Irish language Totally Explained

Everything about Irish Language totally explained

Irish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish. Irish is now spoken natively by only a small minority of the Irish population - mostly in parts of officially designated Gaeltachtaí (sing. Gaeltacht) - but still has a visible symbolic role in the life of the Irish state. It enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and it's an official language of the European Union. Irish is also an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland.
Estimates of fully native speakers range from 20,000 to 50,000 people . The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs estimated in 2007 that 17,000 people lived in areas where Irish was the community language, and a further 10,000 in areas where it's partly the community language. But since Irish is an obligatory subject in schools, many more are reasonably fluent second-language speakers. Furthermore, a much larger number regularly regard themselves as competent to some degree in the language: 1,656,790 (41.9% of the total population aged three years and over) regard themselves as competent Irish speakers . Of these, 538,283 (32.5%) speak Irish on a daily basis, 97,089 (5.9%) weekly, 581,574 (35.1%) less often, 412,846 (24.9%) never, and 26,998 (1.6%) didn't state how often. Today, complete monolingualism is almost unheard of, and probably restricted to the very elderly in Gaeltacht regions and to native speakers under school age.
The number of inhabitants of the official-designated Gaeltacht regions of Ireland is 91,862, as of the 2006 census. Of these, 70.8% aged three and over speak Irish and approximately 60% speak Irish on a daily basis.

In Irish

In the (the official written standard) the name of the language is (IPA: /ˈgeːlʲɟə/), which reflects the southern Connacht pronunciation.
Before the spelling reform of 1948, this form was spelled ; originally this was the genitive of, the form used in classical Modern Irish. Older spellings of this include in Middle Irish and in Old Irish. The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge.
Other forms of the name found in the various modern Irish dialects, in addition to south Connacht mentioned above, include (IPA: /ˈgeːlʲəc/) or (IPA: /ˈgeːɫ̪əg/) in Ulster Irish and northern Connacht Irish and (IPA: /ˈgeːɫ̪iŋ/) in Munster Irish.

Official status

In Ireland

Irish is given recognition by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of Ireland (with English being a second official language). Since the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see also History of the Republic of Ireland), the Irish Government required a degree of proficiency in Irish for all those who became newly appointed to civil service positions (including postal workers, tax officials, agricultural inspectors, etc.). Proficiency in just one official language for entrance to the public service was introduced in 1974, in part through the actions of protest organizations like the Language Freedom Movement.
   While the First Official Language requirement was also dropped for wider public service jobs, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools within the Republic which receive public money (see also Education in the Republic of Ireland). Those wishing to teach in primary schools in the State must also pass a compulsory examination called "Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge". The need for a pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English for entry to the Gardaí (police) was introduced in September 2005, although applicants are given lessons in the language during the two years of training. All official documents of the Irish Government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (this is according to the official languages act 2003, which is enforced by "an comisinéir teanga", the language ombudsman).
   In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland. The record of his delivering his auguration Declaration of Office in his native Roscommon Irish remains almost the only surviving remnant of anyone speaking in that dialect.
   The National University of Ireland, Galway is required to appoint a person who is competent in the Irish language, as long as they meet all other respects of the vacancy they're appointed to. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). It is expected that the requirement may be repealed in due course.
   Even though modern parliamentary legislation is supposed to be issued in both Irish and English, in practice it's frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" be provided of any law in one official language be translated immediately into the other official language—if not already passed in both official languages.

In Northern Ireland

Prior to the establishment of the Northern Ireland state in 1921, Irish Gaelic was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. This policy continued in spite of attempts in the 1930s to restrict it further in the curriculum. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had a measure of devolved government. During those years the political party holding power in the Storment Parliament, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), were hostile to Gaelic. In broadcasting, was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, the Irish language was banned from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the Northern Ireland state. The language received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. The British government promised to create legislation encouraging the language as part of the 2006 St Andrews Agreement.

In the European Union

While an official language of the European Union, only direct correspondence with the public and co-decision regulations must be produced in Irish for the moment, due to a renewable five-year derogation on what has to be translated, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. Any expansion in the range of documents to be translated will depend on the results of the first five-year review and on whether the Irish authorities decide to seek an extension. Before Irish became an official language on 1st January 2007, it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU had been translated into Irish.

