Is Irish actually spoken in the Gealtachts?

An gal gréine

deise go deo wrote: »

I'm gona be there:)

Its great to see that it has become so popular, I know that there are going to be around 500 students there this weekend, more than ever before.

The students were fantastic, all speaking Irish under no duress.
The whole 4 days of immersion lets you dream of the possibilities.

pog it

gigino wrote: »

Its not spoken , no. The only time you may hear a cupla focail is when they think you may be visiting from the department + may be going to cut off the grant...


Look in any newsagents or bookshops in the gaeltacht. Nothing that sells is in Irish.

What is with the misinformation? Have you actually lived in the Gaeltacht for any period of time? I did, recently enough, in Connemara and Irish is alive and well. Obviously not as much so as 50 years ago, but it is very much a spoken language there.

The further you go from Galway city, the stronger the Gaeltacht, so places like Carna, Ros Muc, An Ceathrú Rua as mentioned...... lots of places where you can choose to speak only in Irish!

conor.hogan.2

In fairness it depends on where you were in the Gaeltacht. Besides actual student gaeltachts around belmullet for example I have never heard irish spoken and very little in Dingle outside of irish students.

But they are only two examples (and large-ish towns so it is not that suprising).

Also it depends on who you are talking to, English seems to be the default out of politeness or whatever reason.

deirdremf

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

In fairness it depends on where you were in the Gaeltacht. Besides actual student gaeltachts around belmullet for example I have never heard irish spoken and very little in Dingle outside of irish students.

But they are only two examples (and large-ish towns so it is not that suprising).

Also it depends on who you are talking to, English seems to be the default out of politeness or whatever reason.

There's little or no Irish in Belmullet, but there are a couple of small areas (Ceathrú Thaidhg, the Southern end of the Mullet) where Irish is alive. More so in Ceathrú Thaidhg, apparently.

There's plenty of Irish in Dingle, but a grasping English-speaking group controls the town, which is a pity because it would be such a lovely place otherwise.

Blackjack

deirdremf wrote: »

There's little or no Irish in Belmullet, but there are a couple of small areas (Ceathrú Thaidhg, the Southern end of the Mullet) where Irish is alive. More so in Ceathrú Thaidhg, apparently.

There's plenty of Irish in Dingle, but a grasping English-speaking group controls the town, which is a pity because it would be such a lovely place otherwise.

Ceathrú Thaidhg is not on the Mullet. Eachleam is where you are thinking of.

Ceathrú Thaidhg is actually 22 miles from Belmullet, and Irish is indeed alive and well there.

deirdremf

Blackjack wrote: »

Ceathrú Thaidhg is not on the Mullet. Eachleam is where you are thinking of.

I know Ceathrú Thaidhg is not on the Mullet. I didn't say it is; you must have missed the comma after "Ceathrú Thaidhg" when you were reading!
And yes, I was referring to the area around Eachléim.

HugoBradyBrown

Clearly the largest and most viable Gaeltacht in Ireland is in the Dublin region (look for their fáinne); it is the largest community of speakers, spread over the metropolitan region more thickly than they are in Connemara, in Donegal or in Corca Dhuibhne. The fact that there are interstitial speakers of another national language should deter a learner no more than should the presence of millions of sheep in Connemara.

Other places to try are London, New York and Springfield, Mass.

Enkidu

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Clearly the largest and most viable Gaeltacht in Ireland is in the Dublin region (look for their fáinne);

Yeah, but you're more likely to met speakers of high quality Irish in the traditional Gaeltachtaí right?

HugoBradyBrown

Enkidu wrote: »

Yeah, but you're more likely to met speakers of high quality Irish in the traditional Gaeltachtaí right?

Well, no, not necessarily. One finds that, schoolteachers apart, the grammar and enunciation among the native speakers in the West often leaves a lot to be desired. The best Irish is in fact heard today in Glenageary, in Donnybrook and in Blackrock, counterintuitively.

4zn76tysfajdxp

DeBrugha wrote: »

Bearna isn't even in Connemara

Yes it is.

byhookorbycrook

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Well, no, not necessarily. One finds that, schoolteachers apart, the grammar and enunciation among the native speakers in the West often leaves a lot to be desired. The best Irish is in fact heard today in Glenageary, in Donnybrook and in Blackrock, counterintuitively.

