Irish language outside Ireland

The Irish language originated in Ireland and was historically the dominant language of the Irish people. They took it with them to a number of other countries. In Scotland and the Isle of Man it gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx. It was later carried abroad to other more distant lands in both hemispheres.

In the course of the 19th century English became the dominant vernacular of Ireland, and Irish has since been spoken only by a small minority of the population. Irish remains the vehicle of a separate cultural, literary and historical experience, emphasised by purely linguistic differences, since (like other Celtic languages) it is distinctive in structure and vocabulary. Irish was the language that a large number of emigrants took with them from the 17th century (when large-scale emigration, forced or otherwise, became noticeable) to the 19th century.

The Irish diaspora mainly settled in English-speaking countries, chiefly Britain and North America. In some instances the Irish language was retained for several generations. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to which the Irish went in large numbers, and those emigrants came in the 19th century from areas where Irish was already in retreat.

An interest in the language has persisted among a minority in the diaspora countries, and even in countries where there was never a significant Irish presence. This has been shown in the founding of language classes (including some at tertiary level), in the use of the Internet, and in contributions to journalism or literature.

Irish speakers of all social classes were to be found in early modern Britain. Irish beggars were common in 16th century England, and from the late 16th century many unskilled Irish labourers settled in Liverpool, Bristol and London. Aristocratic Irish speakers included the Nugent brothers, members of Ireland's "Old English" community: Christopher, 9th Baron Delvin, who wrote an Irish-language primer for Elizabeth I, and William, an Irish language poet who is known to have been at Oxford in 1571.

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