Gaeltacht

There are parts of Ireland where Irish is spoken as a traditional, native language. These regions are known collectively as the Gaeltachtaí. These are in County Galway, including Connemara, the Aran Islands, Carraroe and Spiddal ; on the west coast of County Donegal ; in the part which is known as Tyrconnell ; and Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry . Smaller ones also exist in Mayo, Meath, Waterford, and Cork .
   To summarise the extent of the survival: (See Hindley, 'The Death of the Irish Language') Irish remains as a natural vernacular in the following areas: south Connemara, from a point west of Spiddal, covering Inverin, Carraroe, Rosmuck, and the islands; the Aran Islands, with the exception of the town of Kilronan on Inishmore; northwest Donegal in the area around Gweedore, including Rannafast, Gortahork,the surrounding townlands and Tory Island; in the townland of Rathcarn, Co. Meath.
   Irish remains the normal language of the older population, but isn't the conversational language of the majority of young people in the Gaeltacht as it currently stands, as they perceive English to be (among other things) more fashionable. Despite this, the great majority of them can speak the language fluently. They choose English for social factors.
Gweedore, County Donegal is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland.
   The numerically and socially strongest Gaeltacht areas are those of South Connemara, the west of the Dingle Peninsula and northwest Donegal, in which the majority of residents use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as the ("true Gaeltacht") and collectively have a population just under 20,000. Irish summer colleges are attended by tens of thousands of Irish teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged.
   According to data compiled by the Irish Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, only one quarter of households in officially Gaeltacht areas possess a fluency in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe, described the Irish language policy followed by Irish governments a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times (January 6, 2002), referring to his analysis, which was initially published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse, 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."

Dialects

There are a number of distinct dialects of Irish. Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas coincide with the provinces of Munster, Connacht and Ulster . Newfoundland, in eastern Canada, is also seen to have a minor dialect of Irish, closely resembling the Irish spoken during the 16th to 17th centuries (See Newfoundland Irish).

Munster dialects

Munster Irish is mainly spoken in the Gaeltacht areas of Kerry, Ring near Dungarvan in County Waterford and Muskerry and Cape Clear Island in the western part of County Cork . The most important subdivision in Munster is that between Decies Irish (Na Déise) (spoken in Waterford) and the rest of Munster Irish.
Some typical features of Munster Irish are:

The use of personal endings instead of pronouns with verbs, thus "I must" is in Munster, while other dialects prefer (means "I"). "I was and you were" is in Munster but in other dialects.
In front of nasals and ll some short vowels are lengthened while others are diphthongised.
A copular construction involving is frequently used.
Stress is often on the second syllable of a word, for example ("pin"), as opposed to in Connacht and Ulster.

Connacht dialects

The strongest dialect of Connacht Irish is to be found in Connemara and the Aran Islands. In some regards this dialect is quite different from general Connacht Irish but since most Connacht dialects have died out during the 20th century Connemara Irish is sometimes seen as Connacht Irish. Much closer to the larger Connacht Gaeltacht is the dialect spoken in the smaller region on the border between Galway and Mayo . The northern Mayo dialect of Erris and Achill is in grammar and morphology essentially a Connacht dialect; but shows an affinity in vocabulary with Ulster Irish, due to large-scale immigration of dispossessed people following the Plantation of Ulster.
There are features in Connemara Irish outside the official standard—notably the preference for verbal nouns ending in, for example instead of, "weakening". The non-standard pronunciation with lengthened vowels and heavily reduced endings give Connemara Irish its distinct sound. Distinguishing features of this dialect include the pronunciation of broad bh as [w], rather than as [vˠ] in Munster. For example ("my boat") is pronounced [mˠəwɑːd̪ˠ] in Connacht and Ulster as opposed to [mˠəvˠɑːd̪ˠ] 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 for example is used for "we were" instead of elsewhere.

Ulster dialects

Linguistically the most important of the Ulster dialects today is that of the Rosses, which has been used extensively in literature by such authors as the brothers Séamus Ó Grianna and Seosamh Mac Grianna, locally known as Jimí Fheilimí and Joe Fheilimí. This dialect is essentially the same as that in Gweedore (= Inlet of Streaming Water), and used by native singers Enya and Máire Brennan and their siblings in Clannad (= Family .from the Dobhar[asection of Gweedore]) Na Casaidigh, and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh from another local band Altan.
Ulster Irish sounds very different and shares several unusual features with Scottish Gaelic, as well as having lots of characteristic words and shades of meanings. However, since the demise of those Irish dialects spoken natively in what is today Northern Ireland, it's probably an exaggeration to see Ulster Irish as an intermediary form between Scottish Gaelic and the southern and western dialects of Irish. For instance, Scottish Gaelic has many non-Ulster features in common with Munster Irish.
One noticeable trait of Ulster Irish is the use of the negative particle in place of the Munster and Connacht version . Even in Ulster, —most typical of Scottish Gaelic—has largely ousted the more common (except in "is not") in northernmost dialects (for example Rosguill and Tory Island).