Enunciation to your ears perhaps,the best Irish is to be found with native speakers,of course.

dlofnep

An gal gréine wrote: »

On a recent short visit to An Rinn in Co. Waterford, I found Irish speakers sure enough but they have been surrounded by blow-ins who make no effort. In Ráth Cairn they have tight control of who moves in to their area.

You'd be suprised in An Rinn. It's some of the blow ins that make the effort to speak Irish. I know a chap from Dublin who lives there, and he always uses Irish and has a real strong Blas na Rinne. "Thá" for example instead of "Tá".

Mooneys bar always has Irish speakers in it. There are of course stronger Gaeltachtaí than An Rinn, but the language isn't dead there at all.

Fuinseog

DeBrugha wrote: »

Bearna isn't even in Connemara

Bearna is Gaeltacht Cois Fharraige and part of South Conamara.

Fuinseog

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Enunciation to your ears perhaps,the best Irish is to be found with native speakers,of course.

what pray tell is a native speaker? These days there are urban Gaelatchtai.

Enkidu

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Well, no, not necessarily. One finds that, schoolteachers apart, the grammar and enunciation among the native speakers in the West often leaves a lot to be desired. The best Irish is in fact heard today in Glenageary, in Donnybrook and in Blackrock, counterintuitively.

Are you sure? Can you give an example of such poor grammar and enunciation in native speakers from the West? Particularly the poor grammar?

Rhedyn

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

The best Irish is in fact heard today in Glenageary, in Donnybrook and in Blackrock.

I won't be able to sleep tonight laughing.

byhookorbycrook

Fuinseog wrote: »

what pray tell is a native speaker? These days there are urban Gaelatchtai.

Where?Our school is a Gaelscoil and many of our past pupils conduct part of their lives through Irish as much as possible, but we do not have an urban Gaeltacht.

dlofnep

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Where?Our school is a Gaelscoil and many of our past pupils conduct part of their lives through Irish as much as possible, but we do not have an urban Gaeltacht.

Belfast for one.

byhookorbycrook

Define a Gaeltacht.To me it is where the vast majority of the people speak Irish as their everyday language and can conduct their lives for the most part through Irish.

dlofnep

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Define a Gaeltacht.To me it is where the vast majority of the people speak Irish as their everyday language and can conduct their lives for the most part through Irish.

That's pretty much what it is. But traditionally - Gaeltachtaí have been on the edges of nowhere, away from major cities and towns. An Urban Gaeltacht is an area within a large urban centre that does all of the above.

There's one planned for Dublin, and 2 areas in Belfast which are very successful.

byhookorbycrook

Irish survived in poorer western areas that planters did not want to settle. I'm not sure if it is really possible to set up an urban Gaeltacht in this day and age, though I'd love to think it could be done, but not sure how it could work in reality.

HugoBradyBrown

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Irish survived in poorer western areas that planters did not want to settle. I'm not sure if it is really possible to set up an urban Gaeltacht in this day and age, though I'd love to think it could be done, but not sure how it could work in reality.

Was there once an urban Gaeltacht near Whitehall Cross, roughly behind the modern Viscount public house, stretching over towards St Aidan's School? It was reputed to be inhabited by civil servants. Perhaps it's an urban myth.

Fuinseog

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Where?Our school is a Gaelscoil and many of our past pupils conduct part of their lives through Irish as much as possible, but we do not have an urban Gaeltacht.

Ballymun.
A Gaeltacht doth be wher'er the langugae doth be spoken.

Fuinseog

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Irish survived in poorer western areas that planters did not want to settle. I'm not sure if it is really possible to set up an urban Gaeltacht in this day and age, though I'd love to think it could be done, but not sure how it could work in reality.

take a trip to west belfast

Enkidu

dlofnep wrote: »

Belfast for one.

Oh!, cool. What kind of Irish do they speak dlofnep? Has anybody been there?
I'm really happy to hear Irish is doing well in Mayo, it's the next area I was going to visit as my granny was a native speaker from Erris.

Fuinseog

Rhedyn wrote: »

I won't be able to sleep tonight laughing.

I believe it was Flann O Brien who said that good Irish was hard to understand , but the really good Irish was nigh on unintelligble. he meant it as a joke, but people still believe this is the way it should be.

