Official status of Irish

Since independence in 1922 Irish has been the official language of Ireland and the official designation for Ireland is the Irish form of the country’s name Éire. This replaced the label Irish Free State (Irish: Saorstát na hÉireann) which was used from 1922 to 1937. The label Republic of Ireland (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann) has been in use since 1949 when the country was declared a republic. According to Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland (Irish: Bunreacht na hÉireann) of 1937 Irish is the first language of the country, with English – in theory – enjoying a supplementary function.

Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland

1. Ós í an Ghaeilge an teanga náisiúnta is í an phríomhtheanga oifigiúil í. 2. Glactar leis an Sacs-Bhéarla mar theanga oifigiúil eile. (‘1. Because Irish is the national language, it is the main official language. 2. English is accepted as another official language’, translation RH).

Despite this constitutional support, English is in effect the language of public life and around 99% of Ireland’s four million people speak it as a native language. Nonetheless, Irish has a special status in Ireland. Although perhaps not more than 1% of the population today are native speakers, the language looms large in the minds of the Irish as the carrier of their cultural heritage, given that it was formerly the native language of the majority of the population (Ó Riagáin 1997). Many people claim that Irish is their ‘native language’ even though their knowledge of the language is poor. This attitude is to be found in public life as well. Government bodies all have Irish names, signposts are bilingual, official letters often contain an opening and a salutation in Irish (though the contents are in English). Indeed a knowledge of Irish was a requirement for civil service in Ireland until 1974. Television announcers sprinkle a few words of Irish in their commentaries or news broadcasts. Politicians also claim that Irish is their native language, reading a few words of Irish, usually with a pronunciation heavily influenced by English.

Given the primary status of Irish in the Constitution of Ireland the Irish government is formally committed to supporting and furthering the Irish language across all fronts. In practice, however, the two departments which are concerned most intensively with language questions are that for education (Roinn an Oideachais agus Scileanna ‘Department of Education and Skills’) and of that for the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking districts. The latter is not exclusively responsible for these districts but has a broader brief as its mission statement specifies: ‘To promote and support the sustainable and inclusive development of communities, both urban and rural, including Gaeltacht and island communities, thereby fostering better regional balance and alleviating disadvantage, and to advance the use of the Irish language.’ (source: www.pobail.ie). Its official title is: Roinn Gnóthaí Pobail, Tuaithe agus Gaeltachta ‘Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs’.

With the establishment of a new government after general elections in spring 2011, the department responsible for the Gaeltacht was renamed yet again. It is now [August 2011] called An Roinn Ealaíon, Oidhreachta agus Gaeltachta ‘Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht’. There is no mission statement available at present from this department.

In July 2003 the Official Languages Act became law. This act was designed to provide a statutory framework for the provision of public services in the Irish language. It regulated a number of issues such as the use of Irish in official announcements and advertisements and specified the obligations of the government regarding the Irish language. The act also provided for An Coimisinéir Teanga ‘The language commissioner’, an independent official appointed by the President of Ireland and head of the Oifig Choimisinéir na dTeangacha Oifigiúla ‘Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages’. The task of the commissioner is to supervise the implementation of the official languages act and to protect language rights. The offices of the commissioner are located in An Spidéal (Spiddle) in the Connemara Gaeltacht and there is an associated website at www.coimisineir.ie.

The European Union offers official support to the minority languages within its borders through the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages [See the assessment of the latter in Nic Craith 2003 and the general discussion in Phillipson 2003, especially pp. 152-7] which was drafted some years ago and adopted by both the Irish and British governments in 2001. The articles of the European Charter oblige the British and Irish governments to support, among other things, the minority languages found in the island of Ireland. These are Irish and Ulster Scots. For the latter there is a separate institution The Ulster-Scots Agency/ Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch (Hickey 2007: Chapter 3; Hickey 2011) and for the Irish language there is a corresponding institution called Foras na Gaeilge. (lit. ‘The Irish foundation’). According to its own description it is

‘the body responsible for the promotion of the Irish language throughout the whole island of Ireland [and] was founded on the second day of December 1999. In the Good Friday Agreement, it was stated that a North/South Implementation body be set up to promote both the Irish language and the Ulster Scots language. Under the auspices of this body, Foras na Gaeilge will carry out all the designated responsibilities regarding the Irish language. This entails facilitating and encouraging the speaking and writing of Irish in the public and private arena in the Republic of Ireland, and in Northern Ireland where there is appropriate demand, in the context of part three of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. The staff of Bord na Gaeilge, An Gúm (Publishers), and An Coiste Téarmaíochta (Terminology Committee) and their activities have all been transferred to the new body. Foras na Gaeilge has a role in advising administrations, North and South, as well as public bodies and other groups in the private and voluntary sectors in all matters relating to the Irish language. They will also be undertaking supportive projects and grant-aiding bodies and groups throughout the island of Ireland’ (source: www.gaeilge.ie).

On 1 January 2007 the Irish language attained its long sought after status as an official language of the European Union. The practical implications of this change are many. Irish persons can now be employed in offices of the EU, where two official languages are required, by specifying knowledge of Irish and English. A further consequence of the new status is a great increase in the amount of EU publications which are available in Irish as is the right of people to use Irish on official EU occasions and to have interpreting facilities provided. The reaction to the official status of Irish has in general been positive. However, it has been pointed within Ireland that the increase in expenditure which this entails could have been applied to promoting the Irish language in Ireland. Outside of Ireland there has been a natural demand of language communities with much greater numbers, e.g. Catalan with some six million speakers, to also be accorded the same official status.

Irish is a language with a long history and a considerable body of both fictional literature and language research work connected with it. Although formerly the native language of several million people it has been reduced now to some tens of thousands who use the language as their first means of communication in living and historically continuous communities. Apart from this, there are many people in present-day Ireland with a strong interest in the language and its culture. Given that the latter group is numerically by far the greater, it is probably their forms of Irish which will survive into the twenty first century (Mac Giolla Chríost 2005). Public support for the language, both within Ireland and in 2007 through the official recognition of Irish by the European Union is important in providing a social framework in which the language can prosper. Certain issues about the language seem intractable, such as the inconsistent orthography or the question of what dialect might be taken as standard. However, these would be surmountable if the language was perceived as fully functional for modern life. Whether the language will not only survive but perhaps spread within Ireland is a question which ultimately rests on its perception as a medium fit for use in contemporary Irish society.

Hickey, Raymond 2007. Irish English. History and present-day forms. Cambridge: University Press.

Hickey, Raymond 2011. ‘Ulster Scots in present-day Ireland’, in: Raymond Hickey (ed.) Researching the Languages of Ireland. Uppsala University: Studia Celtica Upsaliensia, pp. 291-323.

Mac Giolla Chríost, Diarmait 2005. The Irish Language in Ireland. From Goídel to Globalisation. London: Routledge.

Nic Craith, Mairéad 2003. ‘Facilitating or generating linguistic diversity: Ulster-Scots and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages’, in: Hogan-Brun, Gabrielle and Stefan Wolff (eds) Minority Languages in Europe: Frameworks, Status, Prospects. London: Palgrave/Macmillan, pp. 59-72.

Ó Riagáin, Pádraig 1997. Language Policy and Social Reproduction: Ireland 1893-1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press.