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A Gaeltacht is an area recognized by the Irish (Éire) government where the Irish language is the primary language of the community.  These boundaries were drawn a long time ago (the last time was the 1950s) and are not completely accurate now.  In all Gaeltachts you will hear English spoken, the amount of Irish you will hear varies from place to place.  In addition, there are many areas (especially in the Six Counties) where a lot of Irish is spoken but are not officially recognized as Gaeltachts.  Most official Gaeltacht areas are also in the most naturally beautiful areas of Ireland.  Because of this, they are attractive places for holiday homes which has led to an increase in residents that are not capable of speaking Irish.  According to the 2016 Census, 67.4% of Gaeltacht residents can speak Irish. 

 

Where are the Gaeltachts?

County Galway

The Galway Gaeltacht is arguably the strongest of all the Irish speaking areas.  The official Gaeltacht borders begin near Galway City and extend west almost to The Atlantic.  This Gaeltacht has the greatest number of people who use Irish on a daily basis, is home to TG4 (the Irish Language TV Station) and Raidió na Gaeltachta (RTE’s Irish language radio station) as well as numerous Irish language summer schools for both children and adults.

The largest Gealtacht in terms of size and number of residents, Galway is often considered to be the healthiest of all the Gaeltachts due to the belief that more people are likely to use Irish in shops, restaurants and in regular conversation.  If you look at the map above you can see that depending on which village you are in, daily Irish usage could range anywhere from 10% of the village to 90% of the village.

Although Galway City is officially part  of the Gaeltacht, it is by no means an “Irish speaking city”.  However, you should be able to find shops in which to use your Irish in the city thanks to Gallimh le Gaeilge.

According to the 2011 Census, County Galway had 10,085 Daily Irish Speakers, Galway City had 636.
According to the 2016 Census, County Galway Gaeltacht areas have 9,445 Daily Irish Speakers, Galway City areas have 646.
73.3% of Gaeltacht residents in County Galway can speak Irish,  in Galway City Gaeltacht areas 47.8% of residents said they can speak Irish.

County Donegal

 Donegal is home to the largest Gaeltacht in terms of area, but does not have as many people as the Galway Gaeltacht.  The strongest Gaeltachts today are the Gaoth Dothair (Gweedore) area and the northern coast.  The other areas, where Irish is not the dominant daily language, usually have Summer Schools for either adults, children or both that make Irish more commonly used in the summertime.  The scenery in these Donegal Gaeltachts is rugged, striking, and sometimes frankly breathtaking.  For this reason every July sees an influx of people from the Six Counties who are avoiding the “Marching Season”.  This floods many villages with non-Irish speaking tourists.

 Oideas Gael, probably the best of the Irish Language summer programs for adults, is located in Gleann Cholm Cille (Glencolmcille).  While daily usage in this village is around 30%, I have found most businesses will at least try to use Irish with you since the students often double the size of the village in the summer months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the 2011 Census, County Donegal had 7,047 Daily Irish Speakers.
According to the 2016 Census, County Donegal Gaeltacht areas have 5,929 Daily Irish Speakers.
71.4% of Donegal Gaeltacht residents can speak Irish.

County Kerry

The Kerry Gaeltacht is in many ways the Gaeltacht that is most in danger.  Due to the overwhelming popularity of the Ring of Kerry, that Peninsula is always swarming with non-Irish speaking tourists.  Of course, the reason for this is the fantastic scenery.  The heart and soul of the Kerry Gaeltacht is the Dingle Peninsula.  Here the language is definitely alive and well, but also dancing on the edge of a precipice. 

In recent years, Dingle Town (An Daingean) has been the center of quite a bit of controversy. In 2005, the Irish Government abolished the name Dingle and began enforcing that only Irish language names appear on maps and road signs in areas designated as Gaeltacht areas.  Some of the locals were sure that the tourists that keep the place fiscally alive would be confused by not having “Dingle” on the road signs.  In 2011, the government decided to allow the names: Dingle in English and Daingean Uí Chúis in Irish. While Irish is commonly heard away from the town, from my brief observations it seems that in the town it is far less commonly used.

