12.1 Introduction

A thousand years ago, Irish Gaelic (IG) was spoken by the entire population of Ireland. Today, it is spoken by a few thousand people. The first part of this chapter tells how this language shift came about. The second section describes a number of linguistic features which make IG distinctive.

The earliest written records of IG date from the seventh century. The language of the period from pre-700 to 900 is called Old Irish. This was followed by Middle Irish in the period 900–1200. Old Irish resembles other older Indo-European languages in that its inflectional morphology was quite complex. In the Middle Irish era, the paradigms for nouns and adjectives were simplified considerably. However, the greatest change can be observed in the verbal system. In Old Irish, the verbal complex contained not just the verbal root and suffixes but also preverbs and encliticised pronouns. By 1200 this had been replaced by the same kind of verbal structure as we find in English, with preverbs and pronouns being separated from the verb proper.

Because the overall shape of IG which emerged at the end of the twelfth century was to survive until the twentieth century, 1200 is regarded as the beginning of Modern Irish. The era 1200–1600 is called Early Modern Irish, and the period after 1600 is referred to as (Late) Modern Irish. By the time scholars began to examine IG at the end of the nineteenth century, it existed almost entirely only as spoken dialects. For this reason, in the literature on contemporary IG, it has been customary to refer to Connaught Irish, Munster Irish and Ulster Irish, the regions within which the language is spoken. In 1958, guidelines for a written standard were published. The variety recommended is called An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, and it is used in official publications, including schoolbooks.

For more on medieval Irish, see Greene (Reference Greene and Cuív1969) and also Russell (this volume).

12.2 1200–1800

The emergence of Early Modern Irish coincided with the arrival in Ireland of a group of Anglo-Norman invaders. By 1200 they had conquered much of the country and had established their seat of power in Dublin. As well as a new legal system and forms of administration, the Anglo-Normans brought with them the English language. Initially, English was confined to a small area around Dublin called the Pale, and to a handful of urban centres, mostly in the east, south and west of Ireland. Elsewhere, the newcomers appear to have intermarried with the Gaelic population and adopted their language. Contact between the two languages was intense. A large number of items of vocabulary were borrowed from English into IG in the centuries following the Anglo-Norman invasion. As might be expected, these words were related to semantic realms like commerce, military affairs and administration. Many personal names were also borrowed from the newcomers. Some of these have endured to the present day, being regarded as typically Irish, such as Seán (John), Siobhán (Joanne) and Séamas (James) (Ó Cuív Reference Ó Cuív1986).

One reason why IG proved so resilient in this period was the existence of a learned class, the bards, who were the guardians of native culture. Literacy was confined to this elite group and to the immediate families of the numerous clan chiefs who ruled over most of the country. The written language was codified and used in various kinds of documents: praise poetry, genealogies, annals and religious writings. This written code was cultivated in Ireland and in Gaelic Scotland until the seventeenth century. For a detailed account of the literary language, see McManus (Reference McManus, McCone, McManus, Ó Háinle, Williams and Breatnach1994).

During the reign of the Tudors, the English government in Ireland set about the military and cultural conquest of the whole of Ireland. Part of this policy involved replacing the Irish language with English. This was achieved by two measures. In some cases, the traditional Gaelic rulers were dispossessed, and their land settled by planters from England and Scotland. Alternatively, the sons of the Gaelic rulers were educated in Anglophone environments in the hope that they would then cooperate with the authorities in transforming Ireland into an English colony.

The military conquest of Ireland coincided with the establishment of the Church of Ireland in 1536, modelled on the Church of England, with the English monarch as its head. During the reign of Elizabeth I, work commenced on translating the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into IG. The translation of the New Testament was published in 1602, and that of the Book of Common Prayer in 1608. However, most of the Irish remained Catholic. A number of works of the Counter-Reformation were translated into Irish and disseminated among the clergy. Because the Catholic Church was not permitted to preach and conduct services, and the majority of the Gaelic population was illiterate, the effect of the printing revolution on IG was negligible (for further details, see Caball Reference Caball2018).

