The creeping prominence of the Irish language

A referendum would be like ticking yes on the Census. It would surely pass, but it proves little other than give people a sense of well-being without having to do anything other than drag themselves to a polling booth.

I think irish is the national language, the government has to provide documents in irish and english .20 per cent of our population is non national ,the economy depends on them to staff restaurants ,hotel,s , shops, .is someone really going to force people to speak irish in daily life , i doubt it.

irish is spoken in gaeltacht area,s , school,s ,tg4, also irish has a problem, the words for modern terms seem to be 3 times longer than english words .a minority of the population is fluent in irish, most shops i go to are staffed by 80 per cent non nationals, i cant even imagine trying to go a week just speaking to anyone i meet , i,d imagine the reaction would be wtf i,d dont understand you at all .the problem is young people know irish is not useful to you in real life .time is limited , you,d be better off studying french, programming, physics etc than try to speak irish perfectly .

i wonder how irish is being taught now, i read some storys in irish, i was never asked to speak a single sentence in irish, i cant remember how i did in my irish test ,or the leaving cert .i just remember peig and irish short storys all of which was about country people ,farmers or people who hated the brits .there was no connection or iota of modern life in the irish storys i read ,it was sad,miserable and old fashioned material .

Yes, but that's the point - your last graphic for 2000 is quite at odds with the official position on the language. And the amount of legislation, careers, resources and supports put into sustain it.

In fairness, that's just 'native speakers'. People who speak it fluently - and regularly- as an second language or were brought up.in bilingual homes wouldn't be covered.

I have no problem. With dual English, Irish signs, what I have a problem with

is millions being spent on useless things like printing all documents in Irish and English advertising in Irish only which most people can't understand it and I think Irish should not be mandatory in the leaving cert let it be voluntary like French or German I think Irish is like poetry or trad music for the people who like it good on ye art and culture is not something to be forced on everyone

No one is saying every child must be forced to learn Irish dancing

I grew up in in a small rural town I never met anyone who had the slightest interest in speaking Irish outside school hours but there's plenty of people who love hurling and gaelic football

As far as I know no one is forced to play hurling

homes in rural areas have acess to free view satellite TV or sky TV by subscription and soarview and of course YouTube and not just rte 1 and 2 and tg4

Freesat gives anyone acess to dozens of free TV channels for the price of an old sky box and a satellite dish

I have no problem with any one who wants to learn Irish even if they don't speak it perfectly

The English language word 'Gaelic' for use to describe language originates in 18th century Edinburgh as a means of describing Scottish Gáidhlig in Scots/English instead of using the more traditional Erse (Irish in Scots) which had become perjorative by that time. This ties in with wider movement which saw formalisation fo aspects of Scottish Gáidhlig and the formal translation of Bible (instead of using the 'Early Modern Irish' version from early 17th century). It derives from combining the word Gael with the English language suffix -ic (compare: Slavic, Slavonic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic etc.). This just happens to be a homonym for Gáidhlig/Gaedhealg.

Up until this time the name of language in Ireland was always some form of 'Irish' when speaking in English. For example Queen Elizabeth I's Irish primer.

We only start to see the use of 'Gaelic' in and Irish context post 1800 when Irish became a minority language in Ireland.

In context of Donegal Irish there is a conflation of the English word 'Gaelic' (Gael + ic) and the word Gaeilic/Gaeilig which is derived from the old Nominative Gaedhealg -- Gaeilge derives from the genitive case which was Gaaedhilge and it's use in modern standard is reflective of Connacht Irish.

So when Donegal speakers say Gaeilic they basically using modernised spelling form of the nominative that just happens to sound identical to the word Gaelic (in english -- they are homonyms). This is like the way in Scotland they use Gáidhlig (nominative) / Gáidhlige (nominative)

Re: Census

Those numbers are very overinflated Having reread the latest census question regarding Irish it doesn't have any indication of ability, only frequency.

Re: Other Services

Such as?

Not a lot.

8,068 Irish language forms were completed in Census 2016 compared with 8,676 in Census 2011.

Why the switch from daily interactions and classes to businesses? I'm assuming you can speak Irish fluently, you could offer your time to teach a class or start club or any number of things through Irish.

I never said the onus was on you to provide state services. Government Irish language facilities should be available and if they're not I'm pretty sure you could take you local authoruty to court over it if you wanted to, but you want someone else to do it. Same with courses in whatever, bemoaning that they're not offered through Irish but being unwilling to do something about it yourself because someone else should.

You're entitled to take them to court if they're not providing the service they're supposed to. I think those services through Irish are pointless because everyone speaks English but that's irrelevant, you do you. You could even have the case argued in Irish too if you wanted to.

If you want courses or activities through Irish but are unwilling to do it yourself you are passing the buck. If every Irish speaker has the same attitude I think we've figured out why they're not widely available.

Depends - what specific services are you requesting?

Edit- it appears you answered, so:

Pay bills - yes

Apply for planning permission - yes (although I though you could do this anyway?)

Do a course in Irish - not unless there's demand.

Copies of docs stamped by guards - again, thought this was available anyway?

USe Irish in local.library - id be in favour of having one irish-speaking librarian in every library. If this person is not available, up to you whether you want to wait or deal with the issue in English.

I don't think anyone's standing around crying while you're doing something through Irish.