An Caighdeán Oifigiúil

An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official Standard"), often shortened to An Caighdeán, is the standard language, and was introduced in the 1950s/1960s in an attempt to make Irish easier to learn, as it was composed using elements of the Munster and Ulster dialects, but strongly based on the dialect of Connacht. It is the form of Irish that's taught in most schools in Ireland.
   The dialects of Irish native to Leinster, the fourth province of Ireland, became extinct during the 20th century, but records of some of these were made by the Irish Folklore Commission among other bodies prior to this.
   The present-day Irish of Meath (in Leinster) is a special case. It belongs mainly to the Connemara dialect. The Irish-speaking community in Meath is mostly a group of Connemara speakers who moved there in the 1930s after a land reform campaign spearheaded by Máirtín Ó Cadhain (who subsequently became one of the greatest modernist writers in the language).
   What has been called "Dublin Irish" and "Gaelscoil Irish" is also spoken in the capital and amongst the students of Irish-speaking schools throughout the country. This is, arguably, simply the national standard of Irish, or An Caighdeán Oifigiúil but with strong influence from English in the form of idioms and expressions.

Comparisons

The differences between dialects are considerable, and have led to recurrent difficulties in defining standard Irish. A good example is the greeting "How are you?". Just as this greeting varies from region to region, and between social classes, among English speakers, this greeting varies among Irish speakers:

Ulster: ("What is it as you are?" Note: or and sometimes are alternative renderings of )

Connacht: ("What way [isit] that you are?")

Munster: or ("How are you?")

Leinster (Casual Dublin): ("How are [you]?")

Standard Irish: ("How are you?") In recent decades contacts between speakers of different dialects have become frequent and mixed dialects have originated. With the growth in the Irish language media—and in particular the television channel TG4—it has become much easier for speakers of different dialects to understand one another, although this is mostly seen in the younger generations.

Linguistic structure

The features most unfamiliar to English speakers of the language are the orthography, the initial consonant mutations, the Verb Subject Object word order, the use of two different forms for "to be", and noun genders. However, initial mutations are found in other Celtic languages as well as in some Italian and Sardinian dialects, as an independent development. They are also found in some West African languages.

Syntax

Word order in Irish is of the form VSO (Verb-Subject-Object) so that, for example, "He hit me" is [hit-pasttense] [he] [me].
One aspect of Irish syntax that's unfamiliar to speakers of other languages is the use of the copula (known in Irish as ). The copula is used to describe what or who someone is, as opposed to how and where. It is used to say that a noun is another noun, rather than an adjective. This has been likened to the difference between the verbs and in Spanish and Portuguese (see Romance copula), although this is only a rough approximation.

Morphology

Another feature of Irish grammar that's shared with other Celtic languages is the use of prepositional pronouns, which are essentially conjugated prepositions. For example, the word for "at" is, which in the first person singular becomes "at me". When used with the verb ("to be") indicates possession; this is the equivalent of the English verb "to have".

	"I have a book."	(Literally, "there is a book at me.")
	"You have a book."
	"He has a book."
	"She has a book."
	"We have a book."
	"You (plural) have a book."
	"They have a book."

Orthography and pronunciation

acute accent, or (´), serves to lengthen the sound of the vowels and in some cases also changes their quality. For example, in Munster Irish (Kerry), a is /a/ or /ɑ/ and á is /ɑː/ in "law" but in Ulster Irish (Donegal), á tends to be /æː/.
Around the time of World War II, Séamas Daltún, in charge of (the official translations department of the Irish government), issued his own guidelines about how to standardise Irish spelling and grammar. This de facto standard was subsequently approved of by the State and called the Official Standard or .
It simplified and standardised the orthography. Many words had silent letters removed and vowel combination brought closer to the spoken language. Where multiple versions existed in different dialects for the same word, one or more were selected. Examples:

→ , "Irish language" (or is still used in books written in dialect by Munster authors, or as a facetious name for the Munster dialect)

→ , "Louth"

