrey Keating, is said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on.[25][26]
From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind thisshift were complex but came down to a number of factors:
Discouragement of its use by the Anglo-Irish administration.
The spread of bilingualism from the 1750s onwards.[27]
The distribution of the Irish language in 1871
The change was characterised bydiglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) andtransitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By the mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, theCatholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, parents sanctioned the prohibition of Irish in schools.[28] Increasing interest in emigrating to theUnited States andCanada was also a driver, as fluency in English allowed the new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. An estimated one quarter to one third of US immigrants during theGreat Famine were Irish speakers.[29]
Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them a cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards, the language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language.[30]
This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched theGaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language.[31] The vehicle of the revival was the Gaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature.
Although it has been noted that the Catholic Church played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the ProtestantChurch of Ireland also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in a religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by LeinstermanMuircheartach Ó Cíonga, commissioned byBishop Bedell, was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival.[32]
It has been estimated that there were around 800,000monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by the end of the famine, and under 17,000 by 1911.[33]
The Gaelic revival (Irish:Athbheochan na Gaeilge) was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language[34] and Irish Gaelic culture (including folklore, mythology,sports, music, arts, etc.).
TheGaelic League (Conradh na Gaeilge) was established in 1893 byEoin MacNeill and other enthusiasts of Gaelic language and culture. Its first president wasDouglas Hyde. The objective of the league was to encourage the use of Irish in everyday life in order to counter the ongoing anglicisation of the country. It organised weekly gatherings to discuss Irish culture, hosted conversation meetings, edited and periodically published a newspaper namedAn Claidheamh Soluis, and successfully campaigned to have Irish included in the school curriculum. The league grew quickly, having more than 48 branches within four years of its foundation and 400 within 10. It had fraught relationships with other cultural movements of the time, such as thePan-Celtic movement and the Irish Literary Revival.
Irish is recognised by theConstitution of Ireland as the national and first official language ofRepublic of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and legislative debate is conducted in English.[35]
In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication.[40]
In 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like theLanguage Freedom Movement, the requirement for entrance to the public service was changed to proficiency in just one official language.
Nevertheless, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools in the Republic of Ireland that receive public money (seeEducation in the Republic of Ireland). Teachers in primary schools must also pass a compulsory examination calledScrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge. As of 2005, Garda Síochána recruits need a pass inLeaving Certificate Irish or English, and receive lessons in Irish during their two years of training. Official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced byAn Coimisinéir Teanga, the Irish language ombudsman).
TheNational University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on a degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate orGCE/GCSE examinations.[42] Exemptions are made from this requirement for students who were born or completed primary education outside of Ireland, and students diagnosed withdyslexia.
NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of the vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3).[43] In 2016, the university faced controversy when it announced the planned appointment of a president who did not speak Irish.Misneach[further explanation needed] staged protests against this decision. The following year the university announced thatCiarán Ó hÓgartaigh, a fluent Irish speaker, would be its 13th president. He assumed office in January 2018; in June 2024, he announced he would be stepping down as president at the beginning of the following academic year.[44]
For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in English-medium schools to achieve competence in Irish, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects.[45][46][47] The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern.[48][49][50][51]
In 2007, filmmakerManchán Magan found few Irish speakers inDublin, and faced incredulity when trying to get by speaking only Irish in Dublin. He was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentaryNo Béarla.[52]
There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in Dublin. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction. Such schools are known asGaelscoileanna at primary level. These Irish-medium schools report some better outcomes for students than English-medium schools.[53] In 2009, a paper suggested that within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish might typically be members of an urban, middle class, and highly educated minority.[54]
Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in the other official language, if not already passed in both official languages.[1]
In November 2016,RTÉ reported that over 2.3 million people worldwide were learning Irish through theDuolingo app.[55] Irish presidentMichael D. Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project".[56]
The percentage of respondents who said they spoke Irish daily outside the education system in the 2011 census in the State.[needs update]
There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish is still spoken daily to some extent as afirst language. These regions are known individually and collectively as theGaeltacht (pluralGaeltachtaí). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 20–30,000,[57] are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it is only inGaeltacht areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent.
According to data compiled by theDepartment of Tourism, Culture, Arts,Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, only 1/4 of households inGaeltacht areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of theGalway-Mayo Institute of Technology, described the Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster".The Irish Times, referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaperFoinse, quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but the number now is between 20,000 and 30,000."[57]
In the 1920s, when the Irish Free State was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas.[58] In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified asGaeltacht. Today, the strongestGaeltacht areas, numerically and socially, are those of SouthConnemara, the west of theDingle Peninsula, and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as theFíor-Ghaeltacht (trueGaeltacht), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish.
There areGaeltacht regions in the following counties:[59][60]
Gweedore (Gaoth Dobhair), County Donegal, is the largestGaeltacht parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in theGaeltacht are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go tocéilithe and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged.