In many ways this Gaeltacht displays all of the pressures undergoing the language.  The Dingle Peninsula is absolutely beautiful and thus the destination for countless tourists which is great for the population, but not for Irish.  The money is in being able to speak English, French, German or Italian.  This still is a popular destination for people attending Irish language summer schools as well.  There is money in both, hopefully both the language and tourists continue to coexist.

It looks like Dún Chaoin might still be a fíor Gaeltacht though: https://www.rte.ie/news/nuacht/2018/1217/1017624-56-de-dhaonra-dhun-chaoin-a-labhraionn-gaeilge-gach-la/

According to the 2011 Census, County Kerry had 2,501 daily speakers.
According to the 2016 Census, County Kerry Gaeltacht areas have 2,049 daily speakers.
71.2% of County Kerry Gaeltacht residents can speak Irish.

County Mayo

County Mayo’s Gaeltacht is not very large, and much of the actual Gaeltacht does not have many homes.  The majority of the residents live on Achill (Achill Island) or near Béal an Mhuirthead (Belmullet), but there is also a region in southern Mayo near Cong.  In addition, it is possible that a new Gaelactht area will be created on Clare Island (near Westport).  Mayo is often considered to be the weakest of the Gaeltachts.  In the most recent census though, 44% of County Mayo said that they could speak Irish.

According to the 2011 Census, County Mayo had 1,172 daily speakers.
According to the 2016 Census, County Mayo Gaeltachts have 895 daily speakers.
61.9% of the County Mayo Gaeltacht area residents can speak Irish.

County Cork

The Cork Gaeltacht areas are small.  There is Cape Clear Island off the southern coast and the Muskerry area located near County Kerry.  Cork is not usually considered to be particularly strong Gaeltacht area, partially due to its popularity as a vacation destination.

According to the 2011 Census, County Cork had 982 daily speakers.
According to the 2016 Census, County Cork Gaeltachts have 872 daily speakers.
77.3% of County Cork Gaeltacht residents can speak Irish.

County Waterford

The County Waterford Gaeltacht, known as Ring is trying to hold on to the language.  It’s location on the southern coast has made it popular with English speakers on vacation.  In addition, the last few years have seen a rise in English speakers buying housing in Ring.  New houses (very expensive houses) have brought in non Irish speakers that have greatly reduced the amount of Irish used here.  There is a popular Irish summer school that helps keep the language going, but this Gaeltacht is definitely under siege.  It’s a shame because many non-native speakers find this dialect to be much easier to understand than the other native dialects.

According to the 2011 Census, County Waterford has 438 daily speakers.
According to the 2016 Census, County Waterford Gaeltacht areas have 467 daily speakers.
74.8% of County Waterford Gaeltacht residents can speak Irish.

County Meath

Meath is the smallest of the Gaeltacht areas.  It is comprised of two communities, Baile Ghib and Ráth Cairn.  Both communities began with people transplanted from the Connemara, Mayo and Kerry Gaeltachts.  The two villages are very different though.  There isn’t much in Ráth Cairn, but there is a pub/community center that you could visit and Irish is the dominant language.  Unfortunately for the visitor, there isn’t much of a town that will enable you to engage with the locals.


Nearby in Baile Ghib, you will find the opposite of Ráth Cairn.  Baile Ghib does have some sign posts as Gaeilge, but most people that now live there do not routinely use their Irish.


In the map below, Baile Ghib is the northern most community and Ráth Cairn is the southern most community.  As you can see, Ráth Cairn has a higher proportion of Irish knowledge, usage and grants received.

According to the 2011 Census, County Meath had 331 daily Irish speakers.
According to the 2016 Census, County Meath Gaeltachts have 283 daily Irish speakers.
60.1 % of County Meath Gaeltacht residents can speak Irish.