→ , "food" (The spelling is still used by the speakers of those dialects that show a meaningful and audible difference between (nominative case) and (genitive case) "of food, food's". For example, in Munster Irish the latter ends in an audible -g sound, because final -idh, -igh regularly delenites to -ig in Munster pronunciation.) Modern Irish has only one diacritic sign, the acute (á é í ó ú), known in Irish as the "long mark", plural . In English, this is frequently referred to as simply the, where the adjective is used as a noun. The dot-above diacritic, called a or (often shortened to ), derives from the punctum delens used in medieval manuscripts to indicate deletion, similar to crossing out unwanted words in handwriting today. From this usage it was used to indicate the lenition of s (from /s/ to /h/) and f (from /f/ to zero) in Old Irish texts.
Lenition of c, p, and t was indicated by placing the letter h after the affected consonant; lenition of other sounds was left unmarked. Later both methods were extended to be indicators of lenition of any sound except l and n, and two competing systems were used: lenition could be marked by a or by a postposed h. Eventually, use of the predominated when texts were writing using Gaelic letters, while the h predominated when writing using Roman letters.
Today the Gaelic script and the are rarely used except where a "traditional" style is required, for example the motto on the University College Dublin coat of arms or the symbol of the Irish Defence Forces, The Irish Defence Forces cap badge . Letters with the are available in Unicode and Latin-8 character sets (see Latin Extended Additional chart).

Mutations

In Irish, there are two classes of initial consonant mutations:

Lenition (in Irish, "softening") describes the change of stops into fricatives. Indicated in old orthography by a written above the changed consonant, this is now shown in writing by adding an -h:

"throw!" — "I threw" (this is an example of the lenition as a past-tense marker, which is caused by the use of, although it's now usually omitted)
"market", "market-place", "bargain" — "the man of the street" (word for word "Timothy of the market-place"; here we see the lenition marking the genitive case of a masculine noun)
"Seán, John" — "O John!" (here we see lenition as part of what is called the vocative case — in fact, the vocative lenition is triggered by the or vocative marker before )

Nasalisation (in Irish, "eclipsis") covers the voicing of voiceless stops, as well as the true nasalisation of voiced stops.

"father" — "our Father"
"start", "at the start"
"Galway" — "in Galway"

History

Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the fourth century AD; this stage of the language is known as Primitive Irish. Old Irish, dating from the sixth century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. Middle Irish, dating from the tenth century, is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the famous Ulster Cycle. Early Modern Irish, dating from the thirteenth century, was the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland, and is attested by such writers as Geoffrey Keating.
From the eighteenth century the language went into a decline, rapidly losing ground to English due in part to restrictions dictated by British occupation - a conspicuous example of the process known by linguists as Language shift. In the mid-nineteenth century it lost a large portion of its speakers to death and emigration resulting from poverty, particularly in the wake of the Great Irish Famine (1845-1849).
At the end of the nineteenth century, members of the Gaelic Revival movement made efforts to encourage the learning and use of Irish in Ireland.

Current status

Republic of Ireland

The number of native Irish-speakers in the Republic of Ireland today is a smaller fraction of the population than it was at independence. The main reason for the decline was, according to some, the pressure the state put upon Irish-speakers to use English . Also, many Irish speaking families encouraged their children to speak English as it was the language of education and employment. The Official Languages Act of 2003 gave people the right to interact with state bodies in Irish. It is too early to assess how well this is working in practice. Other factors were outward migration of Irish speakers from the Gaeltacht (see related issues at Irish diaspora) and inward migration of English-speakers. The Planning and Development Act (2000) attempted to address the latter issue, with varied levels of success. Planning controls now require new housing in Gaeltacht areas to be allocated to English-speakers and Irish-speakers in the same ratio as the existing population of the area. This will prevent new houses allocated to Irish-speakers being immediately sold on to English-speakers. However, the restriction only lasts for a few years. Also, people are not required to reach native speaker standards of fluency to qualify as Irish-speakers.
On 19 December, 2006 the government announced a 20-year strategy to help Ireland become a fully bilingual country. This involved a 13 point plan and encouraging the use of language in all aspects of life.