Dublin airport sign in both English and Irish languages
The Act was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the number and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies.[61] Compliance with the Act is monitored by theAn Coimisinéir Teanga (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004[62] and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the act are brought to them.[61] There are 35 sections in the act detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in courts, official publications, and placenames.[63] The act was amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the legislation.[64] All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions.[65]
The Official Languages Scheme was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of theOfficial Languages Act 2003.[66] The purpose of the scheme is to provide services through the media of Irish and/or English. According to theDepartment of the Taoiseach, it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build a better future for Ireland and all her citizens."[67]
The strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and runs to 2030; it targets language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language.[68] The 30-page document published by theGovernment of Ireland details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It is divided into four phases to improve 9 main areas:
"Education"
"TheGaeltacht"
"Family Transmission of the Language – Early Intervention"
The general goal for this strategy was to increase the number of daily speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run.[70] By 2022, the number of such speakers had fallen to 71,968.[71]
A sign for the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland, in English, Irish andUlster Scots.
Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, government inNorthern Ireland was devolved. During those years, the political party holding power in theStormont Parliament, theUlster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language as it was almost exclusively used by nationalists.[72] In broadcasting, reporting minority cultural issues was prohibited and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the devolved government.[73]
The status of Irish has often been used as a bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such asAn Dream Dearg.[77]
Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs fluent in Irish can now speak the language in theEuropean Parliament and at committees, though in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages.
Although Irish was an officialEU language, only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation requested by the Irish government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs.[78] When the derogation ended on 1 January 2022, Irish became a fully recognised EU language for the first time in the Republic's history.[79]
Before Irish became an official language, it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish.
The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vastdiaspora, chiefly toGreat Britain and North America, but also toAustralia,New Zealand andArgentina.The first large movements began in the 17th century, largely as a result of theCromwellian conquest of Ireland, which saw many Irish sent to theWest Indies. Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing fromthe Famine. This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them.
Relatively few of the emigrants were literate in Irish, but manuscripts in the language were brought to both Australia and the United States, and it was in the United States that the first newspaper to make significant use of Irish was established:An Gaodhal. In Australia, too, the language found its way into print. TheGaelic revival, which started in Ireland in the 1890s, found a response abroad, with branches ofConradh na Gaeilge being established in all the countries to which Irish speakers had emigrated.
The decline of Irish in Ireland and a slowing of emigration helped to ensure a decline in the language abroad, along with natural attrition in the host countries. Despite this, small groups of enthusiasts continued to learn and cultivate Irish in diaspora countries and elsewhere, a trend which strengthened in the second half of the 20th century. Today the language is taught at tertiary level in North America, Australia and Europe, and Irish speakers outside Ireland contribute to journalism and literature in the language. There are significant Irish-speaking networks in the United States and Canada;[80] figures released for the period 2006–2008 show that 22,279Irish Americans claimed to speak Irish at home.[12]
The total number of people who answered 'yes' to being able to speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, a slight decrease (0.7 per cent) on the 2011 figure of 1,774,437. This represents 39.8 per cent of respondents compared with 41.4 in 2011... Of the 73,803 daily Irish speakers (outside the education system), 20,586 (27.9%) lived in Gaeltacht areas.[83]
Daily Irish speakers in Gaeltacht areas between 2011 and 2022
In 1996, the three electoral divisions in the State where Irish had the most daily speakers were An Turloch (91%+), Scainimh (89%+), Min an Chladaigh (88%+).[86]
Social media has provided new tools for promoting the Irish language. Influencers on platforms likeInstagram andTikTok,[87] such as Aisling O'Neill and Irish Language Learner, share lessons, challenges, and everyday phrases in Irish as a way to engage their followers. This creative content can help to increase awareness and encourage younger audiences to embrace their cultural heritage.[citation needed]
OnYouTube, channels such as Briathra - The Irish Language and TG Lurgan offer instructional videos ranging from pronunciation guides to grammar explanations. TG Lurgan[88] is known for transforming popular songs into Irish versions, promoting the language and cultural pride through music.
Developments inartificial intelligence technology may affect the future of Irish language learning. Platforms incorporating AI can provide personalized learning experiences. Tools like the Gaeilgeoir AI provide a way to use AI in the context of traditional language learning,[89] which may increase the accessibility and appeal of the Irish language for new generations.[citation needed]
Irish is represented by several traditionaldialects and by various varieties of "urban" Irish. The latter have acquired lives of their own and a growing number of native speakers. Differences between the dialects make themselves felt in stress, intonation, vocabulary and structural features.
Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas which survive coincide roughly with the provinces ofConnacht (Cúige Chonnacht),Munster (Cúige Mumhan) andUlster (Cúige Uladh). Records of some dialects ofLeinster (Cúige Laighean) were made by theIrish Folklore Commission and others.[90]Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, had a form of Irish derived from the Munster Irish of the later 18th century (seeNewfoundland Irish).
Historically, Connacht Irish represents the westernmost remnant of a dialect area which once stretched from east to west across the centre of Ireland. The strongest dialect of Connacht Irish is to be found inConnemara and theAran Islands. Much closer to the larger Connacht Gaeltacht is the dialect spoken in the smaller region on the border between Galway (Gaillimh) and Mayo (Maigh Eo). There are a number of differences between the popular South Connemara form of Irish, the Mid-Connacht/Joyce Country form (on the border between Mayo and Galway) and the Achill and Erris forms in the north of the province.
Features in Connacht Irish differing from the official standard include a preference for verbal nouns ending in-achan, e.g.lagachan instead oflagú, "weakening". The non-standard pronunciation ofCois Fharraige with lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings gives it a distinct sound. Distinguishing features of Connacht and Ulster dialect include the pronunciation of word-final/w/ as[w], rather than as[vˠ] in Munster. For example,sliabh ("mountain") is[ʃlʲiəw] in Connacht and Ulster as opposed to[ʃlʲiəβ] in the south. In addition Connacht and Ulster speakers tend to include the "we" pronoun rather than use the standard compound form used in Munster, e.g.bhí muid is used for "we were" instead ofbhíomar.
