115-577: Dunluce Castle ( / d ʊ n ˈ l uː s / ; from Irish Dún Libhse ) is a now-ruined medieval castle in Northern Ireland , the seat of Clan MacDonnell. It is located on the edge of a basalt outcropping in County Antrim (between Portballintrae and Portrush ), and is accessible via a bridge connecting it to the mainland. The castle is surrounded by extremely steep drops on either side, which may have been an important factor to
230-547: A unique dialect of Irish developed before falling out of use in the early 20th century. With a writing system , Ogham , dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by Latin script since the 5th century AD, Irish has one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Western Europe . On the island, the language has three major dialects: Connacht , Munster and Ulster Irish . All three have distinctions in their speech and orthography . There
345-717: A bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such as An Dream Dearg . Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the European Parliament and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of
460-575: A better future for Ireland and all her citizens." The Strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and will stay in action until 2030; it aims to target language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language. The 30-page document published by the Government of Ireland details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It
575-478: A cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards,
690-553: A degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE / GCSE examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students who were born or completed primary education outside of Ireland, and students diagnosed with dyslexia . NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of
805-460: A fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history. Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish. The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora , chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia , New Zealand and Argentina . The first large movements began in
920-409: A grant of land to establish a settler town at Enniskillen . By 1622, a survey found that there were 6,402 British adult males on Plantation lands, of whom 3,100 were English and 3,700 Scottish – indicating a total adult planter population of around 12,000. However, another 4,000 Scottish adult males had settled in unplanted Antrim and Down, giving a total settler population of about 19,000. Despite
1035-560: A means to confiscate land, when other means failed. The Plantation of Ulster was presented to James I as a joint "British", or English and Scottish, venture to 'pacify' and 'civilise' Ulster, with half the settlers to be from one country. James had been King of Scotland before he also became King of England and wanted to reward his Scottish subjects with land in Ulster to assure them they were not being neglected now that he had moved his court to London. Long-standing contacts between Ulster and
1150-585: A paper suggested that within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish might typically be members of an urban, middle class, and highly educated minority. Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in
1265-575: A pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English, and receive lessons in Irish during their two years of training. Official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by An Coimisinéir Teanga , the Irish language ombudsman). The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on
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#17327802905791380-625: A religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by Leinsterman Muircheartach Ó Cíonga , commissioned by Bishop Bedell , was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival. It has been estimated that there were around 800,000 monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by
1495-547: A result of linguistic imperialism . Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in Ireland's Gaeltacht regions, in which 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022. The total number of people (aged 3 and over) in Ireland who declared they could speak Irish in April 2022 was 1,873,997, representing 40% of respondents, but of these, 472,887 said they never spoke it and a further 551,993 said they only spoke it within
1610-403: A result. Charles I subsequently raised an army largely composed of Irish Catholics, and sent them to Ulster in preparation to invade Scotland. The English and Scottish parliaments then threatened to attack this army. In the midst of this, Gaelic Irish landowners in Ulster, led by Felim O'Neill and Rory O'More , planned a rebellion to take over the administration in Ireland. On 23 October 1641,
1725-414: A spread to unpopulated areas, through ports such as Derry and Carrickfergus. In addition, there was much internal movement of settlers who did not like the original land allotted to them. Some planters settled on uninhabited and unexploited land, often building up their farms and homes on overgrown terrain that has been variously described as "wilderness" and "virgin" ground. In 1612, William Cole received
1840-789: A stronghold built here by the McQuillans after they became lords of the Route . The McQuillans were the Lords of Route from the late 13th century until they were displaced by the MacDonnell after losing two major battles against them during the mid- and late-16th century. Later Dunluce Castle became the home of the chief of the Clan MacDonnell of Antrim and the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg from Scotland . Chief John Mor MacDonald
1955-545: A wider meaning, including the Gaelic of Scotland and the Isle of Man , as well as of Ireland. When required by the context, these are distinguished as Gaeilge na hAlban , Gaeilge Mhanann and Gaeilge na hÉireann respectively. In English (including Hiberno-English ), the language is usually referred to as Irish , as well as Gaelic and Irish Gaelic . The term Irish Gaelic may be seen when English speakers discuss
2070-603: Is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family . It is a member of the Goidelic language group of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland . It was the majority of the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century, in what is sometimes characterised as