Neo-Gaeltachts

In addition to the “Official Gaeltacht” areas (those recognized by the Republic) that are listed above, there are some areas of the island that either are or are attempting to be communities where Irish is the language of the community.  These are usually referred to as neo-Gaeltachts.  The oldest such area is in Belfast.

Belfast City (Béal Feirste)

The original Belfast Gaeltacht is located on Shaw’s Road (Bóthar Seoighe).  This area began when five families decided to build houses together in order to create an Irish speaking community and has now expanded to 22 houses.  The area is home to Northern Ireland’s first Irish medium school.  This is the only of the “neo-Gaeltachts” where Irish is currently the community language.

The Falls Road has been rechristened, the Gaeltacht Quarter (An Cheathrú Gaeltachta).  Some signs on shops and most street signs here are bilingual.  At the heart of the Gaeltacht Quarter is An Chúlturlann, an all encompassing cultural center.  All services are conducted in Irish if you wish.  The facility includes a cafe, an Irish language radio station (Raidió Fáilte), a book shop (largely Irish language), a performance space and some classrooms.  If nowhere else in this neighborhood, you can definitely operate entirely in Irish within this building.  People say that some of the other nearby shops are also bilingual and the local school is an Irish medium school.  They are obviously making an effort to encourage the use of the language here.

In some exciting news, it looks as if Belfast will officially become a Gaeltacht!  Read about here.

And also, the Gaeltacht Quarter looks like it will be expanding.  Read about here.

Co. Derry

In 2009, Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin was opened on Great James Street with the hopes of creating a Gaeltacht Quarter in the city of Derry.  Bilingual signage has been posted and the city is hoping that this area will continue to develop around Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin in the same manner as the Gaeltacht Quarter in Belfast.

We visited the Cultúrlann in the summer of 2018.  It is much different than the one on Belfast.  In the Cultúrlann in Belfast you can speak Irish anywhere you go, here not all of the staff speak Irish yet (and none in the cafe).  It did look like it was a well used community center and it looked like they have lots of Irish language classes though.  The number of bilingual street signs in this part of the city as well as the southern part of the city along the A40 were very encouraging  and very different than our visit to Derry in 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2008, some residents decided to start their own Gaeltacht centered around Slaghtneill (Sleacht Néill) and Carntogher (Carn Tóchair) near Maghera.  The goal of the community is to become a bilingual community.  There are already Irish medium schools as well as a handful of businesses.  In 2012, they announced plans to launch a bilingual radio station in which 50% of the programming would be in Irish.  I have not visited this area, but look forward to watching them progress.

Carntogher is also slated to become an official Gaeltacht area!

Future additions?

There have been rumors that Clare Island off the coast of Westport could become a new Gaeltacht as well as the Ballymun section of Dublin.  In both cases, it’s hard to tell if any progress has been made however.

Irish Across The Island

According to the 2016 census, Dublin and its suburbs have the largest number of daily Irish speakers, 14,903.  This is a small increase over the 14,229 that were reported in 2011 census.  This means that 20.2% of the daily Irish speakers in Ireland (the 26 county republic) reside in the Dublin metropolitan area.

Here you can see the results of the 2011 Census results:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some results from the 2016 Census:

According to the 2016 Census results:

30.3% of Irish people sometimes speak Irish.
14.2% speak Irish daily.
An additional 2.5% speak Irish weekly.
Everyone else speaks Irish less often.

In 2015, “Attitudes towards the Irish Language on the island of Ireland” was published by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) which revealed the results of an Irish Language Survey conducted by Amárach Research in 2013.  The published results indicated that 43% of the adults in the Republic of Ireland have “basic fluency”, 14% have “advanced fluency” and 13% speak Irish weekly or more frequently.

In a 2020 survey sponsored by Conradh na Gaeilge 28% of the country said they were confident in their ability to speak Irish and 35% said that they were confident in their ability to understand Irish.  In Northern Ireland 12% of the people surveyed stated that they were confident in their ability to speak Irish.

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