Daily life

Several computer software products have the option of an Irish-language interface. Prominent examples include KDE, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Microsoft Windows XP,
   Many English-speaking Irish people use small and simple phrases (known as cúpla focal, "a few words") in their everyday speech, for example ("goodbye"), ("get home safely"), ("good health"; used when drinking like "bottoms up" or "cheers"), ("thank you"), ("a hundred thousand welcomes", a tourist board saying), ("How are you?"). There are many more small sayings that have crept into Hiberno-English. The term craic has been popularised outside Ireland in this made-up Gaelicized spelling: "How's the craic?" or "What's the craic'?" ("how's the fun?"/"how is it going?"), though the word isn't Irish in origin, and the expression "How's the crack?" was widely used in Ireland since at least the 1960s before the Irish-language spelling "craic" became the common journalistic style.
    Many public bodies have Irish language or bilingual names, but some have downgraded the language. An Post, the Republic's postal service, continues to have place names in the language on its postmarks, as well as recognising addresses (as does the Royal Mail in Northern Ireland). Traditionally, the private sector has been less supportive, although support for the language has come from some private companies. For example, Irish supermarket chain Superquinn introduced bilingual signs in its stores in the 1980s, a move which was followed more recently by the British chain Tesco for its stores in the Republic. Woodies DIY now also have bilingual signs in their chain of stores.
   In an effort to increase the use of the Irish language by the State, the Official Languages Act was passed in 2003. This act ensures that most publications made by a governmental body must be published in both official languages, Irish and English. In addition, the office of Language Commissioner has been set up to act as an ombudsman with regard to equal treatment for both languages. Effectively this is to protect Irish as a minority language.
   A major factor in the decline of natively-spoken Irish has been the movement of English speakers into the Gaeltacht (predominantly Irish speaking areas) and the return of native Irish-speakers who have returned with English-speaking partners. This has been stimulated by government grants and infrastructure projects "only about half Gaeltacht children learn Irish in the home... this is related to the high level of in-migration and return migration which has accompanied the economic restructuring of the Gaeltacht in recent decades". Many see this as a deliberate attempt by anti-nationalist politicians to wipe out the language. "That economic development of the kind undertaken was likely to have such consequences was readily predictable a decade ago". In a last-ditch effort to stop the demise of Irish-speaking in Connemara in Galway, planning controls have been introduced on the building of new homes in Irish speaking areas.
   Attempts have been made to offer support for the language through the media, notably with the launch of Raidió na Gaeltachta (Gaeltacht radio) and Teilifís na Gaeilge (Irish language television, initially abbreviated to 'TnaG', now renamed TG4). Both have been relatively successful. TG4 has offered Irish-speaking young people a forum for youth culture as Gaeilge (in Irish) through rock and pop shows, travel shows, dating games, and even a controversial award-winning soap opera in Irish called Ros na Rún. Most of TG4's viewership, however, tends to come from showing Gaelic football, hurling and rugby union matches and also films in English, and English pop music programmes, although some of its Irish language programmes attract large audiences. In 2007 TG4 reported that overall it "has a share of 3% of the national television market". This market share is up from about 1.5% in the late 1990s. TG4 delivers 16 hours a day of television from an annual budget of €30 million, which is widely judged to be relatively efficient. The budget has the full support of all political parties in parliament.
   Thanks in large part to Gael-Taca and Gaillimh Le Gaeilge and two local groups a large number of residential developments are named in Irish today in most of the Republic of Ireland.
   The Placenames Order (Gaeltacht Districts)/ (2004) requires the original Irish placenames to be used in the Gaeltacht on all official documents, maps and roadsigns. This has removed the legal status of those placenames in the Gaeltacht in English. Opposition to these measures comes from several quarters including some people within popular tourist destinations located within the Gaeltacht (namely in Dingle/An Daingean) who claim that tourists may not recognise the Irish forms of the placenames.
   However following a campaign in the 1960s and early 1970s, most roadsigns in Gaeltacht regions have been in Irish only. Maps and government documents didn't change, though. Previously Ordnance Survey (government) maps showed placenames bilingually in the Gaeltacht (and generally in English only elsewhere). Unfortunately, most other map companies wrote only the English placenames, leading to significant confusion in the Gaeltacht. The act therefore updates government documents and maps in line with what has been reality in the Gaeltacht for the past 30 years. Private map companies are expected to follow suit. Beyond the Gaeltacht only English placenames were officially recognised (pre 2004). However, further placenames orders have been passed to enable both the English and the Irish placenames to be used. The village of Straffan is still marked variously as and, even though Irish hasn't been the spoken widely there for two centuries. Irish vehicle registration plates are bilingual: the county of registration is shown in Irish above the plate number as a kind of surtitle, and is encoded from English within the plate number. For example, a Dublin plate is surtitled Baile Átha Cliath and the plate number includes "-D-".
   From 1964 The Bible was translated at Maynooth for Roman Catholics for the first time under the supervision of Professor Pádraig Ó Fiannachta and was finally published in 1981. The Church of Ireland Book of Common Prayer of 2004 is published in both English and Irish.