The policy of Anglicisation continued in the seventeenth century under the Stuarts and during the Commonwealth period. As a result, by 1700 the old aristocracy had been replaced by a new ruling class, the Anglo-Irish, who were Protestant in religion and English in terms of language and culture. More importantly, the bards, the tradition-bearers, had been eradicated from Irish society. From 1700 onwards, literacy became increasingly associated with the English language. This was the language of power and prestige, of the new urban centres, of education, and of the new print culture. Written IG continued to be cultivated by a small group of scribes, but the majority of the population remained illiterate. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the more affluent members of the Catholic population began to gain access to education and the professions. This led to an increased demand for English, which gradually filtered down to the masses (for more details, see Cunningham Reference Cunningham2018; Mac Mathúna Reference Mac Mathúna2007, Reference Mac Mathúna2012).

The other change which took place in this period concerned the Catholic Church. Because it was not allowed to operate openly, priests had to go abroad to be trained. This, and the gradual spread of English, caused the hierarchy to abandon Irish. By the time the first Catholic seminary was opened in 1795, the clergy were thoroughly anglicised. At the same time, a new national identity was coming into being, one based on religion, not language. This development can be illustrated by considering the semantics of the word Sasanach. Originally, this meant ‘Saxon, Englishman’. From about the middle of the eighteenth century, it began to acquire a second meaning, that of ‘Protestant’. By the time we get to the nineteenth century, the religious meaning was dominant, and that of ‘Englishman’ was confined to literary texts. Religious affiliation, not language, was what determined one’s identity (for more on religion and language, see Mac Murchaidh Reference Mac Murchaidh2012).

By 1800, we begin to get some idea of the numbers of people speaking IG and English. There seems to be a consensus that about half of the population spoke IG in 1800, which would be the equivalent of about 2.5 million (Ó Cuív Reference Ó Cuív1951). This figure has to be viewed within the context of the sociolinguistic dynamics of the day. Many of these 2.5 million speakers used English as well as IG on a daily basis, and many of them did not pass Irish on to their children. On the other hand, very few of the c. 2.5 million English speakers were able to speak or understand IG. The Irish-speaking population was still sizeable, but the balance had already tipped in favour of English.

For more on this six-hundred-year period, see Mac Giolla Chríost (Reference Mac Giolla Chríost2005:74–100).

12.3 1800–1870

The language shift that was in place by 1800 accelerated over the next seventy years. This process has been dealt with extensively in previous works (Ó Cuív Reference Ó Cuív1951:20–7; Ó Huallacháin Reference Ó Huallacháin1994:24–33; Mac Mathúna Reference Mac Mathúna2007; Ó Ciosáin Reference Ó Ciosáin1997:30–58; Doyle Reference Doyle and Kelly2018). While the ideological stances of authors vary considerably, there is a degree of consensus on the causes of the change. Participation in public life, in particular politics, increased dramatically in the nineteenth century for the Catholic population, which until then had been excluded from this sphere of activity. The leader of the Catholics in the first half of the century was Daniel O’Connell. One of the methods he used to mobilise his followers was to address large crowds at monster meetings, with his speeches being reported in the press. This activity was conducted almost exclusively through English; O’Connell had no interest in harnessing IG to his political causes. Later political movements like Young Ireland in the 1840s or the Fenians in the 1860s did, it is true, allow some place for IG in their ideology. Nevertheless, when it came to communication, in writing or in speech, English was the language chosen.

Irish society at the time was being transformed by the growth of state bodies like the post office, the police force and the Ordnance Survey mapping of the country. The economy moved from barter to monetary exchange, which took place at fairs and markets in urban trading centres. Access to these was provided by the network of roads and railways which were spreading all over the country. A minimal grasp of English was necessary to avail of these services. A native command of this language gave one a chance of finding employment in the new civil service.

Educational opportunities also expanded for the less wealthy. This was mainly due to the Education Act of 1831, which allowed children to attend primary school free of charge. Not surprisingly, the new national schools used English as their medium of instruction. Not only that, but pupils were punished for speaking IG at school. The spread of education undoubtedly contributed to the decline in IG. Much has been made of the role of the national schools in the language shift, and their failure to provide an education in keeping with the language and culture of their pupils. However, they simply perpetuated a trend that already existed. As early as 1824, 40 per cent of children were attending some kind of private school (Ó Ciosáin Reference Ó Ciosáin1997). Even in the so-called hedge-schools of rural areas, where the parents paid a master to educate their sons, the medium of instruction was English, and no attention was paid to IG.