As in Munster Irish, some short vowels are lengthened and others diphthongised before⟨ll, m, nn, rr, rd⟩, in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant. This can be seen inceann[cɑːn̪ˠ] "head",cam[kɑːmˠ] "crooked",gearr[ɟɑːɾˠ] "short",ord[ouɾˠd̪ˠ] "sledgehammer",gall[gɑːl̪ˠ] "foreigner, non-Gael",iontas[ˈiːn̪ˠt̪ˠəsˠ] "a wonder, a marvel", etc. The form⟨(a)ibh⟩, when occurring at the end of words likeagaibh, tends to be pronounced as[iː].
In South Connemara, for example, there is a tendency to replace word-final/vʲ/ with/bʲ/, in word such assibh,libh anddóibh (pronounced respectively as "shiv," "liv" and "dófa" in the other areas). This placing of the B-sound is also present at the end of words ending in vowels, such asacu ([ˈakəbˠ]) and 'leo ([lʲoːbˠ]). There is also a tendency to omit/g/ inagam,agat andagainn, a characteristic also of other Connacht dialects. All these pronunciations are distinctively regional.
The pronunciation prevalent in theJoyce Country (the area aroundLough Corrib andLough Mask) is quite similar to that of South Connemara, with a similar approach to the wordsagam,agat andagainn and a similar approach to pronunciation of vowels and consonants but there are noticeable differences in vocabulary, with certain words such asdoiligh (difficult) andfoscailte being preferred to the more usualdeacair andoscailte. Another interesting aspect of this sub-dialect is that almost all vowels at the end of words tend to be pronounced as[iː]:eile (other),cosa (feet) anddéanta (done) tend to be pronounced aseilí,cosaí anddéantaí respectively.
The northern Mayo dialect ofErris (Iorras) andAchill (Acaill) is in grammar andmorphology essentially a Connacht dialect but shows some similarities to Ulster Irish due to large-scale immigration of dispossessed people following thePlantation of Ulster. For example, words ending -⟨bh, mh⟩ have a much softer sound, with a tendency to terminate words such asleo anddóibh with⟨f⟩, givingleofa anddófa respectively. In addition to a vocabulary typical of other area of Connacht, one also finds Ulster words likeamharc (meaning "to look"),nimhneach (painful or sore),druid (close),mothaigh (hear),doiligh (difficult),úr (new), andtig le (to be able to – i.e. a form similar toféidir).
Irish PresidentDouglas Hyde was possibly one of the last speakers of theRoscommon dialect of Irish.[37]
Munster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht areas of the counties ofCork (Contae Chorcaí),Kerry (Contae Chiarraí), andWaterford (Contae Phort Láirge). The Gaeltacht areas of Cork can be found inCape Clear Island (Oileán Chléire) andMuskerry (Múscraí); those of Kerry lie inCorca Dhuibhne andIveragh Peninsula; and those of Waterford inRing (An Rinn) andOld Parish (An Sean Phobal), both of which together formGaeltacht na nDéise. Of the three counties, the Irish spoken in Cork and Kerry is quite similar while that of Waterford is more distinct.
Some typical features of Munster Irish are:
The use ofsynthetic verbs in parallel with a pronominal subject system, thus "I must" iscaithfead in Munster, while other dialects prefercaithfidh mé (mé means "I"). "I was" and "you were" arebhíos andbhís in Munster but more commonlybhí mé andbhí tú in other dialects. These are strong tendencies, and the personal formsbhíos etc. are used in the West and North, particularly when the words are last in the clause.
Use ofindependent/dependent forms of verbs that are not included in the Standard. For example, "I see" in Munster ischím, which is the independent form; Ulster Irish also uses a similar form,tchím, whereas "I do not see" isní fheicim,feicim being the dependent form, which is used after particles such asní ("not").Chím is replaced byfeicim in the Standard. Similarly, the traditional form preserved in Munsterbheirim "I give"/ní thugaim istugaim/ní thugaim in the Standard;gheibhim I get/ní bhfaighim isfaighim/ní bhfaighim.
When before⟨ll, m, nn, rr, rd⟩ and so on, in monosyllabic words and in the stressed syllable of multisyllabic words where the syllable is followed by a consonant, some short vowels are lengthened while others arediphthongised, inceann[cɑun̪ˠ] "head",cam[kɑumˠ] "crooked",gearr[ɟɑːɾˠ] "short",ord[oːɾˠd̪ˠ] "sledgehammer",gall[gɑul̪ˠ] "foreigner, non-Gael",iontas[uːn̪ˠt̪ˠəsˠ] "a wonder, a marvel",compánach[kəumˠˈpˠɑːnˠəx] "companion, mate", etc.
Acopular construction involvingea "it" is frequently used. Thus "I am an Irish person" can be saidis Éireannach mé andÉireannach is ea mé in Munster; there is a subtle difference in meaning, however, the first choice being a simple statement of fact, while the second brings emphasis onto the wordÉireannach. In effect the construction is a type of "fronting".
