Irish language revival

Irish is a main home, work or community language for approximately 1% of the population of the Republic of Ireland (the population of the Republic of Ireland shown to be 4,761,865 in the 2016 census). The 2011 census in Northern Ireland showed that Irish is the home language of 0.2% of people with 6% of people able to speak Irish to varying degrees (see Irish language in Northern Ireland). At least one in four people (~1.7 million) on the island of Ireland claim to understand Irish to some extent. Estimates of fully native speakers range from 40,000 up to 80,000 people. Areas in which the language remains a vernacular are referred to as Gaeltacht areas.

Irish is the least widely spoken among the 26 official languages of the European Union. The use of the language in the Irish diaspora has been declining steadily.

Irish speakers outside the Gaeltacht include both second-language speakers and native speakers who were raised and educated through Irish. They are sometimes known as Gaeilgeoirí and constitute an expanding minority, though of uncertain size. They are predominantly urban dwellers. Present trends make it likely that they represent the future of the language and a guarantee of its survival.

Recent research suggests that urban Irish is developing in a direction of its own and that Irish speakers from urban areas can find it difficult to understand Irish speakers from the Gaeltacht. This is related to an urban tendency to simplify the phonetic and grammatical structure of the language. The written standard remains the same for both groups, and urban Irish speakers have made notable contributions to an extensive modern literature.

It has been argued that Gaeilgeoirí tend to be more highly educated than monolingual English speakers and enjoy the benefits of language-based networking, leading to better employment and higher social status. Though this initial study has been criticised for certain assumptions, the statistical evidence supports the view that such bilinguals enjoy certain educational advantages and the 2011 Republic of Ireland census noted that daily Irish speakers were more highly educated than the population generally. Of those daily Irish speakers who had completed their education, 44 per cent had a third level degree or higher. This compared to a rate of 26 per cent for the state overall.

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Wikipedia