Irish

Where it’s spoken

Irish (Gaeilge) is the national and first official language of Ireland under the constitution, and a recognized minority language in Northern Ireland. Daily native speakers are concentrated in Gaeltacht regions on the western Atlantic coast — Connemara, Donegal, Kerry, and the Aran Islands. About 1.7 million Irish residents claim some Irish-language ability, but only a small fraction speak it fluently.

What it sounds like

Irish has a sophisticated system of phonemic contrasts between “broad” (velarized) and “slender” (palatalized) consonants — each consonant essentially comes in two flavors. Initial consonant mutations (lenition and eclipsis) signal grammatical relationships. Stress typically falls on the first syllable in most dialects.

How it’s written

Irish uses 18 letters of the Latin alphabet. Acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú) mark long vowels. Historic spellings preserve etymological consonants no longer pronounced. The traditional Gaelic typeface (Cló Gaelach) was widely used until the mid-20th century switch to standard Roman fonts.

History

Old Irish (7th–10th centuries) is one of the earliest Celtic literary traditions. After centuries of English-language dominance and the catastrophic 19th-century Great Famine, the language was elevated by the 19th-century Gaelic Revival.