Well said John

Ok, so let’s presume what you’re saying is true and this is “the most accurate document in the country”. So about 1.77m people can speak Irish and of those 77,185 of them speak it on a daily basis and 110,642 on a weekly basis. So roughly 6% of those who can speak the language actually bother to speak it on a weekly basis (outside of the education system). That doesn’t say much for the language does it?

The truth is that the 77,185 people who speak the language represent a far larger percentage of Irish speakers than 6%. Because 1.77m can’t speak the language. The true figure is nowhere near that high! If you said “Dia Duit” to me I’d know how to respond, but pretty quickly it would become very evident that I can’t hold a conversation in Irish. That is the case for the majority of the 1.77m who say they can speak Irish. If the census was to ask questions about fluency in the language, we would have a far better idea of how many Irish speakers there actually are in the country.

People didn’t necessarily “lie” when responding to the question but a lot of them would have considered the question about Irish in a different context to other languages. For example, there are plenty of people (like myself) who after finishing school had far better French than Irish. Despite this, many of them will claim to be able to speak Irish on the form but not French. It all comes down to a sense of national pride about a national language. But the truth is 1.77m people can’t speak the language.

Definitely…. I don’t even know four people that are fluent in it.

As usual, whenever this type of statistic comes up, there is never a shortage of people saying ‘ah sure, they’re just making it up’.

I hear this a lot, but when I ask the person saying it ‘who specifically do YOU know who exaggerated their ability on the census’, they never have an answer.

Undoubtedly, some people will lie on the census, but to say that most people are lying, is a wild exaggeration.

Most reasonable people (and people are mostly reasonable) would consider the ability to hold a conversation as Gaeilge as meaning that they can speak Irish.

They may not be expounding on the finer points of the poetry of Cathal Buí, but they will at least be able to talk about themselves and others, and understand Irish language TV and radio.

Start speaking Irish (I recommend Gael Linn), and you’ll find there are a lot more people with good Irish than you think. We co-exist in an English speaking environment, so if you only use English that’s all you’ll hear. Understandable then that you think nobody speaks it or that they exaggerate their ability.

But I agree, some measure of fluency would be welcome on the census, to avoid this misconception. But then would we still have people saying ‘sure, they’re just making it up’…?

1.77 million people is what? A third of the population? There is no way one third of the country has a reasonably competent understanding of the Irish language, sure they may be able to speak a few words and pick out a few snippets of conversation from the radio/tv but there is not a hope in hell they would be able to come to the gaeltacht and hold a decent conversation. Heck, I’m from the gaeltacht myself and the particular part of it that I live in, I’d be surprised if as many as a quarter of them had what I would consider competent Gaelic.

I started adult classes in Irish two years ago.While I’m not fluent,I use Irish on a daily basis where I can and according to others I am improving.I feel more confident using the language and I am trying to introduce a few words to my pre-schooler son when playing with him. I had little or no Irish on leaving school,I failed pass Irish in the leaving and hated it at the time. I only sat the exam at the time because I had to. The adult classes are all based around using the language in conversation which is a lot different to how it was taught in school. I’m really enjoying it and it’s given me a whole new appreciation of the language.A lot of friends have expressed an interest (time permitting) in taking adult classes as well.

@floodzie: nobody said that people were lying. The point being made was that the questions could have been thought through better

Every irish person should be able to cos i have never met a german,italian,spanish,polish or any other citizen that dont speak their own language.

James, fáilte isteach.

Irish is quite uniform and once you know the how it works the pronunciation isn’t that difficult. There are loads of learning resources out there, if you live in Baile Átha Cliath just call into Conradh na Gaeilge on Harcourt St, or Gaelchultúr in Temple Bar and they’ll help you out.

Ádh mór!

It does bear relation to the spelling, Irish phonetics are just different from Germanic or Romance languages. But as Celtic languages are very rare in the grand scheme of things theres not really another language you can have that will give you an in into Irish like french/spanish/italian or german/english. If that makes sense? Irish is a hard language to learn but once youve studied for a while you get the feel of how things should be pronounced by seeing the spelling, it becomes 2nd nature

James there’s a ton of irish language courses you can buy, books cds etc plus online courses. Your best bet though is doing an adult class, there are many such courses around the country.

Nvm – i’m glancing through the PDF file which has more data now :)

Thanks Thomas – the city and county figures were switched around.

Toisc muna bhfuil tú in ann Gaeilge a labhairt, ní ciallaíonn sé sin go bhfuil ceart agat ceap magaidh a dhéanamh dúinnse. Is cuma liom faoi do chuid “thuairimí” – foscail dó shuile agus tchífidh thú an méid Gaeilge atá labhartha achán lá. Lig dó scíth babez!

Presumably you answered ‘Yes’ to the question on the census form then.

Well done for fecking up the stats, how hard was that!

ag – ag gáire?

Agoa – Ag Gáire Os Ard

Nope, we’re not the only ones. There’s the Scots, the Welsh, the Manx, the Bretons, the Cornish, the Walloons (Belgium), the Jews (abandoning Hebrew before Christ’s birth), the vast majority of native Americans, the Occitans, the Belarusians…. It’s part and parcel of the homogenization of the human race. 50% of the world’s spoken languages will be extinct wwithin the next 90 years. Even English itself is undergoing a massive process of simplification.

Stupid comment. Language has nothing to do with intellect. You’ve just proved it

@paul It has. it shows how little value the Irish has in its own culture. Stick your condescending attitude where the sun don’t shine!

Paul C, no it hasn’t. The possession or non-possession of a language has nothing to do with intellect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a staunch supporter of the language, but whether or not Irish people place value in the Irish language has nothing to do with intellect. It’s just a reflection on what their priorities are and how they view Irish culture. You may agree with them or disagree with them; they are neither right nor wrong in their viewpoint. But it most certainly is not a reflection of their intellect. To be honest, it’s these types of comments from supporters of Irish that drives many Anglophones even further from the language. Who wants to be part of a minority community which is perceived as attacking the intelligence of another, simply because they don’t speak the language of that minority community?

Brian, I am not calling into question the intellect of people who cannot speak or learn the language. I am however questioning the intellect of people through condescension abandoned Irish in favour of English as the language of choice. These attitudes are still very pervasive and inhibit many people from using Irish today, a relic of colonisation I’m afraid that still exists!

Ireland has a slave culture and mentality still. That’s the seed of the current crisis.

Knee Higg em.

a mhuntior! an bhuill cead agam go dti on leithris?!? s’il vous plait?!?! i mean eh…actually what is the irish for please?!

What???

It’s a cad

No you need a good level of Irish in order to teach the subject, its not about class, you wouldn’t let someone who was illiterate in maths teach maths would you? Also, you don’t need Irish to be a Garda, that was abolished.

Agree that English is important Frank, but it’s not an either/or situation.

Look at the Dutch, Danes etc. They speak their own language, and usually better English than the English!

That’s what we should aim for; but the school teaching of it is crap and a terrible waste of time and money.

Until the teachers can speak Irish themselves, what hope is there for them to be able to teach it?