Both masculine and feminine words are subject to lenition afterinsan (sa/san) "in the",den "of the", anddon "to/for the":sa tsiopa "in the shop", compared to the Standardsa siopa (the Standard lenites only feminine nouns in the dative in these cases).
Eclipsis of⟨f⟩ aftersa:sa bhfeirm, "in the farm", instead ofsan fheirm.
Eclipsis of⟨t⟩ and⟨d⟩ after preposition + singular article, with all prepositions except afterinsan,den anddon:ar an dtigh "on the house",ag an ndoras "at the door".
Stress is generally on the second syllable of a word when the first syllable contains a short vowel, and the second syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong, or is -⟨(e)ach⟩, e.g.Ciarán ispronounced[ciəˈɾˠaːn̪ˠ] opposed to[ˈciəɾˠaːn̪ˠ] in Connacht and Ulster.
Ulster Irish is the dialect spoken in the Gaeltacht regions of Donegal. These regions contain all of Ulster's communities where Irish has been spoken in an unbroken line back to when the language was the dominant language of Ireland. The Irish-speaking communities in other parts of Ulster are a result of language revival – English-speaking families deciding to learn Irish. Census data shows that 4,130 people speak it at home.
Linguistically, the most important of theUlster dialects today is that which is spoken, with slight differences, in bothGweedore (Gaoth Dobhair = Inlet of Streaming Water) andThe Rosses (na Rossa).
Ulster Irish sounds quite different from the other two main dialects. It shares several features with southern dialects ofScottish Gaelic andManx, as well as having many characteristic words and shades of meanings. However, since the demise of those Irish dialects spoken natively in what is today Northern Ireland, it is probably an exaggeration to see present-day Ulster Irish as an intermediary form between Scottish Gaelic and the southern and western dialects of Irish. Northern Scottish Gaelic has many non-Ulster features in common with Munster Irish.
One noticeable trait of Ulster Irish, Scots Gaelic and Manx is the use of the negative particlecha(n) in place of the Munster and Connachtní. Though southern Donegal Irish tends to usení more thancha(n),cha(n) has almost oustední in northernmost dialects (e.g.Rosguill andTory Island), though even in these areasníl "is not" is more common thanchan fhuil orcha bhfuil.[91][92] Another noticeable trait is the pronunciation of the first person singular verb ending-(a)im as-(e)am, also common to the Isle of Man and Scotland (Munster/Connachtsiúlaim "I walk", Ulstersiúlam).
Down to the early 19th century and even later, Irish was spoken in all twelve counties of Leinster. The evidence furnished by placenames, literary sources and recorded speech indicates that there was no Leinster dialect as such. Instead, the main dialect used in the province was represented by a broad central belt stretching from west Connacht eastwards to theLiffey estuary and southwards toWexford, though with many local variations. Two smaller dialects were represented by the Ulster speech of counties Meath and Louth, which extended as far south as theBoyne valley, and a Munster dialect found in Kilkenny and south Laois.
The main dialect had characteristics which survive today only in the Irish of Connacht. It typically placed the stress on the first syllable of a word, and showed a preference (found in placenames) for the pronunciation⟨cr⟩ where the standard spelling is⟨cn⟩. The wordcnoc (hill) would therefore be pronouncedcroc. Examples are the placenames Crooksling (Cnoc Slinne) in County Dublin and Crukeen (Cnoicín) in Carlow. East Leinster showed the same diphthongisation or vowel lengthening as in Munster and Connacht Irish in words likepoll (hole),cill (monastery),coill (wood),ceann (head),cam (crooked) anddream (crowd). A feature of the dialect was the pronunciation of⟨ao⟩, which generally became[eː] in east Leinster (as in Munster), and[iː] in the west (as in Connacht).[93]
Early evidence regarding colloquial Irish in east Leinster is found inThe Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge (1547), by the English physician and traveller Andrew Borde.[94] The illustrative phrases he uses include the following:
The Pale (An Pháil) was an area around late medieval Dublin under the control of the English government. By the late 15th century it consisted of an area along the coast fromDalkey, south ofDublin, to the garrison town ofDundalk, with an inland boundary encompassingNaas andLeixlip in theEarldom of Kildare andTrim andKells in County Meath to the north. In this area of "Englyshe tunge" English had never actually been a dominant language – and was moreover a relatively late comer; the first colonisers were Normans who spoke Norman French, and before these Norse. The Irish language had always been the language of the bulk of the population. An English official remarked of the Pale in 1515 that "all the common people of the said half counties that obeyeth the King's laws, for the most part be of Irish birth, of Irish habit and of Irish language".[95]
With the strengthening of English cultural and political control, language change began to occur but this did not become clearly evident until the 18th century. Even then, in the decennial period 1771–81, the percentage of Irish speakers in Meath was at least 41%. By 1851 this had fallen to less than 3%.[96]
English expanded strongly in Leinster in the 18th century but Irish speakers were still numerous. In the decennial period 1771–81 certain counties had estimated percentages of Irish speakers as follows (though the estimates are likely to be too low):[96]
Kilkenny 57%
Louth 57%
Longford 22%
Westmeath 17%
