Irish (Gaeilge) is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language only by a small minority of the Irish population, and as a second language by a larger minority. However, it is widely considered to be an important part of the island's culture and heritage. It enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland. It is also an official language of the European Union and an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland.
Irish was the predominant language of the Irish people for most of their recorded history, and they brought their Gaelic speech with them to other countries, notably Scotland and the Isle of Man where it gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx. It has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe. However, it began to decline under British rule after the seventeenth century. The nineteenth century saw a dramatic fall in the number of speakers partly due to the Great Famine of 1845–1852 (where Ireland lost half its population either to emigration or death) and partly due to government language policies. Irish speaking areas were especially hard hit. By its end, while the language never died out, it was spoken by less than 15% of the national population. Since then, Irish speakers have been a minority except in some areas known as Gaeltachtaí (singular: Gaeltacht), and efforts have been made to preserve and promote the language.
Estimates of fully native speakers range from 40,000 to 80,000 people. In the Republic, there are just over 72,000 people who use Irish as a daily language outside education, as well as a larger minority of the population who are fluent but do not use it on a daily basis. (While census figures indicate 1.66 million people in the republic with some knowledge, a significant percentage of these know only a little Irish). Smaller numbers of Irish speakers exist in Britain, the United States and other countries.
In the Caighdeán Oifigiúil (the official written standard) the name of the language is Gaeilge. Before the spelling reform of 1948, it was spelled Gaedhilge; originally this was the genitive of Gaedhealg, the form used in classical Modern Irish. Older spellings of this include Gaoidhealg in Classical Irish and Goídelc in Old Irish. The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent dh in the middle of Gaedhilge.
Other forms of the name are found in the various modern Irish dialects, In addition to south Connacht Gaeilge mentioned above, they include Gaedhilic/Gaeilic/Gaeilig or Gaedhlag in Ulster and northern Connacht Irish, and Gaedhealaing/Gaoluinn/Gaelainn in Munster Irish.
Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the fourth century AD; this stage of the language is known as Primitive Irish. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish transitioned into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the sixth century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. By the 10th century Old Irish evolved into Middle Irish, which was spoken throughout Ireland and in Scotland and the Isle of Man. It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the famous Ulster Cycle. From the 12th century Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language in the Isle of Man. Early Modern Irish, dating from the thirteenth century, was the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland, and is attested by such writers as Geoffrey Keating. Modern Irish emerged from the literary language known as Early Modern Irish in Ireland and as Classical Gaelic in Scotland; this was used through the 18th century.
From the eighteenth century the language went into a decline, rapidly losing ground to English due in part to restrictions dictated by British rule - a conspicuous example of the process known by linguists as language shift. In the mid-nineteenth century it lost a large portion of its speakers to death and emigration resulting from poverty, particularly in the wake of the Great Famine (1845–1849).
At the end of the nineteenth century, members of the Gaelic Revival movement made efforts to encourage the learning and use of Irish in Ireland. Particular emphasis was placed at that point on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich, but efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature.
Although not specifically to do with the Gaelic language, this seems an appropriate place to add a bit about Limericks - a poetry style.
The nineteenth-century illustrator and poet Edward Lear is closelyassociated with the form. But he didn't invent it. He borrowed it
from examples that he discovered in a book of 1822, Anecdotes and
Adventures of Fifteen Gentlemen. One verse gave Lear the idea
of writing limericks to accompany his illustrations for children:
There was a sick man of Tobago,
who lived long on rice-gruel and sago.
But at last, to his bliss,
the physician said this -
"To a roast leg of mutton you may go."
The form is often claimed to be older. Modern books about Ireland
link it to the eighteenth century Filí na Máighe, Gaelic poets of
the Maigue, based in a pub in Croom, County Limerick.
One member of the party started a verse, and when he had concluded, the whole assembly joined in the chorus.
The chorus consisted of the repeated lines
"Will you come up, come up? / Will you come up to Limerick?"
Then, the next performer started the second verse, and so on, until each person had contributed. Repetitions were not allowed, and forfeits were extracted from those who could not fulfil the conditions.
Another example:
There was a young rustic named Mallory,
who drew but a very small salary.
When he went to a show,
his purse made him go
to a seat in the uppermost gallery.
To read more about limericks, written by Michael Quinion of World Wide Words click W.W.W.
