Fáilte go hAerfort Bhaile Átha Cliath.” This is one of the many Irish language signs you will see at Dublin Airport, and it means, “Welcome to Dublin Airport.” As you travel around the island of Ireland, you will see other signs in the Irish language. Many road signs have the names of places in both Irish and English, and if you go to an area called ‘a Gaeltacht’, which is a primarily Irish-speaking region, you will see signs only in Irish and hear the language spoken by the people who live there.
saving gaelic
The Irish language, also known as ‘Gaelic’, is a Celtic language that originated on the island of Ireland and was spoken by its people for centuries. However, in the 12th century, the British began to rule Ireland, and they later attempted to annihilate Irish language and culture. In the early 1900s, the Irish fought for and eventuallygained independence from Britain in twenty-six of its counties, now known as the Republic of Ireland, and they immediately began efforts to revitalise and preserve their traditional language and culture.
education
Today, it is obligatory for children in the Republic of Ireland to learn Irish at school, from when they begin their schooling, at the age of around four, until they finish, at around eighteen. Of the more than nine hundred thousand primary- and secondary-school students in Ireland, more than fifty thousand go to an Irish-medium school, or ‘Gaelscoil’, where all subjects except English are taught through Irish. However, only about 4 per cent of the country’s population —just under two hundred thousand people— speak Irish outside of school, and the number of Irish-speakers even in Gaeltachts has declined in recent years.