The language saw its most rapid initial decline in counties Dublin, Kildare, Laois, Wexford, and Wicklow. In recent years, County Wicklow has been noted as having the lowest percentage of Irish speakers of any county in Ireland, with only 0.14% of its population claiming to have passable knowledge of the language.[97] The proportion of Irish-speaking children in Leinster went down as follows: 17% in the 1700s, 11% in the 1800s, 3% in the 1830s, and virtually none in the 1860s.[98] The Irish census of 1851 showed that there were still a number of older speakers in County Dublin.[96] Sound recordings were made between 1928 and 1931 of some of the last speakers inOmeath, County Louth (now available in digital form).[99] The last known traditional native speaker in Omeath, and in Leinster as a whole, was Annie O'Hanlon (née Dobbin), who died in 1960.[28] Her dialect was, in fact, a branch of the Irish of south-east Ulster.[100]
Urban use from the Middle Ages to the 19th century
Irish was spoken as a community language in Irish towns and cities down to the 19th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was widespread even in Dublin and the Pale. The English administratorWilliam Gerard (1518–1581) commented as follows: "All English, and the most part with delight, even in Dublin, speak Irish,"[101] while theOld English historianRichard Stanihurst (1547–1618) lamented that "When their posterity became not altogether so wary in keeping, as their ancestors were valiant in conquering, the Irish language was free dennized in the English Pale: this canker took such deep root, as the body that before was whole and sound, was by little and little festered, and in manner wholly putrified".[102]
The Irish of Dublin, situated as it was between the east Ulster dialect of Meath and Louth to the north and the Leinster-Connacht dialect further south, may have reflected the characteristics of both in phonology and grammar. In County Dublin itself the general rule was to place the stress on the initial vowel of words. With time it appears that the forms of the dative case took over the other case endings in the plural (a tendency found to a lesser extent in other dialects). In a letter written in Dublin in 1691 we find such examples as the following:gnóthuimh (accusative case, the standard form beinggnóthaí),tíorthuibh (accusative case, the standard form beingtíortha) andleithscéalaibh (genitive case, the standard form beingleithscéalta).[103]
English authorities of the Cromwellian period, aware that Irish was widely spoken in Dublin, arranged for its official use. In 1655 several local dignitaries were ordered to oversee a lecture in Irish to be given in Dublin. In March 1656 a converted Catholic priest, Séamas Corcy, was appointed to preach in Irish at Bride's parish every Sunday, and was also ordered to preach atDrogheda andAthy.[104] In 1657 the English colonists in Dublin presented a petition to the Municipal Council complaining that in Dublin itself "there is Irish commonly and usually spoken".[105]
There is contemporary evidence of the use of Irish in other urban areas at the time. In 1657 it was found necessary to have an Oath of Abjuration (rejecting the authority of the Pope) read in Irish inCork so that people could understand it.[106]
Irish was sufficiently strong in early 18th century Dublin to be the language of a coterie of poets and scribes led by Seán and Tadhg Ó Neachtain, both poets of note.[107] Scribal activity in Irish persisted in Dublin right through the 18th century. An outstanding example was Muiris Ó Gormáin (Maurice Gorman), a prolific producer of manuscripts who advertised his services (in English) inFaulkner's Dublin Journal.[108] There were still an appreciable number of Irish speakers inCounty Dublin at the time of the 1851 census.[109]
In other urban centres the descendants of medieval Anglo-Norman settlers, the so-calledOld English, were Irish-speaking or bilingual by the 16th century.[110] The English administrator and travellerFynes Moryson, writing in the last years of the 16th century, said that "the English Irish and the very citizens (excepting those of Dublin where the lord deputy resides) though they could speak English as well as we, yet commonly speak Irish among themselves, and were hardly induced by our familiar conversation to speak English with us".[111] In Galway, a city dominated by Old English merchants and loyal to the Crown up to theIrish Confederate Wars (1641–1653), the use of the Irish language had already provoked the passing of an Act ofHenry VIII (1536), ordaining as follows:
Item, that every inhabitant within oure said towne [Galway] endeavour themselfes to speake English, and to use themselfes after the English facon; and, speciallye, that you, and every one of you, doe put your children to scole, to lerne to speke English...[112]
The demise of native cultural institutions in the seventeenth century saw the social prestige of Irish diminish, and the gradual Anglicisation of the middle classes followed.[113] The census of 1851 showed, however, that the towns and cities of Munster still had significant Irish-speaking populations. Much earlier, in 1819, James McQuige, a veteranMethodist lay preacher in Irish, wrote: "In some of the largest southern towns, Cork,Kinsale and even the Protestant town ofBandon, provisions are sold in the markets, and cried in the streets, in Irish".[114] Irish speakers constituted over 40% of the population of Cork even in 1851.[115]
The late 18th and 19th centuries saw a reduction in the number of Dublin's Irish speakers, in keeping with the trend elsewhere. This continued until the end of the 19th century, when theGaelic revival saw the creation of a strong Irish–speaking network, typically united by various branches of theConradh na Gaeilge, and accompanied by renewed literary activity.[116] By the 1930s Dublin had a lively literary life in Irish.[117]
Urban Irish has been the beneficiary, from the last decades of the 20th century, of a rapidly expanding system ofGaelscoileanna, teaching entirely through Irish. As of 2019 there are 37 such primary schools in Dublin alone.[118]