We have already mentioned that Catholicism was crucial in the formation of the new Irish identity that was emerging. The period 1800–1870 witnessed the penetration of the Catholic Church into many spheres of life, including education and health care. This was accompanied by a confrontation with the Church of Ireland and other Protestant denominations. In the first two decades of the nineteenth century, there was an initiative from the non-Catholic churches to try once more to convert the Irish to Protestantism; this later became known as the Second Reformation. As part of this movement, various Bible societies set about teaching Irish speakers to read the Bible. Local Catholic teachers were employed by the societies to run the Bible schools. This movement drew the wrath of the Catholic hierarchy, with converts and teachers alike being denounced from the altar. One consequence of the dispute was that literacy in Irish became something suspect, a sign of having come under the influence of the spiritual enemy, and there is evidence that the disapproval of the Catholic Church extended to the very speaking of IG. On the other hand, while there was still a need for Irish-speaking priests to minister to Catholic congregations in many parts of the country, the hierarchy, with some exceptions, made no concerted effort to cater for this. For a detailed account of the interplay of language and religion in the first half of the nineteenth century, see de Brún (Reference de Brún2009).

The key event in Irish history in the nineteenth century is the Great Famine of 1845–49. This played its part in the decline of IG. The most obvious effect was that among the million people who died, many were speakers of this language. The more lasting consequence was that the Famine initiated mass emigration from Ireland, particularly from the western and south-western regions, where IG was still spoken. Because the emigration was exclusively to English-speaking parts of the world, particularly Britain and North America, it became more necessary than ever to learn English. Unlike other émigré communities, the Irish made little effort to maintain a distinct language. This was partly due to the fact that Irish communities were linguistically mixed. In such a situation, English inevitably won out. Another factor was that just as in Ireland, in Britain and the USA, Catholicism was the institution that provided an identity for the new arrivals. As was to be expected, the Catholic Church abroad operated exclusively through English. A third factor was that the Irish immigrants were illiterate in IG. This meant that unlike, say, the Scottish Gaelic inhabitants of Canada, print culture could not function as a support for speakers of the language, which in turn strengthened the trend towards using English. One way or another, despite the large numbers of IG speakers who emigrated, there is no evidence of the language being passed on to succeeding generations. For more on IG in the New World, see Sumner and Doyle (Reference Sumner and Doyle2020).

As regards numbers of speakers, a clearer picture emerges as the nineteenth century progresses. For the first time ever, the 1851 census recorded statistics on language. Twenty-three per cent of the population replied that they spoke IG, but less than a third of these spoke IG only. Furthermore, many of these monoglots were over sixty years old. It is worth remembering that an ability to speak IG was not the same as actually speaking it. Thus, in many districts, while there were still large numbers who could speak IG, or who had spoken it in their youth, the language of the school, the pulpit, and the marketplace was English by the middle of the nineteenth century.

12.4 1870–1920

In the 1870s, a new force began to emerge in Irish life, called ‘cultural nationalism’. This was a response to the anglicisation of Ireland, which, it was felt, had turned the country into a mere province of Britain. Cultural nationalism aimed at restoring distinctly Irish forms of expression, in areas such as sport, economics and literature. Language also became a focus for the new movement.

The Romantic nationalism of Europe, with its emphasis on the language and folklore of the people, had played little part in Irish nationalism until then. Beginning in 1876, with the founding of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, this was to change. The members of this society were concerned about the loss of what they regarded as a vital component of the soul of the Irish nation. Their main objective was to achieve recognition for IG as a school subject, a goal that was achieved over the following few decades. The Society also made the urban intelligentsia aware of the importance of IG.

This early initiative led to the founding in 1893 of the Gaelic League. The leading figure in this organisation was Douglas Hyde. He himself was Anglo-Irish but he believed that IG was the heritage of all Irish people, regardless of their class or religion. The Gaelic League turned out to be a dynamic movement which attracted a great deal of support from the middle class all over the country. It continued the policy of trying to preserve IG where it was still spoken, but also agitated for its adoption by the English-speaking part of the population, a far more radical step. By 1891, IG had all but disappeared from most of Ireland, and many inhabitants of towns and cities were unaware of its existence. The term revival is used to describe the work of the Gaelic League, but a more accurate term might be language replacement. After all, IG had never been the language of Dublin, even if many Irish speakers lived in the city.