A Gaelgeoir does not have to be a fisherman living on the west coast in grey connemara clothes.

This kind of linguistic intolerance is almost like saying someone who was born abroad to Irish parents is not really Irish

Enkidu

Fuinseog wrote: »

A Gaelgeoir does not have to be a fisherman living on the west coast in grey connemara clothes.

True*, but I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that people's Irish in the Gaeltachtaí is mumbled and hard to understand because it sounds weird or unlike the Irish they heard in school, when the "clear" Irish they're thinking of is only "clear" because it sounds like English and has grammar calqued from English.

*Partially, you're also stereotyping people from Conamara.

HugoBradyBrown

Enkidu wrote: »

True, but I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that people's Irish in the Gaeltachtaí is mumbled and hard to understand because it sounds weird or unlike the Irish the hard in school, when the "clear" Irish they're thinking of is only "clear" because it sounds like English and has grammar calqued from English.

Yes, but, to be perfectly frank, there is a lot of suspicious muttering and mumbling, often through a stonehenge of distinctive dentition, and a sense that something is being kept from the "law braws'.

Enkidu

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Yes, but, to be perfectly frank, there is a lot of suspicious muttering and mumbling, often through a stonehenge of distinctive dentition, and a sense that something is being kept from the "law braws'.

Isn't it more likely that that's just their pronunciation? I mean, why would you assume it's put on on purpose? Something I've read on boards before. I mean it's not really that different from the classical pronunciation.

HugoBradyBrown

Enkidu wrote: »

Isn't it more likely that that's just their pronunciation? I mean, why would you assume it's put on on purpose? Something I've read on boards before. I mean it's not really that different from the classical pronunciation.

Sadly, my dear Enkidu, I think it at least plays into ill-informed perceptions of crafty, deceitful peasants, unwilling to articulate what they mean in the clear light of day. This may be wrong, and Connemara is clearly not Surrey, but we could do with a touch of clarity, even in a society with no tradition of elocution training or rhetoric.

dlofnep

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Irish survived in poorer western areas that planters did not want to settle. I'm not sure if it is really possible to set up an urban Gaeltacht in this day and age, though I'd love to think it could be done, but not sure how it could work in reality.

It's not only possible, it's been done in Belfast and very successfully.

kilmac11

I'm from West Cork and I'd know Cape Clear well. Although still officially a Gaeltacht, in reality it isn't,all the children speak english on the island. Same can be said of the Mhuscraí Gaeltacht in Mid Cork, kinda sad really. On a brighter note I was in a pub last week in belfast and held a conversation with fellas from lennadoon as gaeilge, it was pidgin I admit. They said that it is increasing in use all the time in Belfast

dlofnep

Enkidu wrote: »

Oh!, cool. What kind of Irish do they speak dlofnep? Has anybody been there?
I'm really happy to hear Irish is doing well in Mayo, it's the next area I was going to visit as my granny was a native speaker from Erris.

I've been there on a number of occasions. Mostly Ulster dialect. There's actually 2 gaeltacht areas in Belfast. Shaws Rd and Falls Rd. Shaws Road is alot of families that live on the same neighbourhood and operate completely through Irish. They have a Gaelscoil there also.

The Fall's road Gaeltacht has a large Irish language centre (Culturlann) and is worth a visit!

They are planning a development in Dublin for something similar to the Shaws Road Gaeltacht. It's supposed to be complete in the next year or so.

Enkidu

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

This may be wrong, and Connemara is clearly not Surrey, but we could do with a touch of clarity, even in a society with no tradition of elocution training or rhetoric.

Their Irish is native Irish, any study of the modern dialects shows that they have pretty much the same pronunciation as classical Irish. There's few differences, less R sounds, e.t.c., but it's proper Irish. If anybody is speaking without clarity it's us learners. I don't go to France and think people are being Anglophobic on purpose if they make "wierd sounds" I don't hear in English and are more difficult to understand than my French teachers at school.

(Also Gaelic Ireland did have a tradition of rhetoric)

retalivity

Ta neart daoine oga i gaoth dobhair a labharann gaeilge idir iad fhein (Dun na nGall)

Its not dead yet!

deirdremf

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Well, no, not necessarily. One finds that, schoolteachers apart, the grammar and enunciation among the native speakers in the West often leaves a lot to be desired. The best Irish is in fact heard today in Glenageary, in Donnybrook and in Blackrock, counterintuitively.