It has been suggested that Ireland's towns and cities are acquiring a critical mass of Irish speakers, reflected in the expansion of Irish language media.[119] Many are younger speakers who, after encountering Irish at school, made an effort to acquire fluency, while others have been educated through Irish and some have been raised with Irish. Those from an English-speaking background are now often described asnuachainteoirí ("new speakers") and use whatever opportunities are available (festivals, "pop-up" events) to practise or improve their Irish.[120]
It has been suggested that the comparative standard is still the Irish of the Gaeltacht,[121] but other evidence suggests that young urban speakers take pride in having their own distinctive variety of the language.[122] A comparison of traditional Irish and urban Irish shows that the distinction between broad and slender consonants, which is fundamental to Irish phonology and grammar, is not fully or consistently observed in urban Irish. This and other changes make it possible that urban Irish will become a new dialect or even, over a long period, develop into a creole (i.e. a new language) distinct from Gaeltacht Irish.[119] It has also been argued that there is a certain elitism among Irish speakers, with most respect being given to the Irish of native Gaeltacht speakers and with "Dublin" (i.e. urban) Irish being under-represented in the media.[123] This, however, is paralleled by a failure among some urban Irish speakers to acknowledge grammatical and phonological features essential to the structure of the language.[119]
There is no single official standard for pronouncing the Irish language. Certain dictionaries, such asFoclóir Póca, provide a single pronunciation. Online dictionaries such asFoclóir Béarla-Gaeilge[124] provide audio files in the three major dialects. The differences between dialects are considerable, and have led to recurrent difficulties in conceptualising a "standard Irish." In recent decades contacts between speakers of different dialects have become more frequent and the differences between the dialects are less noticeable.[125]
An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official Standard"), often shortened toAn Caighdeán, is a standard for the spelling and grammar of written Irish, developed and used by the Irish government. Its rules are followed by most schools in Ireland, though schools in and near Irish-speaking regions also use the local dialect. It was published by the translation department ofDáil Éireann in 1953[126] and updated in 2012[127] and 2017.
In pronunciation, Irish most closely resembles its nearest relatives,Scottish Gaelic andManx. One notable feature is that consonants (except/h/) come in pairs, one "broad" (velarised, pronounced with the back of the tongue pulled back towards the soft palate) and one "slender" (palatalised, pronounced with the middle of the tongue pushed up towards the hard palate). While broad–slender pairs are not unique to Irish (being found, for example, inRussian), in Irish they have a grammatical function.
There are two verbs for "to be", one forinherent qualities with only two forms,is "present" andba "past" and "conditional", and one fortransient qualities, with a full complement of forms except for the verbal adjective. The two verbs share the one verbal noun.
Irish verb formation employs a mixed system during conjugation, with bothanalytic andsynthetic methods employed depending on tense, number, mood and person. For example, in the official standard, present tense verbs have conjugated forms only in the 1st person and autonomous forms (i.e.molaim 'I praise',molaimid 'we praise',moltar 'is praised, one praises' ), whereas all other persons are conveyed analytically (i.e.molann sé 'he praises',molann sibh 'youpl. praise'). The ratio of analytic to synthetic forms in a given verb paradigm varies between the various tenses and moods. The conditional, imperative and past habitual forms prefer synthetic forms in most persons and numbers, whereas the subjunctive, past, future and present forms prefer mostly analytical forms.
Prepositionsinflect forperson andnumber. Different prepositionsgovern differentcases. In Old and Middle Irish,prepositionsgoverned different cases depending on intendedsemantics; this has disappeared in Modern Irish except in fossilised form.
Irish has no verb to express having; instead, the wordag ("at", etc.) is used in conjunction with the transient "be" verbbheith:
Tá leabhar agam. "I have a book." (Literally, "there is a book at me", cf. Russian У меня есть книга, Finnishminulla on kirja, Frenchle livre est à moi)
Tá leabhar agat. "You (singular) have a book."
Tá leabhar aige. "He has a book."
Tá leabhar aici. "She has a book."
Tá leabhar againn. "We have a book."
Tá leabhar agaibh. "You (plural) have a book."
Tá leabhar acu. "They have a book."
Numerals have three forms: abstract, general and ordinal. The numbers from 2 to 10 (and these in combination with higher numbers) are rarely used for people, numeral nominals being used instead:
caith! "throw!" –chaith mé "I threw" (lenition as a past-tense marker, caused by the particledo, now generally omitted)
gá "requirement" –easpa an ghá "lack of the requirement" (lenition marking the genitive case of a masculine noun)
Seán "John" –a Sheáin! "John!" (lenition as part of the vocative case, the vocative lenition being triggered bya, the vocative marker beforeSheáin)
Eclipsis (urú) covers the voicing of voiceless stops, andnasalisation of voiced stops.
Athair "Father" –ár nAthair "our Father"
tús "start",ar dtús "at the start"
Gaillimh "Galway" –i nGaillimh "in Galway"
Mutations are often the only way to distinguish grammatical forms. For example, the only non-contextual way to distinguishpossessive pronouns "her", "his" and "their", is through initial mutations since all meanings are represented by the same worda.
The official symbol of the Irish Defence Forces, showing a Gaelic typeface with dot diacritics
A nativewriting system,Ogham, was used to write Primitive Irish and Old Irish untilLatin script was introduced in the 5th centuryCE.[129] Since the introduction of Latin script, the maintypeface used to write Irish wasGaelic type until it was replaced byRoman type during the mid-20th century.