Education

The Irish language is a compulsory subject in government funded schools in the Republic of Ireland and has been so since the early days of the state. It is taught as a second language at second level (L2) even to native (L1) speakers. English is offered as a first (L1) language only even to those who speak it as a second language. The curriculum was once arranged in the 1930s by Father Timothy Corcoran SJ of UCD, who couldn't speak the language himself. The Irish Government has endeavoured to address the unpopularity of the language by revamping the curriculum at primary school level to focus on spoken Irish. However, at secondary school level, students must analyse literature and poetry, and write lengthy essays, debates and stories in Irish for the (L2) Leaving Certificate examination. The exemption from learning Irish on the grounds of time spent abroad, or learning disability, is subject to Circular 12/96 (primary education) and Circular M10/94 (secondary education) issued by the Department of Education and Science.
In March 2007, the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, announced that more focus would be devoted to the spoken language, and that from 2012, the percentage of marks available in the Leaving Certificate Irish exam would increase from 25% to 40% for the oral component. This increased emphasis on the oral component of the Irish examinations is likely to change the way Irish is examined.
Recently the abolition of compulsory Irish has been discussed. In 2005 Enda Kenny, leader of Ireland's main opposition party, Fine Gael, called for the language to be made an optional subject in the last two years of secondary school. Mr Kenny, despite being a fluent speaker himself (and a teacher), stated that he believed that compulsory Irish has done the language more harm than good.

Gaelscoileanna

A relatively recent development is the proliferation of gaelscoileanna (schools) in which Irish is the medium of education. By September 2005 there were 168 gaelscoileanna at primary level and 43 at secondary level in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland together (excluding the Gaeltacht, whose schools are not considered gaelscoileanna), which amounted to approximately 31,000 students. This has grown from a total of less than 20 in the early 1970s and there are 15 more being planned at present. With the opening of Gaelscoil Liatroma in County Leitrim in 2005 there's now at least one gaelscoil in each of the 32 traditional counties of Ireland. In Gaeltacht areas, the medium of education has been traditionally through Irish, ever since the foundation of the State. The majority of Gaeltacht students tend to be L1 Irish Gaelic speakers, but even in the Gaeltacht areas the language is taught as an L2 language whilst English is taught as an L1 language.
   The Irish Equality Authority recently questioned the official State practice of awarding 5-10% extra marks to students who take some of their examinations through Irish.
   The Royal Irish Academy's 2006 conference on "Language Policy and Language Planning in Ireland" found that the study of Irish and other languages is declining in Ireland. The number of schoolchildren studying "higher level" Irish for the Leaving Certificate dropped from 15,719 in 2001 to 14,358 in 2005. To reverse this decline, it was recommended that training and living for a time in a Gaeltacht area should be "compulsory" for teachers of Irish.
   Although the Gaeltacht is defined as an entirely Irish-language speaking area, the Irish government also pays families living in the Gaeltacht areas with school-age children to speak Irish. These are inspected and graded according to ability. In the 2006-07 school year, 2,216 families received the full grant of €260 p.a., 937 families received a reduced grant and 225 families didn't meet the criteria. This payment scheme is called Sceim Labhairt na Gaeilge, the first example in Europe where citizens are paid to speak their first official language..

Irish colleges

Supplementing the formal curriculum, and after the end of the primary (usually from 4th class onwards) and secondary school years, some pupils attend an "Irish college". These programmes are residential Irish language summer courses, and give students the opportunity to be immersed in the language, usually for periods of three weeks over the summer months. Some courses are college based while others are based with host families in Gaeltacht areas under the guidance of Bean an tí. Students attend classes, participate in sports, art, drama, music, go to céilithe and other summer camp activities through the medium of Irish. As with the conventional school set-up The Department of Education establishes the boundaries for class size and qualifications required by teachers.