The Gaelic League promoted its agenda by various methods. It organised classes for adults all over the country, in which the spoken language was taught using modern teaching methods. Part of the attractiveness of the language movement was that it combined language with cultural events such as folk dancing and singing at events called feiseanna. The League published a weekly bilingual newspaper, and also encouraged the writing of new literature in IG. One of its most lasting legacies was the notion of the Gaeltacht, a region where IG was spoken. The League idealised the Gaeltacht in the west of Ireland as a repository of all that was distinctively Irish. In the writings of people like Hyde and the nationalist Patrick Pearse, the Gaeltacht, with its pre-industrial way of life and picturesque landscape, came to embody everything that the language movement was striving for. A return to the values, and language, of this imagined landscape would enable the Irish nation to regain its soul and its true self, so the argument went.

The Gaelic League agitated relentlessly for making IG a core subject in Irish education. In 1908 it became obligatory to pass an exam in IG in order to matriculate in the National University of Ireland, which had a trickle-down effect on both secondary and primary education. This measure was achieved by a ruthless campaign which targeted members of county councils and other public institutions. It also set the tone for language campaigns in the years to come, in that legislation was enacted without ensuring that it could be carried out. The problem in 1908 was that there was not a sufficient cohort of trained teachers available to teach IG at secondary level throughout Ireland. For more on the Gaelic League, see Ó Conchubhair (Reference Ó Conchubhair and Bartlett2018), Ó Huallacháin (Reference Ó Huallacháin1994:38–72) and Doyle (Reference Doyle2015:161–262).

Regarding the shape of the language, the revival period was transformative. IG had never been codified in the way that English or French had. In 1890, the Gaelic Leaguers were faced with a hard choice. They could return to the manuscript tradition which reflected, but poorly, the spoken language of the nineteenth century, or they could codify the spoken language of the day. After much controversy, the latter course was chosen. Within thirty years, IG was being written in a more or less consistent orthography. Not only that, but its vocabulary had been supplemented to bring it into line with urban life, and new registers introduced for creative writing, education and journalism.

12.5 1922–1960

Many members of the Gaelic League became active in the separatist political movement that developed in the period 1900–14 and took part in the War of Independence of 1919–21. When the Free State of Ireland was established in 1922, the restoration of IG became one of the objectives of the new regime (Kelly Reference Kelly2002). From 1922 onwards, the state took an active interest in the promotion of IG in public life. In March 1922, the teaching of IG became compulsory in all primary schools for a minimum of one hour a day. It was slower to make its presence felt in secondary education, but by 1934 IG was a core subject there as well. Some schools went so far as to teach other subjects through the medium of IG. At third level, IG became an indispensable part of the curriculum in colleges which trained primary teachers. Because of its proximity to the Gaeltacht region of Connemara, it was envisaged that University College, Galway, would become an Irish-speaking university. To achieve this aim, scholarships were set up for Gaeltacht students, with some courses being offered through the medium of IG.

On a more general level, a knowledge of IG became necessary for those joining the civil service, with a further oral test being required before an employee could be made permanent. Civil servants with IG were often chosen over English speakers for promotion, and the use of IG, particularly in official correspondence, was actively encouraged.

The new state also tried to support cultural activity in IG. A publisher, An Gúm, was set up in 1926–27, in order to provide reading matter at affordable prices. Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe was established in Galway in 1928 to produce plays in IG. The new radio station, 2RN, broadcast programmes in IG from 1926 onwards. Literary reviews like Comhar and printing houses like Sáirséal agus Dill published the work of poets like Seán Ó Ríordáin, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, and Máirtín Ó Direáin, and of novelists like Máirtín Ó Cadhain. The government subsidised festivals like the Oireachtas, the annual meeting of the Gaelic League. Gael-Linn, founded in 1953, funded the recording of Irish music and singing, and cinema in IG.

Determining the boundaries of the Gaeltacht became one of the main items of policy of the new state (Walsh Reference Walsh2002). Officials were aware of the economic problems facing Irish-speaking areas and introduced various measures like improvements in infrastructure to reduce the population drain caused by emigration. However, it proved impossible to change the negative attitudes of the native speakers towards IG, and English continued to encroach steadily on the Gaeltacht.

