A Gaeltacht ( , , ) is a district of Ireland, either individually or collectively, where the Irish government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home.Webster's Dictionary – definition of Gaeltacht The Gaeltacht districts were first officially recognised during the 1920s in the early years of the Irish Free State, following the Gaelic revival, as part of a government policy aimed at restoring the Irish language.
The Gaeltacht is threatened by serious language decline. Research published in 2015 showed that Irish is spoken on a daily basis by two-thirds or more of the population in only 21 of the 155 electoral divisions in the Gaeltacht. Daily language use by two-thirds or more of the population is regarded by some academics as a tipping point for language survival.RTÉ News Report of Friday 29 May 2015NUASHONRÚ AR AN STAIDÉAR CUIMSITHEACH TEANGEOLAÍOCH AR ÚSÁID NA GAEILGE SA GHAELTACHT: 2006–2011
Etymology The use of the word as geographic descriptor can be dated back to the 1890s with its use by Conradh na Gaeilge; the term had originally meant "the state of being Gaelic", in contrast to , meaning "the state of being foreign".
Geographical area
In 1926, the official Gaeltacht was designated as a result of the report of the first Gaeltacht Commission, Coimisiún na Gaeltachta. The exact boundaries were not defined. At the time, an area was classified as Gaeltacht if 80% or more of the population was Irish-speaking; however, partial-Gaeltacht status was also accorded to many areas that did not meet the threshold, so long as they were at least 25% Irish-speaking. The Irish Free State recognised that there were predominantly Irish-speaking or semi-Irish-speaking districts in 7 of its 26 counties, covering 22 districts, but also noted that the Irish-speaking population was declining, and that education through Irish was difficult to source.
In the 1950s, another Gaeltacht Commission concluded that the Gaeltacht boundaries were ill-defined. It recommended that Gaeltacht status be based solely on the strength of language use in an area.
The Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act 1956, which created the position of Minister for the Gaeltacht, permitted the designation of areas as being Gaeltacht districts. They were defined precisely by designating district electoral divisions and townlands, and excluded many areas in which the number of Irish speakers had declined. Gaeltacht areas were recognised in six of the state's 26 counties: Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Kerry, Cork, and Waterford, with County Clare, included in 1926, no longer counted. Two areas of County Meath, settled with Irish speakers in the 1930s, were added in 1967. Since then, there have been minor extensions: in 1974 to include Brandon, County Kerry and in Waterford, and in 1982 in Meath and Cork.
There are 26 Gaeltacht Language Planning Areas defined under the Gaeltacht Act 2012.
21st-century reports
In 2002 the third Coimisiún na Gaeltachta stated in its report that the erosion of the use of Irish in the Gaeltacht was now such that it was only a matter of time before the Gaeltacht disappeared. In some areas, Irish had already ceased to be a community language. Even in the strongest Gaeltacht areas, current patterns of bilingualism were leading to the dominance of English. Policies implemented by the State and voluntary groups were having no effect. The report recommended that a new language reinforcement strategy was required, one that had the confidence of the community itself.
The Commission recommended, among many other things, that the boundaries of the official Gaeltacht should be redrawn. It also recommended a comprehensive linguistic study to assess the vitality of the Irish language in the remaining Gaeltacht districts. The study was undertaken by Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge (part of the National University of Ireland, Galway). On 1 November 2007 Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht ("A Comprehensive Linguistic Study of the Usage of Irish in the Gaeltacht") was published.pobail.ie Concerning Gaeltacht boundaries, it suggested creating three linguistic zones within the Gaeltacht region: A – more than 67% daily Irish speaking – Irish dominant as the community language B – 44%–66% daily Irish speaking – English dominant, with large Irish-speaking minority C – less than 44% daily Irish speaking – English dominant, but with Irish-speaking minority much higher than the national average of Irish speaking
The report suggested that Category A districts should be the State's priority in providing services through Irish and development schemes. It also said that Category C areas that showed a further decline in the use of Irish should lose their Gaeltacht status.
The 2006 census data shows that of the 95,000 people living within the official Gaeltacht, approximately 17,000 belonged to Category A areas, 10,000 to Category B, and 17,000 to Category C, leaving about 50,000 in Gaeltacht areas that did not meet the minimum criteria.
A study in 2005 by the Educational Council for Gaeltacht and Irish-Medium Schools, said that Gaeltacht schools were facing a crisis. It forecast that, without additional support, few of them would be teaching in Irish in 20 years' time, which would threaten the future of the Gaeltacht. Parents felt that the educational system did not support their efforts to pass on Irish as a living language to their children. The study added that a significant number of Gaeltacht schools had switched to teaching in English, and others were wavering.
