Irish language

[Snowball9825]

Does anyone in Ireland actually speak native Irish? I was on a flight today to Dublin and Irish was spoken by the flight attendants but it seemed a bit redundant in that no one really took notice. The pilot spoke English and the plane went quiet to hear about flight times etc but it seemed no one understood when the native language was spoken. Happy to be corrected if I’m wrong?

Welsh and French definitely don’t share the same Brythonic language root. You are thinking of Breton which is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany.

welsh, Cornish and Breton come from Brythonic. Gaelic, Irish and Manx are the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages

But lots of the people on the flight wouldn't have been Irish and would have been as ignorant of the language as you are.

And tbh it gets on my tits when Brits make disingenuous posts about Irish. I mean, maybe do a bit of Googling about colonial language policies in Ireland, going back to that notorious charmer Edmund Spenser.

also am I wrong but another reason for the decline of the Irish language is that a lot of Irish speakers died in the famine or emigrated.

Im sure there are people speaking Irish in Dublin but you'd have to look to find them. Outside of organsied Irish speaking groups or gaelscoils I think its pretty rare.

I once wondered into a shop in Holyhead (waiting for ferry) and people were chattering away in Welsh. Never come across that here, (obv with Irish not welsh) and I have been all over Ireland.

@booksunderthebed
Yes, you’re right, there was a huge and swift decline in the19th century.

You’ll hear Irish spoken in the Gaeltacht areas as per the map pp posted above. Spoken naturally, as you describe for Welsh, in shops, playgrounds, pubs…but the Gaeltachts only cover a very small area of the country. Also if people think you don’t have Irish yourself they’ll address you in English there.

@booksunderthebed
I mean, the YouTube video you posted about Yu Ming is pretty accurate. He was in a Gaeltacht area at the end.

There’s a good, old now, series on YouTube of Manchán Magan travelling through Ireland using only Irish. It would be interesting to see it done again now to test whether people are more comfortable or confident with their spoken Irish than they were then. When people did manage a few words on the show they looked delighted!

I went to an Irish speaking secondry school, so was fluent at one point - but that was 20 years ago and I can barely muster up a few sentences these days…

As someone else has said, a lot of children are put off by how it’s taught in schools. We used to shudder at the name Peig Seyers…

Most Irish people will understand and speak basic Irish . We live in Dublin but my 5 have been educated solely through Irish . It's a very popular choice as the schools tend to be very good .

Hey sorry only catching up on this now! Flew in from France to Dublin and up to Northern Ireland where I went to a Catholic school back in the 80’s. We did maybe a class a week? So none of it has been retained unfortunately.

Yes sorry, long and sad day yesterday.

Irish was my first language and I still speak it now, but I’ve made a conscious effort to continue using it so I don’t forget it. My son speaks a little bit, I tried to raise him bilingual the same as I was but it didn’t work. It’s working a little bit better with my 3.5 year old, and my one year old knows as many Irish words as she does English now.

I speak it to family back in Ireland when I call them/see them, and to my DF when it’s just us two.

I was in Ireland last night and watched a subtitles tv programme in Irish. I’d never heard it spoken before it was absolutely beautiful.

I remember in the late 90s my Irish university friend and her new bf (also Irish) would speak to each other in Irish. She would say to me, don't ask what we are saying, it's filthy! 🤣 This was in London. My Irish pal was from Sligo.

I'm Irish, living in Ireland, and have never heard the Gaeltacht referred to as Irish College. Anyone I know who went or who has talked about it has always called it the Gaeltacht. Even in school it was called the Gaeltacht.

Do you mean the summer courses for (mainly) secondary school kids?
Always called Irish college here (Cork), but it takes place in the Gaeltacht of course. Whichever the nearest one is usually.
But yes, we’d always just say ‘Eoin’s going to Irish college next week’ etc.
So Irish college is the residential course teaching Irish (which takes place in the Gaeltacht) for me.

Regional differences I suppose 🤔

I think I’m equally as surprised as you, but in reverse. I thought everyone called it Irish college!

OP are you northern Irish?

Yes, I was referring to the residential summer courses during the summer. It must be a localised thing as I've never heard the Gaeltacht called Irish College before, and that's from people in and outside of Dublin.

I’m from Dublin and we definitely called it Irish College.

That was back in the 90’s/early 2000’s.

That's so odd. Never heard that before but, as the saying goes, every day's a school day.

Im also from Dublin and never called it Irish college. We went to the Gaeltacht and that was it. Well my friends did I avoided it at all costs.

At least some of them refer to themselves as ‘Irish college’ to be fair. This is the one my kids have attended in West Kerry.

@Parriella @Chulainn I wonder is 'Irish college' a Cork thing so, I'm in Cork too. I went to Corca Dhuine too a million years ago, but like the ad says, we called it Corca Dhuine Irish college. My DS went to Ring, I just looked at the website and they advertise as 'Summer Gaeltacht Irish College, so covering both.

On an Aer Lingus flight they will usually just say a few pleasantries in Irish - hello, welcome on board, thank you for flying with Aer Lingus etc. They don't give information in Irish so nobody is going to hush to listen to it - though it is nice to hear.

I don’t think so 🤔 Some places in Galway advertise themselves as Irish college too. But there must obviously be some regional differences in usage all right, which I never knew before.

Studied it at school as it was compulsory from age 5-18. I can hardly speak a word of it and understand very little. I was truly terrible at it and can speak far more French which I did at secondary and a bit of Spanish.

For me it was hard to learn but from what I can see [I don't live in Ireland and haven't for over 20 years] there has been a huge resurgence in it's popularity, interest in promoting it, social media/influencers and a lot more music and tv hitting more mainstream channels.