The attempts to revitalise IG among the population at large engendered much resentment among schoolchildren and those in the public service who lacked the linguistic ability to take advantage of the new opportunities for those who knew the language. Nevertheless, most school-leavers acquired at least a reading knowledge of IG, and a smaller number achieved a high level of active competence. In terms of the goals of the Gaelic League, the project was a failure, but one could argue that it was a success in that it gave everybody the opportunity of learning the language. Much was achieved as well in the area of codification and standardisation. In the 1940s, the decision was taken to adopt the Roman alphabet instead of the so-called Gaelic font. Guidelines were published for the spelling of Irish, Litriú na Gaeilge: Lámhleabhar an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (Oifig an tSoláthair 1945). This was followed in 1953 by a grammar book, Gramadach na Gaeilge: Caighdeán Rannóg an Aistriúcháin (Oifig an tSoláthair 1953). The significance of these publications for the writing of Irish cannot be overestimated. For the first time ever, there were clear guidelines available for the spelling of Irish and for its inflectional morphology. The innovative English–Irish dictionary compiled by Tomás de Bhaldraithe (de Bhaldraithe Reference de Bhaldraithe1959), and the Irish–English dictionary of 1977 (Ó Dónaill Reference Ó Dónaill1977), both followed the recommendations of the Caighdeán Oifigiúil (‘official standard’). Despite the carping of many native speakers and scholars, the standard laid down in the 1940s and 1950s has been followed since in all state publications, particularly those intended for the educational system.

For more on this era, see Ó Huallacháin (Reference Ó Huallacháin1994:85–155).

12.6 1960 Onwards

Irish society changed drastically in the period 1960–2000. One of the manifestations of this change was that nationalism became less intense, as Irish people began to see themselves as part of a larger global community. This in turn had an effect on the movement to revitalise IG. Gradually, the state came to accept that IG was never going to replace English as the main means of communication in Ireland. IG ceased to be seen as the language of a nation and instead came to be treated as a minority language within a broader European context which accorded the same rights to smaller languages as to those more widely spoken.

For the first time ever, IG communities started to create structures for themselves that would enable them to participate more fully in mainstream life in Ireland. Beginning in the 1970s, IG found a presence in the audio-visual media which it lacked before. Raidió na Gaeltachta began broadcasting from the three main Gaeltacht regions in 1972. A form of local government for these regions was set up in 1980, Údarás na Gaeltachta. State funding for the television station TG4 from 1996 onwards ensured a daily service in Irish covering a wide range of subjects. In 2003, an Official Languages Act was passed, enshrining the right of citizens to conduct their business in Irish with state agencies. Finally, the Gaeltacht Act of 2012 provided for the recognition of places outside the traditional Irish-speaking zones which could be accorded the status of ‘Irish language networks’ or ‘Gaeltacht service towns’, on condition that they implement plans for promoting IG.

This last piece of legislation promises more than it delivers. It presupposes a pool of highly competent speakers of IG in all state services, and a demand on the part of a sizeable part of the population for such services. There is little evidence that such demand exists among native speakers, who are accustomed to conducting business through English. There is even less evidence that competent speakers could be found to run services through IG. To date, the only tangible result of language legislation is the rise of a translation industry, offering jobs in Ireland and in Brussels translating legislation into IG. Even in this branch of activity, there is a severe shortage of qualified translators.

The dearth of civil servants and translators is directly linked to the teaching of IG. Despite the criticism of the pre-1960 system as uninspiring, and more likely to foster a hatred of IG than a love of it, pupils did manage to acquire a reasonably high command of the language. As part of the general change in approach to IG, a more relaxed style of instruction began to be applied in the 1970s, with more emphasis on the spoken language than on traditional grammar. The results of this change in tack are not encouraging. Even graduates of third-level institutions struggle to read texts that were on the secondary school curriculum fifty years ago. Nor has the general resentment of the public at having to study IG decreased; if anything, it has grown.

A more positive aspect of the teaching of IG is the advent of all-Irish schools, providing immersion education in IG. These began in the 1970s in urban centres in response to demand on the part of parents for education through IG, and have spread all over Ireland. Pupils are encouraged to speak Irish at all times, usually without any rigid monitoring of their language skills. As a result, we find today a growing number of pupils coming from these schools who have a confidence in speaking IG not possessed by even the better students of previous generations. On the other hand, it must be noted that the language spoken by these pupils is profoundly different from traditional Irish (see Nic Pháidín Reference Nic Pháidín and Ni Mhianáin2003; Mac Mathúna Reference Mac Mathúna2008; Ó Murchadha Reference Ó Murchadha2018).

Until the 1970s, the model for learners of IG was always the language of the Gaeltacht; even if few learners achieved the mastery of the native speaker, this was what they aspired to. In the last fifty years the last truly Irish-speaking communities have been more or less eradicated (Ó Giollagáin and Mac Donnacha Reference Ó Giollagáin and Mac Donnacha2008). In areas designated Gaeltacht, the reality is that children, even when parents make an effort to raise them through IG, are more competent in English. It is debatable to what extent the label native speaker is valid; perhaps a more appropriate designation would be bilingual with a bias towards English. This shift has coincided with the rise of the all-Irish schools, which produce large numbers of graduates with fluency in IG.

