The Irish language () is, since 2022, an official language in Northern Ireland. The main dialect spoken there is Ulster Irish (Gaeilge or Gaeilg Uladh). Protection for the Irish language in Northern Ireland stems largely from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
In the 2021 census, Irish was the main language of 0.3% of the population aged 3 and up, an increase from 0.2% in the previous survey, while 12.4% of that population had some ability in Irish, also an increase from previous census results. As well, for the first time, the census asked the frequency of speaking Irish. 43,557 said they spoke Irish on a daily basis, which accounts for 2.43% of Northern Ireland's population.
History Language in Gaelic Ireland As in other parts of Ireland, Irish was the main language in the region of present-day Northern Ireland for most of its recorded history. The historic influence of the Irish language in Northern Ireland can be seen in many place names, for example the name of Belfast first appears in the year 668, and the Lagan even earlier ("Logia", Ptolemy's Geography 2,2,8). The Plantation of Ulster led to a decline in Gaelic culture through forcible expulsions of native Irish in favour of English and Scottish colonists. The Irish language, of course, was part of this culture – and while some Scottish settlers were Scots-Gaelic speakers, English was made widespread by the plantation. Despite the plantation Irish continued to be spoken in non-planted areas until the mass immigration in the 19th century caused by economic factors.
Irish Revival in Northern Ireland Intellectuals in Belfast took an antiquarian interest in Irish-language culture towards the end of the 18th century, and an Irish-language magazine Bolg an tSolair was published in 1795. The Ulster Gaelic Society was founded in 1830. Attitudes among the Anglican and Presbyterian middle class, however, changed in the second half of the 19th century as the Gaelic Revival began being associated with support for Home Rule or Irish Republicanism. The English-born MP for South Londonderry, Thomas Lea proposed an amendment to the draft of the second Home Rule Bill that would have prevented the passing of laws which would increase Irish language use in state schools, legal courts and other public spheres. Retrieved on 7 April 2018. A branch of the Gaelic League was founded in Belfast in 1895 with a non-sectarian and widely based membership, but the decline in Irish as a first language continued.Belfast and the Irish language, ed. Fionntán De Brún, Dublin 2006
Irish was in sharp decline throughout the whole of Ireland from the mid-1800s. From the late 1600s and early 1700s, the Church of Ireland made some attempts to revive the declining Irish language. The church printed Bibles and Prayer Books in Irish, and some churches, and some Protestant clergymen like William King of Dublin, held services in the language. However, the English language had been the language of learning and the Roman Catholic Church continued to use Ecclesiastical Latin for Mass and English in sermons. English was the language of the industrial east of the island, and Irish started to become confined to the more rural west. The proportion of Irish speakers had fallen from about half of the population in 1800 to 23% by 1851, and with only about a third of these speaking it exclusively.
By the 1860s, of all the Roman Catholic seminaries, only St Jarlath's in Tuam was teaching in Irish. The Roman Catholic Church had, at that time, desired to "stamp out any lingering, semi-pagan remnants", which included the Irish language. Some, like Sir William Wilde in 1852, blamed the Catholic Church for the quick decline and was "shocked" by the rapid decline of both the language and Gaelic customs after the Famine.
The power of the English language, in business and learning throughout much of the world also influenced the decline of Irish in Ireland. A letter from Dennis Heraghty of Letterkenny in 1886 to the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language complained that the parents in his area all wanted their children to learn English. Bishop MacCormac of Achonry, also in 1886, suggested that "People are apathetic about the preservation of our ancient language" and, "They see that Shakespeare's tongue is the one in use in America and the Colonies."
Although there had been attempts and societies formed to reverse the declining trend for the language, it was not until the rise of the Gaelic League, founded in 1893, that any measure of success was achieved.
Douglas Hyde, in New York in 1905, said, "The Irish language, thank God, is neither Protestant nor Catholic, it is neither a Unionist nor a Separatist." By then, however, the Gaelic League was already being covertly infiltrated and politicised by operatives working for Thomas Clarke and the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
At the same time, however, the Catholic Church in Ireland also began to believe in the worth of the language and had begun to take steps to ensure its survival.
Protestants and Unionists alike began to back away from the Gaelic revival as, besides the dominant role of the Roman Catholic Church by then, Irish people were starting to be described as a "race". James Alexander Rentoul, MP for Down East, stated at Westminster in July 1900 that the Irish language had no value and should not receive any support by the public education system. He also stated that Irish-speaking children should continue being subjected to coercive Anglicization in the schools so that the Irish language would soon become extinct. Even so, in 1905 the Irish Unionist Party had an Irish slogan, which it proudly displayed at a convention.
