The Changing Fortunes
of the Irish Language

Irish has been the spoken language of Ireland for more than two thousand years. It has an extensive literature, stretching back to the seventh century, with stone inscriptions called Ogham from as early as the third century. Writing began in earnest after the spread of Christianity in the fifth century. For the next few hundred years, the main power centres in Irish life were large monasteries or monastic cities, and it is in them that the extensive early Irish literature was produced. Viking raids from the eighth century onwards led to the establishment of Norse-speaking colonies in Ireland, most prominently where the cities of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick and Galway are today. But Norse power never extended very widely in Ireland, and declined rapidly after the period of Brian Ború (†1014). Only a handful of Norse loan-words survive in Modern Irish; the word bord "table" is the only very common example, and most of the rest of them have to do with ships.

The Normans invaded Ireland in 1169 and rapidly established a number of power bases, where the main spoken language was Norman French. This has left a very large legacy of words in Irish, as in English, most prominently in the fields of law and civil administration. The Normans fairly quickly became Gaelicised, much to the disgust of their cogeners in England, who had quickly become Anglicised. But their protestations that the Irish Normans had become Hibernioris ipsis Hibernicis, "More Irish than the Irish", had little effect. As late as the mid-1600s, the Norman chieftain Piaras Feirtéar (†1651) was writing poetry in all three languages, Irish, French and English. The Normans became known as the "Old English" (seanGhaill) to distinguish them from the later English, who were never assimilated. To this day, many of Ireland's greatest patriots have been of Norman stock.

The Tudor reconquest in the 1500s and the Cromwellian settlements in the 1600s caused massive social destruction in Ireland, and linguistic disruption was a large part of that damage. From then on, the Irish language began to lose ground to English under extensive political and economic oppression, beginning in the Pale around Dublin and spreading west. In 1800, the English passed an Act of Union, extinguishing the Irish parliament and annexing Ireland as a province; by this time, Irish had become the language of the poor and illiterate dispossessed. Over the next fifty years, the Roman Catholic clergy were actively courted and effectively Anglicised through the founding of a seminary in Maynooth funded by the English government, and they turned strongly against the language. There were honourable exceptions, of course, most notably John McHale, Archbishop of Tuam and "The Lion of the West". The National School system of education established in the 1830s (Patrick Pearse's "Murder Machine") also operated strongly against Irish speakers; children were taught that they were English and should speak English, and those caught speaking Irish were forced to wear a token around their necks. With the Great Hunger of the late 1840s, the language entered its period of lowest vitality, and in the course of a generation, it was reduced effectively to the position it occupies today.
 

Famine scene from The Illustrated London News

In 1893, a group of concerned cultural nationalists founded an organisation called the Gaelic League to attempt to revive the fortunes of the language and of the nation. They had spectacular success in the first couple of decades, and the opinion that Irish would soon recover all the ground it had lost to English was widespread at the beginning of the century, not only amongst Gaelic Leaguers. After the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Black and Tan War of 1919-1920, independence was achieved for the greater part of the Irish nation. Irish Irelanders expected the revival of the language to accelerate with the founding of the new state, but their hopes were misplaced. It has been said that after independence, the Gaelic League left the revival up to the Free State, the Free State left it up to the Department of Education, the Department of Education left it up to the primary teachers, and the primary teachers left it up to the school children. Not surprisingly, it didn't get too far. Nonetheless, ever-increasing numbers of people all across the country have been acquiring ability in Irish, and the number of fluent speakers continues to increase.

Retreat of Gaeltacht (community) Irish 17th century to today (All of Ireland)

Increase in number of Irish speakers 1890s to today (Republic only)

In more recent decades, Irish has experienced a new revival, with the foundation of new publications, a full radio service, a recent television station, and the grassroots growth of Irish-medium education. The Catholic Church and the education system, among the language's most powerful enemies in the last century, have become its strongest institutional supports. In the most recent censuses (both in 1991), over a million people in the Republic and over 140,000 in the Six Counties laid a claim to some degree of proficiency in the language. Every survey of public attitudes towards the language shows strong positive perceptions of it and overwhelming support for its speakers. The Irish language has become fashionable.