You are confusing "book Irish" and "school Irish" with good Irish.
They might speak the caighdeán oifigiúil, but that's not really Irish, it's a sort of emasculated version of the language for writing official documents. Nobody in their right mind speaks like that.
Then there is the question of pronunciation: most Dublin speakers cannot get their mouths around the phonetics of Irish. They say things like "taw mé", "cúig mé", "conaic mé", and so on.
And then they do not have any of the proverbs, set phrases etc that a native speaker will have at the tip of his tongue at all times.

HugoBradyBrown

deirdremf wrote: »

You are confusing "book Irish" and "school Irish" with good Irish.
They might speak the caighdeán oifigiúil, but that's not really Irish, it's a sort of emasculated version of the language for writing official documents. Nobody in their right mind speaks like that.
Then there is the question of pronunciation: most Dublin speakers cannot get their mouths around the phonetics of Irish. They say things like "taw mé", "cúig mé", "conaic mé", and so on.
And then they do not have any of the proverbs, set phrases etc that a native speaker will have at the tip of his tongue at all times.

I appreciate the point that you make, but it does rather make Gaelic seem like a language of fixed collocations, an agglomeration of hackneyed phrases trotted out day and daily, a sequence of pastoral proverbs, with nothing like the spring, vim, vigour and limpidity of living English spoken by a man who has been to a public school and to one of the ancient universities.

Perhaps the spoken language in Ireland is some form of remnant or fossil, inward-looking and lacking in linguistic energy. With such a tiny population of speakers with any measure of real competence, particularly in the depopulated Gaeltacht itself, it is not unlikely that it has become debased and degraded from some previous more authentically alive form. With such tiny language communities, it is inescapable that the richness of an active vocabulary that is sustained by a much larger community, with such resources as the huge OED, cannot be maintained. Perhaps in the past Gaelic had almost as large a corpus of lexical items as English; today, clearly, it is denuded, an eroded remnant, much as the hills of Connemara are the worn-down skeletons of once-great mountains.

This is a matter of regret, but, like the African black rhinoceros, languages eventually go into reservations and then finally go extinct. Gaelic may, in fact, already be no more than a zoo and safari park specimen, ultimately only to be seen in virtual formaldehyde in glass jars.

Enkidu

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

I appreciate the point that you make, but it does rather make Gaelic seem like a language of fixed collocations, an agglomeration of hackneyed phrases trotted out day and daily, a sequence of pastoral proverbs, with nothing like the spring, vim, vigour and limpidity of living English spoken by a man who has been to a public school and to one of the ancient universities.

Isn't that a bit much to take from "Irish has set phrases that a lot of learners don't know". The same is true of most learners of most languages, even learners of English.

HugoBradyBrown

Enkidu wrote: »

Isn't that a bit much to take from "Irish has set phrases that a lot of learners don't know". The same is true of most learners of most languages, even learners of English.

Yes, O Enkidu, but English is truly a living language, sprouting new variants worldwide, and unconfined to any linguistic straitjacket. Sadly, in coming off the worse in this comparison, Gaelic reveals the symptoms of a language in intensive care, with a notice on the bed reading 'do not resuscitate'.

Sadly.

Enkidu

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

Yes, O Enkidu, but English is truly a living language, sprouting new variants worldwide, and unconfined to any linguistic straitjacket. Sadly, in coming off the worse in this comparison, Gaelic reveals the symptoms of a language in intensive care, with a notice on the bed reading 'do not resuscitate'.

Sadly.

English is a massive international language, Irish is a small one of one nation, you have to compare like with like. Irish has a few phrases, idioms and ways of phrasing things that don't roll of the tongue at first if you're learner. However this doesn't imply that Irish is moribund. Also none of this supports the original notion that the best Irish is in Foxrock.

HugoBradyBrown

Enkidu wrote: »

English is a massive international language, Irish is a small one of one nation, you have to compare like with like. Irish has a few phrases, idioms and ways of phrasing things that don't roll of the tongue at first if you're learner. However this doesn't imply that Irish is moribund. Also none of this supports the original notion that the best Irish is in Foxrock.

