Irish language

Irish (called Gaeilge in the standard written form, and often referred to as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic outside of Ireland) is a Celtic language in the Indo-European family. It is native to the Irish people and to the island of Ireland. For most of recorded history, it was the dominant language of the population, but English gradually took over during the 19th century, especially in its later decades.

Today, Irish remains a first language in Ireland’s Gaeltacht regions, where about 2% of the country’s population lived in 2022. In the Republic’s April 2022 census, 1,873,997 people aged three and over—roughly 40% of respondents—said they could speak Irish. However, 472,887 of those reported never speaking it, and another 551,993 said they only used it within the education system. Linguistic analysis therefore focuses on daily speakers outside schools: in 2022, that was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 elsewhere, for a total of 71,968. In Northern Ireland’s 2021 census, 43,557 people said they spoke Irish daily, 26,286 weekly, 47,153 less often, and 9,758 said they could speak it but never did. Between 2006 and 2008, over 22,000 Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as their first language at home, with several times that number claiming some knowledge.

Irish was historically carried by the Irish people to other regions. Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic in Scotland and Manx on the Isle of Man. It was also widely spoken in Canada, with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily speakers there in 1890. On Newfoundland, a unique dialect developed but died out in the early 20th century.

The language has one of Western Europe’s oldest vernacular literatures, with a writing system called Ogham dating to at least the 4th century AD, gradually replaced by Latin script from the 5th century onward. On the island, three major dialects exist: Connacht, Munster, and Ulster Irish, each with distinct speech and spelling. A standardized written form, An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, was devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional Irish alphabet—a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters—has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (though 7–8 letters are used mainly in loanwords).

Irish holds constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland, is an official language of Northern Ireland, and is among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge promotes the language across the island. Irish has no regulatory body, but the standard written form is guided by a parliamentary service, and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input.

The language’s name in Irish, Gaeilge, comes from the south Connacht form, spelled Gaedhilge before the 1948 spelling reform removed the silent dh. Gaedhilge was originally the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in Classical Gaelic. Older spellings include Gaoidhealg in Classical Gaelic and Góidelc in Old Irish. The term Goidelic, used for the language family, derives from the Old Irish word. Endonyms in modern dialects include Gaeilge in Galway, Gaeilic in Mayo and Ulster, Gaeilainn in West Cork and Kerry, and Gaoluinn in mid- and eastern Munster (Waterford and parts of Cork and Kerry), reflecting local pronunciation. Gaelic can apply to the closely related Scottish Gaelic and Manx as well as Irish; when needed, these are distinguished as Gaeilge, Gàidhlig, and Gaelg respectively.

In English (including Hiberno-English), the language is usually called Irish, as well as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic. The term Irish Gaelic is used when English speakers discuss the relationship among the three Goidelic languages. Gaelic is a collective term, and when context is clear, it may refer to each language individually; when unclear, it is qualified (e.g., Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic, Manx Gaelic). Historically, the name Erse was also used in Scots and English to refer to Irish, as well as to Scottish Gaelic.

Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage called Primitive Irish. These writings appear across Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish evolved into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is found mainly in marginalia of Latin manuscripts. During this time, Irish absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh, including ecclesiastical terms like easpag (bishop) and Domhnach (Sunday). By the 10th century, Old Irish had become Middle Irish, spoken throughout Ireland, the Isle of Man, and parts of Scotland, and it is the language of a large body of literature, including the Ulster Cycle. From the 12th century, Middle Irish evolved into modern Irish in Ireland, Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and Manx on the Isle of Man. Early Modern Irish, dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language for both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish—sometimes called Late Modern Irish, as seen in the works of writers like Geoffrey Keating—dates from the 17th century and was the medium of popular literature from then on.