The stated aim of the Gaeltacht Act 2012 was to provide for a new definition of boundaries based on language criteria, but it was criticised for doing the opposite of this. Before its enactment, critics drew attention to section 7 of the bill, which stated that all areas "currently within the Gaeltacht" would maintain their current Gaeltacht status, regardless of whether Irish was used. This status could only be revoked if the area failed to prepare a language plan (with no necessary relationship to the documented number of speakers). The Bill was also criticised for placing all responsibility for the maintenance of Irish on voluntary organisations, with no increase in government resources.
The annual report in 2012 by An Coimisinéir Teanga reinforced these criticisms by emphasising the failure of the State to provide Irish-language services to Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht and elsewhere. The report said that Irish in the Gaeltacht was now at its most fragile and that the State could not expect that Irish would survive as a community language if the State kept forcing the use of English on Gaeltacht communities.
A report published in 2015, Nuashonrú ar an Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíoch ar Úsáid na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht: 2006–2011, said that on present indicators, Irish would cease to be used as a community language in the Gaeltacht within ten years. By the time of the 2022 census, the number of speakers using the language daily had declined to 20,261. The recent decline was in part attributed to the housing crisis, as young people who grew up within the Gaeltacht were unable to afford homes in the area and leave.
Administration The Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, headed by the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, is responsible for the overall government policy with respect to the Gaeltacht, and supervises the work of the Údarás na Gaeltachta and other bodies.
Ministers responsible for the Gaeltacht The Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act 1956 created the Department of the Gaeltacht, a Department of State headed by the Minister for the Gaeltacht, a member of the Government.
From 1956 to 1993, the Minister for the Gaeltacht often simultaneously held another portfolio (i.e. charge of another Department of State). Since 1993, rearrangements have combined the Gaeltacht with other responsibilities in a single Department of State and ministerial portfolio. The ministers, and the relevant titles (Department of... and Minister for...) have been as follows:
1956–2011: (Transfers of functions; List of ministers) 1956: the Gaeltacht 1993: Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht 1997: Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands 2002: Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs 2010: Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs 2011–2025: (Transfers of functions; List of ministers) 2011: Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht 2016: Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs 2017: Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht 2020: Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Since 2025: (Transfers of functions; List of ministers) 2025: Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht
In March 2005, Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív announced that the government of Ireland would begin listing only the Irish language versions of place names in the Gaeltachtaí as the official names, stripping the official Ordnance Survey of their English equivalents, to bring them up to date with road signs in the Gaeltacht, which have been in Irish only since 1970. This was done under a Placenames Order made under the Official Languages Act 2003.
Gaeltachtaí in the Republic of Ireland
Demographics
The 2022 census of the Republic of Ireland showed that the population of the Gaeltacht was 102,973, 2% of the total population; this figure represented an increase of 2% from 2016. 65,156 (66%) of the Gaeltacht population were Irish speakers. As of the 2022 census, English is the family and community language in the majority of the 156 electoral divisions of the Gaeltacht.
The Gaeltacht districts have historically suffered from mass emigration. Being at the edge of the island they always had fewer railways and roads, and poorer land to farm. Other influences have been the arrival of non-Irish speaking families, the marginal role of the Irish language in the education system and general pressure from the English-speaking community.For a description of this in a local area and the steps taken to counter it, see https://www.udaras.ie/en/faoin-udaras/cliant-chomhlachtai/cas-staideir/ceim-aniar-teo-caomhnu-teanga-i-ndun-na-ngall/. There is no evidence that periods of relative prosperity have materially improved the situation of the language.
Donegal Gaeltacht The Donegal (or Tyrconnell) Gaeltacht ( or Gaeltacht Thír Chonaill)udaras.ie has a population of 23,346 (Census 2016) and represents 23.4% of the total Gaeltacht population. The Donegal Gaeltacht encompasses a geographical area of . This represents 26% of total Gaeltacht land area. The three parishes of the Rosses, Gweedore and Cloughaneely constitute the main centre of population of the Donegal Gaeltacht. There are over 17,132 Irish speakers, 14,500 in areas where it is spoken by 30–100% of the population and 2,500 in areas where it is spoken by less than 30%. In 2006 there were 2,436 people employed in a full-time capacity in Údarás na Gaeltachta client companies in the Donegal Gaeltacht. This region is particularly popular with students of the Ulster dialect; each year thousands of students visit the area from Northern Ireland. Donegal is unique in the Gaeltacht regions, as its accent and dialect is unmistakably northern in character. The language has many similarities with Scottish Gaelic, which are not evident in other Irish dialects.
Gweedore in County Donegal is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland, which is home to regional studios of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. It has produced well-known traditional musicians, including the bands Altan and Clannad, as well as the artist Enya. All three have recorded music in Irish.
Galway Gaeltacht