Oh, they speak very little of it in Foxrock, I can tell you, na daoine galánta. But down the hill a bit, towards Bakers' Corner and riding to the sea, and you will hear wisps of it, here and there, amid the baaing sound of the DART-accented English that is so widespread among the sheepish people of the area.

Moreover, I would argue that if it were possible to gather all 25 000 competent speakers of Gaelic in the land and put them in one place, say Ballinasloe, a genuine language community might be the result, since a modest critical mass of speakers and of speech acts would be created. As it is, Gaelic speakers are becoming like the giant tortoise, Lonesome George, and his fellows on the different Galapagos Islands (na Galapóigí), stranded on their separate linguistic islands, thinking furiously in Gaelic and dreaming in Gaelic, but losing the ability to generate novelty in the language for want of opportunity to engage in ideal speech acts with others.

General Michael Collins

Such whinging and bitching! I've never heard the like of it - between those who want nothing but what is to be a Gaeltacht, and those who want no Gaeltachtaí at all!

I'm just waiting for you to protest that you do want the good of the language, and you are being "realistic".

Let us deal with this then, for to my mind this is the greater sin to linguistic snobbery. Irish is a living language. In this thread we seem to have focussed on how it has not flourished where the government set its boundaries - (though I doubt many of the claims made by the dying language faction) but what about the language outside of these lines on a map? What is the test of a living language? If memory serves, 1.66 million people claim some standard of Irish, In the 26 counties alone.

This week, Teilifís Gaeilge celebrates fifteen years of proving the begrudgers we see in this thread wrong, as the Independent (somewhat Ironically) put it - the "Culturally Colonised", who hoped that the station would fail, and quickly too, to save them the embarrassment of having the language occupy their country much longer.

There are Radio stations - you might call Raidió na Gaeltachta a subsidised "Irish in a Zoo" station if you are so inclined, but I doubt you would ever apply the title to Raidió na Life or Raidio Fáilte. There are News outlets - Government supported Gaelscéal does fairly poorly in sales, but Foinse has a much larger readership, and Nuacht 24 is a successful operation as well. Additionally, Litríocht, the Irish book shop is a quality outfit, and whether or not it's significantly subsidised, (I genuinely don't know) it showcases the Literature still being produced by the Irish in our native tongue.

We continue to base our figures and notions on the counties under our control - we must take the 6 into account. Belfast is after all, the "Urban Gaeltacht", in some parts at least. The figures below are encouraging, and the Líofa 2015 campaign is an interesting development.



As for - The Best Irish is here, or there, or in any one place - my advice is to forget it. Irish is not the property of Conamara or Gaoth Dobhair, it's merely under their stewardship. Many areas of Dublin do have good Irish, it's true, and the opposite is also true.

To finish, I will point out that we can post maps and figures at each other all day long, but beatha an teanga í a labhairt, and therefore, I have a Fóram to run.

Saaron

I used to live in Corca Dhuibhne and a lot of my friends would speak Irish at home as it was their first language. If their parents phoned or anything along those lines they'd automatically speak Irish.

In school many of my friends would chat to each other in Irish as well. Often their Irish grammar would be better than their English grammar.

When you get nearer to towns like Dingle most people would speak mainly English yet they could speak Irish if they needed to.

HugoBradyBrown

Saaron wrote: »

I used to live in Corca Dhuibhne and a lot of my friends would speak Irish at home as it was their first language. If their parents phoned or anything along those lines they'd automatically speak Irish.

In school many of my friends would chat to each other in Irish as well. Often their Irish grammar would be better than their English grammar.

When you get nearer to towns like Dingle most people would speak mainly English yet they could speak Irish if they needed to.

But you will find that if a Gaelic speaker drops a cooking pot on her toe, even in the Gaeltacht, she will curse in English, and not in Gaelic. I think that this is a sovereign test of which comes first, which is the genuine first language. The other is often only pretending, like the people on Shop Street in Galway, speaking Gaelic so loudly you can hear them across the street.