The traditional Irishalphabet (áibítir) consists of 18letters:⟨a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u⟩; it does not contain⟨j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z⟩.[130][131] However, contemporary Irish uses the full Latin alphabet, with the previously unused letter used in modernloanwords;⟨v⟩ occurs in a small number of (mainlyonomatopoeic) native words andcolloquialisms.
Vowels may beaccented with anacute accent (⟨á, é, í, ó, ú⟩; Irish andHiberno-English:(síneadh) fada "long (sign)"), but it is ignored for purposes of alphabetisation.[132] It is used, among other conventions, to marklong vowels, e.g.⟨e⟩ is/ɛ/ and⟨é⟩ is/eː/.
Theoverdot (ponc séimhithe "dot of lenition") was used in traditionalorthography to indicatelenition; An Caighdeán uses a following⟨h⟩ for this purpose, i.e. the dotted letters (litreacha buailte "struck letters")⟨ḃ, ċ, ḋ, ḟ, ġ, ṁ, ṗ, ṡ, ṫ⟩ are equivalent to⟨bh, ch, dh, fh, gh, mh, ph, sh, th⟩.
The use of Gaelic type and the overdot today is restricted to when a traditional style is consciously being used, e.g.Óglaiġ na h-Éireann on theIrish Defence Forces cap badge (seeabove). Extending the use of the overdot to Roman type would theoretically have the advantage of making Irish texts significantly shorter, e.g.gheobhaidh sibh "you (pl.) will get" would becomeġeoḃaiḋ siḃ.
Around the time of theSecond World War, Séamas Daltún, in charge ofRannóg an Aistriúcháin [ga] (The Translation Department of theIrish government), issued his own guidelines about how tostandardise Irishspelling andgrammar. Thisde facto standard was subsequently approved by the State and developed intoan Caighdeán Oifigiúil, which simplified and standardised the orthography and grammar by removing inter-dialectalsilent letters and simplifying vowel combinations. Where multiple versions existed in different dialects for the same word, one was selected, for example:
An Caighdeán does not reflect all dialects to the same degree, e.g.cruaidh/kɾˠuəj/ "hard",leabaidh/ˈl̠ʲabˠəj/ "bed", andtráigh/t̪ˠɾˠaːj/ "beach" were standardised ascrua,leaba, andtrá despite the reformed spellings only reflecting South Connacht realisations[kɾˠuə],[ˈl̠ʲabˠə],and[t̪ˠɾˠaː], failing to represent the other dialectal realisations[kɾˠui],[ˈl̠ʲabˠi],and[t̪ˠɾˠaːi] (in Mayo and Ulster) or[kɾˠuəɟ],[ˈl̠ʲabˠəɟ],and[t̪ˠɾˠaːɟ] (in Munster), which were previously represented by the pre-reformed spellings.[133] For this reason, the pre-reform spellings are used by some speakers to reflect the dialectal pronunciations.
Other examples include the genitive ofbia "food" (/bʲiə/; pre-reformbiadh) andsaol "life, world" (/sˠeːlˠ/; pre-reformsaoghal), realised[bʲiːɟ] and[sˠeːlʲ] in Munster, reflecting the pre-Caighdeán spellingsbídh andsaoghail, which were standardised asbia andsaoil despite not representing the Munster pronunciations.[134][135]
Irish: Saolaítear gach duine den chine daonna saor agus comhionann i ndínit agus i gcearta. Tá bua an réasúin agus an choinsiasa acu agus ba cheart dóibh gníomhú i dtreo a chéile i spiorad an bhráithreachais.[136]
English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.[137]
^Irish is the first official language of the Irish state.[1] Irish is not widely used as anL2 in most of Ireland, but its use is encouraged by thegovernment.
^O'Gallagher, J. (1877).Sermons in Irish-Gaelic. Gill.
^"Our Role Supporting You".Foras na Gaeilge. Retrieved8 January 2021.... between Foras na Gaeilge and Bòrd na Gàidhlig, promoting the use of Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic in Ireland and Scotland ...'
^Doyle, Danny (2015).Míle Míle i gCéin: The Irish Language in Canada. Ottawa: Borealis Press. p. 196.ISBN978-0-88887-631-7.
^Dinneen, Patrick S. (1927).Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla [Irish and English dictionary] (in Irish) (2d ed.). Dublin: Irish Texts Society. pp. 507 s.v.Gaedhealg.ISBN1-870166-00-0.
^Doyle, Aidan;Gussmann, Edmund (2005).An Ghaeilge, Podręcznik Języka Irlandzkiego. Redakcja Wydawnictw Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. pp. 423k.ISBN83-7363-275-1.
^Ó Dónaill, Niall, ed. (1977).Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla. p. 600 s.v.Gaeilge.
^"Ireland speaks up loudly for Gaelic".The New York Times. 29 March 2005.Archived from the original on 8 January 2014. Retrieved19 February 2017. An example of the use of the word "Gaelic" to describe the language, seen throughout the text of the article.
^Dalton, Martha (July 2019). "Nuclear Accents in Four Irish (Gaelic) Dialects".International Conference of Phonetic Science.XVI.CiteSeerX10.1.1.486.4615.
^"House of Commons, 1 August 1922: Ireland: Erse language (18)".Hansard.157. London, UK:Houses of Parliament. 1240–1242. 1 August 1922.Sir CHARLES OMAN asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has protested against the recent attempt of the Provisional Government in Ireland to force compulsory Erse into all official correspondence, in spite of the agreement that Erse and English should be equally permissible .. MR CHURCHILL .. I do not anticipate that Irish Ministers will willingly incur the very great confusion which would inevitably result from the use of Irish for the material parts of their correspondence.