The British civil service officials of the Intermediate Board, the organisation through which public education policy was implemented, attempted to frustrate the improvement of Irish-medium education provision so severely that the sitting Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, John Hamilton-Gordon, had to write to the Board on 25 July 1906 to demand that the provision be implemented. In response, John Lonsdale, MP for Mid Armagh and member of the Ulster Unionist Council, claimed that the Gaelic movement which supported the Irish language was simply inspired by Irish republicanism and hatred of all things English. He opposed any teaching of Irish in primary schools as "money wasted" and "useless" as well as claiming that Irish was a vehicle for the dissemination of "seditious views."
Since the partition of Ireland Following the partition of Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland (which remained part of the United Kingdom), the largest Irish-speaking area in the province of Ulster; County Donegal; had gone into the Irish Free State. However, there were Gaeltacht areas (communities who continued to speak Irish as their first language) in Northern Ireland at the time; the most prominent of these were the Sperrin Mountains in County Tyrone and County Londonderry, Rathlin Island and the Glens of Antrim in County Antrim, Aghyaran in County Tyrone, parts of south Armagh and Cashel in south-west County Fermanagh. Since 1921, the Irish language has been regarded with suspicion by many unionists in Northern Ireland, who have associated it with the Republic of Ireland and with Irish republicanism.
The Irish-language movement in Northern Ireland after 1921 responded to a lack of establishment support by pursuing a self-help social and recreational movement aimed at preserving Ulster Irish (an issue which had split the Belfast Gaelic League in 1911). By 1923, only one branch of the Gaelic League was left in operation in Northern Ireland, but from a handful of branches in 1926 the number of branches peaked at 182 in 1946. In contrast to the perception of the Irish Free State's policy of preserving areas of Irish-speaking countryside, activists in Northern Ireland concentrated on ensuring Irish could survive in urban contexts, organising trips to Irish-speaking areas to bolster urban enthusiasm.
From the early years of the Northern Ireland government, education in Irish was marginalised. The number of primary schools teaching Irish was halved between 1924 and 1927, and numbers studying Irish as an extra subject fell from 5531 to 1290 between 1923 and 1926. The subsidy for Irish as an extra subject was abolished in 1934.Irish in Belfast, 1892–1960, Aodán Mac Póilin, in Belfast and the Irish language, ed. Fionntán De Brún, Dublin 2006
The last speakers of varieties of Irish native to what is now Northern Ireland died in the 20th century. Irish as spoken in Counties DownAbraham Hume, whilst compiling a report for the British Association in 1874, said that "as late as 1820... the Irish language was spoken along with English from Ballynahinch to near Newry." Cited in Ó Casaide (1930: 54ff) and Fermanagh were the first to die out, but native speakers of varieties spoken in the Glens of Antrim"When Swiss-born scholar Heinrich Wagner began his four-volume Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects in the 1950s, most of his Ulster material was collected from Donegal – where Gaeltacht areas still exist – although he did manage to locate native speakers of Irish in counties Cavan, Tyrone and Rathlin Island, Co. Antrim, in addition to Omeath, Co. Louth": A.J. Hughs, Belfast and the Irish Language, Fionntán de Brún (ed.), 2006, and the Sperrin Mountains of County TyroneHistorical Sketches of the Native Irish "estimated that around 140,000 of the total 261,867 inhabitants of that county [Tyrone], returned for the 1821 census, spoke Irish": cited in A.J. Hughs Belfast and the Irish Language, Fionntán de Brún (ed.), 2006, and County Londonderry survived into the 1950s and 1970s respectively, whilst the Armagh dialect survived until the 1930s or '40s.Coimisiún na Gaeltachta 1926 report and maps based on 1911 census. (This was the last time all of Ireland had a census with the same question regarding language on the same date.) Varieties of Irish indigenous to the territory of Northern Ireland finally became extinct when the last native speaker of Rathlin Irish died in 1985."Counties Down and Fermanagh were the first counties where Irish died out, but according to the 1911 census, Irish was spoken by the majority of the population over 60 years old in parts of the Sperrin mountains and Rathlin Island. Sound recordings have been made of the Irish of Antrim, Armagh, Londonderry and Tyrone. One of the last speakers of Antrim Irish, Jimmy Stewart of Murlough, died in 1950, and the last speaker of Tyrone Irish, Johnny McAleer, died in 1970. Bella McKenna, the last speaker of Rathlin Irish, was recorded on videotape and died in 1985. With her death came the extinction of the East Ulster dialect of Irish which had been spoken in what is present-day Northern Ireland." Iontaobhas ULTACH, http://www.ultach.org Séamus Bhriain Mac Amhlaigh, who died in 1983, was reportedly the last native-speaker of Antrim Irish. A wealth of recordings and stories told by Mac Amhlaigh, however, were recorded before his death by researchers from Queen's University in Belfast.
At the same time, The Troubles exacerbated the politicisation of the Irish language in Northern Ireland. Many republicans in Northern Ireland, including former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, learned Irish while in prison.Allen Feldman, Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland, University of Chicago Press, 1991, chapter 3. Furthermore, co-operative housing scheme in West Belfast aimed at creating an urban neo-Gaeltacht opened in 1969 in Shaw's Road.