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Oct 24, 2022 · There are several reasons why this may be the case. There are several reasons why people speak English in Ireland. First, English became the dominant language due to the British colonization of Ireland. Second, since Ireland is part of the British Isles. There has been a strong influence from the English language.
Aug 23, 2020 · During this period Irish parents encouraged their children to learn English as it was seen as a vital path out of poverty. Over one million Irish people emigrated to English speaking nations such as Britain, the USA and Canada to escape the Famine. Two million more followed over the subsequent decades. The chance to start a new life elsewhere ...
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As a result people were engaging in English speaking media more and more, leaving the Irish language in the dust. That’s before we talk about the 700 year English occupation and treatment of the Irish.. it was a case of speak English or die for a while here. In the end, Irish is just not that useful to keep alive.
- Where Have All The Gaeilgeoirí Gone?
- Not A Legal Matter
- Educational Issues
- The Prime Culprit: An Gorta Mór
- Flash Forward to The 21st Century
- On The Positive Side
- Growth Outside of Ireland
- Far from Dead
- Did You Find This Article Helpful?
Despite centuries of attempts to suppress it, Irish was the majority language in Ireland right up through the 19th century. How could a language that was spoken by most of the people all but disappear, to the point where many people outside of Ireland don’t even realize that there is such a thing as an Irish language?
It would be easy to point to laws restricting the use of Irish, such as the infamous Statutes of Kilkenny, as culprits in the disappearance of Irish. “Easy,” but not really valid. These laws were aimed primarily at the Norman population, which the English government thought was becoming “too Irish” (and were, for the most part, unenforceable in any...
One institution that is credited with doing a great deal of harm, if not to the language as a whole, at least to individual Irish speakers, was the national school system. Established in 1830, the national schools offered the only chance for most Irish children to receive an education. Unfortunately, they were also rabidly “anti-Irish.” Children we...
Sadly, what law really couldn’t touch, hunger came very close to destroying. For seven years, from 1845 to 1852, the potato crop, on which 1/3 of the Irish population depended entirely for sustenance, failed utterly, succumbing to a disease commonly known as “potato blight.” While outside of Ireland this is often referred to as the “Irish Potato Fa...
Despite the best efforts of promoters of the language, Irish has never really recovered from the Famine. In the latest Republic of Ireland census, only 77,185 people indicated that they speak Irish daily outside of the school system (source: Wikipedia: Irish Language). You can dig deeper at Ireland’s Central Statistics Officein their census figures...
On the other hand, there is a real movement, especially in the cities, of parents (not themselves native Irish speakers) raising their children through Irish. This, combined with the growing demand for Gaelscoileanna (Irish-medium public schools) may well be one of the best things that could happen for the language. You can meet one such family, Si...
Perhaps the greatest growth in interest in the language, however, has been outside of Ireland. The internet has made it possible for people from all over the world, many of them descendants of Irish speakers driven from home by the Famine, to learn and promote the language. In fact, 2007 saw the official opening of the very first designated Gaeltac...
To sum up, while the Famine and the national schools delivered a severe blow to the Irish language — one that might well have killed it —it was not, in fact, a death blow. Will Irish ever again be the majority language in Ireland? The practical side of me says “probably not,” but the eternal optimist side of me that sees (with great pleasure!) the ...
Did you already know all this about the history of the Irish language? If you’re currently learning Irish, teaching Irish, or have plans to study Irish, what are your reasons for doing so? Let us know your thoughts below!
Yes, maybe those are the indigenous languages, but for the vast majority of people there, their native languages are Spanish or Portuguese and so if you learnt Quechuan prior to a trip to Bolivia, you would be in trouble. tl;dr Irish is the indigenous language of Ireland, whereas English is the native language of the majority of Irish people.
Jul 9, 2019 · From Sinéad O’Connor to Cillian Murphy, the Irish are widely known to be English speakers. As it turns out though, English isn’t the only national language of Ireland. The other is, well, Irish. Upwards of one million people can speak at least some Gaeilge (not to be confused with Gaelic, which is an entire language group).
Jan 3, 2023 · Most regions of Ireland have gone through this process of language shift, where the originally Irish-speaking population became English speakers. The National Folklore Collection contains material ...