The term new speaker has been coined to describe this new kind of learner: ‘These new profiles of speakers are frequently characterised by their middle-class status and use of a standardised variety of language frequently acquired through the education system or through adult classes’ (O’Rourke Reference O’Rourke2015:77). The new speakers outnumber the traditional native speakers, and in time they will probably be the only speakers of IG. More importantly, they dominate key areas of language use like education, the media, and language planning. At the same time, they display an anxiety with respect to the traditional IG of the Gaeltacht, a feeling that their language is in some way inferior to that of preceding generations. In the view of one commentator, this reflects a tension between the search for authenticity, provided by the Gaeltacht, and the simultaneous move towards anonymity ‘that holds that language is valuable as a neutral, objective object of expression available to all users’ (O’Rourke Reference O’Rourke2015:65). The code used by the new speakers, whatever their attitude towards traditional IG, is a new variety in the history of the language. While it is too early to attempt to describe its grammar, it differs radically from traditional Late Modern IG in terms of its pronunciation and vocabulary, and to a lesser extent in terms of its morphology and syntax (Ó Béarra Reference Ó Béarra and Tristram2007). For a good survey of the contemporary state of affairs, see Nic Pháidín and Ó Cearnaigh (Reference Nic Pháidín and Ó Cearnaigh2008). See also Nance, this volume, for a discussion of new speakers of Gaelic in Scotland.

12.7 Northern Ireland 1920 Onwards

Under the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, a separate political entity was established in Northern Ireland. Because this was dominated by Unionists for the period 1920–72, and because IG was associated with separatism, the language enjoyed a much lower profile than in the Free State (later the Republic) of Ireland.

Under existing legislation, the option existed of IG being taught in primary schools in Northern Ireland. However, the Department of Education did not in any way encourage the teaching of the language; if anything, it did everything in its power to discourage it. As schooling was denominational, in practice, only Catholic schools were likely to want to teach IG, and only a small number of these actually opted to do so. The time allotted for IG was restricted to one and a half hours per week. IG was also studied in some second-level colleges, mainly those run by Catholic teaching orders.

The lack of official support was compensated for to some extent by the fact that IG in Northern Ireland was a potent marker of political and ethnic identity. As a result, language classes organised by Comhaltas Uladh, an Ulster body linked to the Gaelic League, attracted many students. The voluntary study of IG was underpinned by close links to the Gaeltacht region of Donegal, which borders on Northern Ireland.

With the suspension of the Stormont parliament of Northern Ireland in 1972, responsibility for education moved to London, which led to a more relaxed attitude on the part of officials towards the teaching of IG. Around the same time, urban communities in Belfast and Derry began to set up immersion schools similar to those being established south of the border. In 1989 the Ultach Trust was set up by the government to promote IG throughout the whole community of Northern Ireland.

The Good Friday Peace Agreement of 1998 included sections on language. In it, a commitment is made to promoting such areas as immersion education and broadcasting in IG. As a result, IG now enjoys a much higher visibility in Northern Ireland than in the past. For example, BBC Northern Ireland regularly broadcasts programmes in IG, something that would have been unthinkable thirty years ago.

One consequence of the Good Friday Agreement was that it officially politicised language matters: IG was recognised as part of the cultural identity of the Catholic-Nationalist community, with the same status being conferred on Ulster-Scots for the Protestant-Unionist community. Since 2017, the two main political parties in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party, have been unable to reach agreement on a number of issues. One of these was the proposed Irish Language Act which would have given IG a legal status similar to that which it enjoys in the Republic of Ireland. This issue seems likely to continue to divide the communities of Northern Ireland for the foreseeable future. For more on IG in Northern Ireland, see Mac Giolla Chríost (Reference Mac Giolla Chríost2005:134–90).

12.8 Late Modern Irish Gaelic: A Brief Description

The following account is by no means exhaustive. Instead, it focuses on those aspects of IG which differ from most other European languages, and hence more likely to be of interest to linguists. For fuller accounts, see Ó Siadhail (Reference Ó Siadhail1989), Ó Dochartaigh (Reference Ó Dochartaigh and MacAulay1992) and Doyle (Reference Doyle2001).