Saaron

deirdremf wrote: »

You are confusing "book Irish" and "school Irish" with good Irish.
They might speak the caighdeán oifigiúil, but that's not really Irish, it's a sort of emasculated version of the language for writing official documents. Nobody in their right mind speaks like that.
Then there is the question of pronunciation: most Dublin speakers cannot get their mouths around the phonetics of Irish. They say things like "taw mé", "cúig mé", "conaic mé", and so on.
And then they do not have any of the proverbs, set phrases etc that a native speaker will have at the tip of his tongue at all times.

Absolutely agree! When I moved back to Dublin from Dingle to do my Leaving Cert I noticed a huge difference in how people from Dublin Spoke Irish in comparison to those who have grown up with it as their first language.

Book Irish just doesn't sound as natural in comparison. Good Irish just flows properly, pretty much the same way an we'd speak English from day to day.

deirdremf

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

But you will find that if a Gaelic speaker drops a cooking pot on her toe, even in the Gaeltacht, she will curse in English, and not in Gaelic. I think that this is a sovereign test of which comes first, which is the genuine first language. The other is often only pretending, like the people on Shop Street in Galway, speaking Gaelic so loudly you can hear them across the street.

As likely to say "droch rath ort mar phota" as a curse in English. Probably even more likely, now that I come to think of it.
Maybe you watch Ros na Rún too often, while reading the subtitles?

deirdremf

Saaron wrote: »

Absolutely agree! When I moved back to Dublin from Dingle to do my Leaving Cert I noticed a huge difference in how people from Dublin Spoke Irish in comparison to those who have grown up with it as their first language.

Book Irish just doesn't sound as natural in comparison. Good Irish just flows properly, pretty much the same way an we'd speak English from day to day.

Nicely put.

Saaron

HugoBradyBrown wrote: »

But you will find that if a Gaelic speaker drops a cooking pot on her toe, even in the Gaeltacht, she will curse in English, and not in Gaelic. I think that this is a sovereign test of which comes first, which is the genuine first language. The other is often only pretending, like the people on Shop Street in Galway, speaking Gaelic so loudly you can hear them across the street.

Not really, having lived in the Gaeltacht I know that I would have even cursed in Irish, or that to the equivalent of cursing. A lot of the time it would be the first thing to come out of our mouths without thinking twice.

HugoBradyBrown

General Michael Collins wrote: »

Such whinging and bitching! I've never heard the like of it - between those who want nothing but what is to be a Gaeltacht, and those who want no Gaeltachtaí at all!

I'm just waiting for you to protest that you do want the good of the language, and you are being "realistic".

Let us deal with this then, for to my mind this is the greater sin to linguistic snobbery. Irish is a living language. In this thread we seem to have focussed on how it has not flourished where the government set its boundaries - (though I doubt many of the claims made by the dying language faction) but what about the language outside of these lines on a map? What is the test of a living language? If memory serves, 1.66 million people claim some standard of Irish, In the 26 counties alone.

Yes, I suppose I am a realist, well-disposed to the language, but not inclined to keep something alive when its own speakers, those who own it, are allowing it to die. I sense that people in Ireland will do anything for Gaelic, except speak it. And there is a sense that people are anxious to support it for others to speak it, but not to do so themselves.

More tellingly, though, is the fact that no reliance of any kind can be placed on this census-based self-reporting of competence in Gaelic. Self-reported, self-flattering data is worthless. The test is set so low that by now, applying the same advisory measure, we could all claim to speak Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian, since we all probably have enough of those languages to conduct a conversation of 30 seconds' duration.

A true, tested survey needs to be conducted by objective, non-parti pris researchers, to determine the true extent of language competence, and to estimate scientifically the extent of language use in Ireland. I feel as if the Gaelic language is now in the same kind of respected limbo that 'prayers before and after meals' always were: something half-rememebred from the national school, and excavated from the recesses of the mind if some external witness like a priest joined the family dinner table. Gaelic, too, is something dusted off if foreigners are present speaking their own language amongst us, and we get embarrassed. Otherwise, the vast bulk of the population - 4 million minus the 25 thousand Gaelic speakers - really care little for it in any meaningful way.

Sadly.

General Michael Collins

Where are you getting this 25,000 figure from? The Government believes there are 80, 000 people who use Irish as their vernacular language and this figure fits well with the popularity of Irish medium products, as detailed above. It is the aim of the Government to increase this to 250,000 by 2030.