Northern Ireland

As in the Republic, the Irish language is a minority language in Northern Ireland, known in Irish as .
   Attitudes towards the language in Northern Ireland have traditionally reflected the political differences between its two divided communities. The language has been regarded with suspicion by unionists, who have associated it with the Roman Catholic-majority Republic, and more recently, with the republican movement in Northern Ireland itself. Erection of public street signs in Irish were effectively banned under laws by the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which stated that only English could be used. These laws were not repealed by the British government until the early 1990s.Many republicans in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, learnt Irish while in prison, a development known as the jailtacht. Although the language was taught in Catholic secondary schools (especially by the Christian Brothers), it wasn't taught at all in the Maintained School Sector which is mostly attended by Protestant pupils. However, Irish-medium schools, known as gaelscoileanna, had already been founded in Belfast and Derry, and an Irish-language newspaper called Lá Nua ("New Day") was established in Belfast. BBC Radio Ulster began broadcasting a nightly half-hour programme in Irish in the early 1980s called Blas ("taste, accent"), and BBC Northern Ireland also showed its first TV programme in the language in the early 1990s.
   The Ultach Trust was also established, with a view to broadening the appeal of the language among Protestants, although hardline DUP politicians like Sammy Wilson ridiculed it as a "leprechaun language". Ulster Scots, promoted by many loyalists, was, in turn, ridiculed by nationalists (and even some Unionists) as "a DIY language for Orangemen". According to recent statistics, there's no significant difference between the number of Catholic and Protestant speakers of Ulster Scots in Ulster (see Ulster Scots language), although those involved in promoting Ulster-Scots as a language are almost always unionist. Ulster-Scots is defined in legislation (The North/South Co-operation (Implementation Bodies) Northern Ireland Order 1999) as: the variety of the Scots language which has traditionally been used in parts of Northern Ireland and in Donegal in Ireland. Irish received official recognition in Northern Ireland for the first time in 1998 under the Good Friday Agreement. A cross-border body known as Foras na Gaeilge was established to promote the language in both Northern Ireland and the Republic, taking over the functions of the previous Republic-only . The British government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect to Irish in Northern Ireland.
   It has been claimed that Belfast now represents the fastest growing centre of Irish language usage on the island - and the Good Friday Agreement's provisions on 'parity of esteem' have been used to give the language an official status there. In March 2005, the Irish language TV service TG4 began broadcasting from the Divis transmitter near Belfast, as a result of agreement between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Northern Ireland Office, although so far this is the only transmitter to carry it.
   The Belfast city council has designated the Falls Road area (from Milltown Cemetery to Divis street) as The Gaeltacht Quarter of Belfast, one of the four cultural quarters of the city. There is a growing number of Irish-medium schools throughout Northern Ireland (see picture above), and, at English-medium schools, it's becoming more and more common that Irish be taught to children.
   Under the St Andrews Agreement, the government has legislated to introduce an Irish Language Act. A consultation period ending on 2 March 2007 could see Irish becoming an official language, having equal validity with English, recognised as an indigenous language, or aspire to become an official language in the future.
   The Irish language came to Newfoundland in the late 1600s and was commonly spoken among the Newfoundland Irish until the middle of the 20th century. There is direct evidence to suggest that as high as 90% of the Irish in Newfoundland spoke only Irish as their mother tongue. Records from Newfoundland's courts, where defendants often required Irish-speaking interpreters, indicate that the dominant language of the Avalon Peninsula was Irish rather than English. Today it remains the only place outside of Ireland that can claim a unique Irish name (Talamh an Éisc, meaning Land of the Fish), and an area where Irish is natively spoken. In 2007 a number of Canadian speakers founded the first "Gaeltacht" outside of Ireland in an area near Kingston, Ontario (see main article Permanent North American Gaeltacht). The site (named Gaeltacht Bhaile na hÉireann) is located in Tamworth, Ontario and is to be a retreat centre for Irish-speaking Canadians and Americans.
   The Irish language reached Australia in 1788, along with English. In the early colonial period, Irish was seen as an opposition language used by convicts and repressed by the colonial authorities. Although the Irish were a greater proportion of the European population than in any other British colony, the use of the language quickly declined. As legal barriers to the integration of the Irish and their descendants into Australian life were progressively removed, English became the language of social advancement. The 2001 census revealed that there are 828 speakers of the language in the country.
   In May 2007, the University of Cambridge in England started offering courses in Modern Irish and Medieval Irish.
   Many Australian slang words are Irish-derived and there are arguments that Australian English is more influenced by Irish than other varieties of English. There is a small movement to re-establish the language in contemporary Australia. The Special Broadcasting Service transmits Irish language radio and television.

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