The Irish language is the name given to Gaelic as it is spoken on the island of Ireland. Irish is among the oldest living languages in Europe. Written records go back to the early Christian period when Latin was often the usual written medium. Irish scribes would sometimes 'gloss' or annotate in the margins of their manuscripts, and it is from these glosses that much of our knowledge of 'Old Irish' has come. Another form of early writing was 'Ogham', consisting of a code of strokes and dots representing the letters, and usually inscribed on the edges of upright stones. Hundreds of these 'Ogham Stones' still survive and they usually contain the name of a person, probably as a memorial. They were sometimes erected in honour of dead chieftains or warriors.
By the middle ages Gaelic was not only the language of Ireland but of the Isle of Man and the greater part of Scotland.
The middle of the twelfth century saw the introduction of new religious orders from the Continent, and the development of lay-schools. These lay schools gradually developed a new literary standard more in harmony with the contemporary spoken language and by the end of the twelfth century, this standard was being adopted throughout the Gaelic world.
Thus began the Early Modern Irish period, a significant era of the language, lasting approximately from 1200 to 1650. Early Modern Irish is now generally known as Classical Modern Irish, but the expressions Early Modern and Classical Modern are often used interchangeably.
The Anglo-Normans were beginning to settle in Scotland during the late eleventh century, and in Ireland during the last decades of the twelfth. Although the Anglo-Norman settlements gave rise to a period of greater linguistic diversity in Ireland, the Irish language remained dominant and other speech communities were gradually absorbed. Despite laws banning the use of Irish language in order to prevent the gaelicisation of the Anglo Normans going as far back as the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1367 by the early sixteenth century, almost all of Ireland’s population was Irish-speaking again.
Examples of Anglo-Norman influence on the Irish language include the words ‘giúistís’ and ‘bardas’.
However, English was required for administrative and legal business. Thus Irish never became the language of administration. The Tudor and Stuart conquests and plantations (1534–1610), the Cromwellian settlements (1654), and the Williamite War (1689–91), followed by the enactment of the Penal Laws (1695), had the cumulative effect of eliminating the Irish-speaking ruling classes and destroying their cultural institutions. The status of Irish as a major language was finally and irrevocably undermined. Irish continued as the language of the greater part of the rural population and, for a time, of the servant classes in towns.
As the Penal Laws were relaxed and a greater social and economic mobility became possible for the native Irish, the more prosperous members of the Irish-speaking community began to adopt English, a phenomenon made worse by the Great Famine (1846–1848). The language appeared to be on the point of extinction, but a vigorous restoration movement has helped to prevent such a fate.
Academic interest in Irish language and literature had begun as early as the late eighteenth century among the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. Literary interest later merged with a concern for the survival of spoken Irish as its decline became increasingly evident during the nineteenth century.
Thomas Davis, in 1843, was the first to publicly declare Irish the language of Ireland.
The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, founded in 1876, succeeded in gaining recognition for Irish at all levels of the educational system, from primary school to university. The Gaelic League, or in Irish, Conradh na Gaeilge, established in 1893 by Douglas Hyde, Eoin Mac Néill, and many others, successfully turned support for Irish into a mass movement. This in turn gave rise to modernizing reforms of spelling and written grammar. These reforms were given final shape in an Official Standard published by the Government of Ireland in 1958.
Even with the best efforts and interest, the decline of the Irish language continued. This occurred because people failed to recognise that a willingness to speak the language was not enough.
The rebirth of a strong language community needs to be nurtured in a language centred way that allows acquisition of that language to be natural and enjoyable. Gaelscoileanna or Irish language schooling achieves this.
It is no accident that the last thirty years have seen a surge in the development of Irish language schools which has been mirrored by a growth and pride in the Irish language.
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