^Irving, Jenni."Ogham".World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved27 March 2024.
^Ó Murchú, Máirtín (1993). "Aspects of the societal status of Modern Irish". In Ball, Martin J.; Fife, James (eds.).The Celtic Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 471–90.ISBN0-415-01035-7.
^See the discussion and the conclusions reached in 'Language and Occupational Status: Linguistic Elitism in the Irish Labour Market,' The Economic and Social Review, Vol. 40, No. 4, Winter, 2009, pp. 435–460:Ideas.repec.orgArchived 29 March 2015 at theWayback Machine
^Clarke, Sandra; Paddock, Harold; MacKenzie, Marguerite (1999)."Language".Heritage: Newfoundland and Labrador.
^"7. Irish".Report of the 2016 Census of Ireland. Dublin, Ireland: Central Statistics Office. 2017. pp. 66, 69.Of the 1.76 million who said they could speak Irish, 73,803 said they speak it daily outside the education system, a fall of 3,382 on the 2011 figure. ... (421,274) said they never spoke Irish. ... Of the 73,803 daily Irish speakers (outside the education system), 20,586 (27.9%) lived in Gaeltacht areas. The total population of all Gaeltacht areas in April 2016 was 96,090
^Hamilton, John Noel (1974).A Phonetic Study of the Irish of Tory Island, County Donegal. Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast.
^Lucas, Leslie W. (1979).Grammar of Ros Goill Irish, County Donegal. Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast.
^See "Tony Crowley, "The Politics of Language in Ireland 1366–1922: A Sourcebook" andLeerssen, Joep,Mere Irish and Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior to the Nineteenth Century, University of Notre Dame Press 1997, p. 51.ISBN978-0268014278
^Ellis, Henry (ed.).The Description of Ireland, An Electronic Edition: Chapter 1 (The Names of Ireland, with the Compasse of the Same, also what Shires or Counties it Conteineth, the Diuision or Partition of the Land, and of the Language of the People)
^Fitzgerald, Garrett, 'Estimates for baronies of minimal level of Irish-speaking amongst successive decennial cohorts, 117-1781 to 1861–1871,' Volume 84,Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 1984
^Ó Conluain & Ó Céileachair 1976, pp. 148–153, 163–169, 210–215.
^Máirín Ní Mhuiríosa, "Cumann na Scríbhneoirí: Memoir" inScríobh 5, pp. 168–181, Seán Ó Mórdha (ed.), An Clóchomhar Tta 1981.
^Nic Fhlannchadha, S.; Hickey, T.M. (12 January 2016). "Minority Language Ownership and Authority: Perspectives of Native Speakers and New Speakers".International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.21 (1):38–53.doi:10.1080/13670050.2015.1127888.hdl:10197/7394.S2CID67833553.
^"An Caighdeán Oifigiúil" [The Official Standard](PDF) (in Irish). January 2012.Archived(PDF) from the original on 25 April 2018. Retrieved26 February 2018.
^Doyle, Aidan;Gussmann, Edmund (2005).An Ghaeilge, Podręcznik Języka Irlandzkiego. Redakcja Wydawnictw Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. p. 417.ISBN83-7363-275-1.
^Doyle, Aidan;Gussmann, Edmund (2005).An Ghaeilge, Podręcznik Języka Irlandzkiego. Redakcja Wydawnictw Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. p. 412.ISBN83-7363-275-1.
^Doyle, Aidan;Gussmann, Edmund (2005).An Ghaeilge, Podręcznik Języka Irlandzkiego. Redakcja Wydawnictw Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego. p. 432.ISBN83-7363-275-1.
Doyle, Aidan,A History of the Irish Language: From the Norman Invasion to Independence, Oxford, 2015.
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Garvin, Tom,Preventing the Future: Why was Ireland so poor for so long?,Gill and MacMillan, 2005.
Ó Gráda, Cormac. 'Cé Fada le Fán' inDublin Review of Books, Issue 34, 6 May 2013:"CÉ FADA LE FÁN".Drb.ie.Archived from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved23 September 2017.
Kelly, James & Mac Murchaidh, Ciarán (eds.).Irish and English: Essays on the Linguistic and Cultural Frontier 1600–1900.Four Courts Press 2012.ISBN978-1846823404
Ní Mhunghaile, Lesa. 'An Eighteenth Century Irish scribe's private library: Muiris Ó Gormáin's books' inProceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Volume 110C, 2010, pp. 239–276.
Ní Mhuiríosa, Máirín. 'Cumann na Scríbhneoirí: Memoir' inScríobh 5, ed. Seán Ó Mórdha.Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar Tta 1981.
Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí.Labhrann Laighnigh: Téacsanna agus Cainteanna ó Shean-Chúige Laighean. Coiscéim 2011.
Ó Laoire, Muiris.Language Use and Language Attitudes in Ireland inMultilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts : Language Use and Attitudes, ed. David Lasagabaster and Ángel Huguet. Multilingual Matters Ltd. 2007.ISBN1-85359-929-8
Shibakov, Alexey.Irish Word Forms / Irische Wortformen. epubli 2017.ISBN9783745066500
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