2185-452: Is also An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , a standardised written form devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional Irish alphabet , a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters , has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7–8 letters used primarily in loanwords ). Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of
2300-511: Is divided into four separate phases with the intention of improving 9 main areas of action including: The general goal for this strategy was to increase the number of daily speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run. By 2022, the number of such speakers had fallen to 71,968. Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years
2415-587: Is only in Gaeltacht areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent. According to data compiled by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht , Sport and Media , only 1/4 of households in Gaeltacht areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology , described
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#17327802905792530-412: Is still spoken daily to some extent as a first language . These regions are known individually and collectively as the Gaeltacht (plural Gaeltachtaí ). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 20–30,000, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it
2645-865: Is still to be discovered. Dunluce Castle is in the care of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency . It is a monument in state care sited in the townland of Dunluce, in Coleraine Borough Council area, at grid ref: C9048 4137. The earthworks , adjacent to Dunluce Castle, are a scheduled historic monument , at grid ref: area of C905 412. Specific references: General references: Breen, Colin (2012). Dunluce Castle : archaeology and history . Dublin: Four Courts Press. ISBN 9781846823312 . Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ),
2760-666: The Fíor-Ghaeltacht (true Gaeltacht ), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish. There are Gaeltacht regions in the following counties: Gweedore ( Gaoth Dobhair ), County Donegal, is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in the Gaeltacht are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged. The Act
2875-577: The English administration attempted to undermine them. In 1607, O'Neill and his primary allies left Ireland to seek Spanish help for a new rebellion to restore their privileges, in what became known as the Flight of the Earls . King James issued a proclamation declaring their action to be treason , paving the way for the forfeiture of their lands and titles. A colonization of Ulster had been proposed since
2990-694: The Irish Republican Army , has written that: "not all of those of British background in Ireland owe their Irish residence to the Plantations ;... yet the Plantation did produce a large British/English interest in Ireland, a significant body of Irish Protestants who were tied through religion and politics to English power." However, going on surnames, others have concluded that Protestant and Catholic are poor guides to whether people's ancestors were settlers or natives of Ulster in
3105-631: The Republic of Ireland , and is also an official language of Northern Ireland and among the official languages of the European Union . The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Irish has no regulatory body but An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , the standard written form, is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official [Written] Standard ")
3220-665: The Virginia Plantation at Jamestown in 1607 started. The London guilds planning to fund the Plantation of Ulster switched and backed the London Virginia Company instead. Many British Protestant settlers went to Virginia or New England in America rather than to Ulster. By the 1630s, there were 20,000 adult male British settlers in Ulster, which meant that the total settler population could have been as high as 80,000. They formed local majorities of
3335-671: The Williamites in the Williamite war in Ireland in the 1690s, they were excluded from power in the postwar settlement by the Anglican Protestant Ascendancy . During the 18th century, rising Scots resentment over religious, political and economic issues fueled their emigration to the American colonies, beginning in 1717 and continuing up to the 1770s. Scots-Irish from Ulster and Scotland and British from
3450-631: The 1540s, during the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547), and concluded in the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) sixty years later, breaking the power of the semi-independent Irish chieftains. As part of the conquest, plantations (colonial settlements) were established in Queen's County and King's County ( Laois and Offaly ) in the 1550s as well as Munster in the 1580s, and in 1568 Warham St Leger and Richard Grenville established Joint stock/Cooperate colonies in Cork, although these were not very successful. In
3565-555: The 1570s, Elizabeth I authorized a privately funded plantation of eastern Ulster , led by Thomas Smith and Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex . This was a failure and sparked violent conflict with the local Irish lord, in which Lord Deputy Essex killed many of the lord of Clandeboy 's kin. In the Nine Years' War of 1594–1603, an alliance of northern Gaelic chieftains—led by Hugh O'Neill of Tyrone , Hugh Roe O'Donnell of Tyrconnell , and Hugh Maguire of Fermanagh —resisted
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3680-425: The 1690s, when tens of thousands of Scots fled a famine (1696–1698) in the border region of Scotland. It was at this point that Scottish Presbyterians became the majority community in the province. Whereas in the 1660s, they made up some 20% of Ulster's population (though 60% of its British population) by 1720 they were an absolute majority in Ulster, with up to 50,000 having arrived during the period 1690–1710. There
3795-529: The 16th century, Ulster was viewed by the English as being "underpopulated" and undeveloped. The economy of Gaelic Ulster was overwhelmingly based on agriculture, especially cattle-raising. Many of the Gaelic Irish practised "creaghting" or "booleying", a kind of transhumance whereby some of them moved with their cattle to upland pastures during the summer months and lived in temporary dwellings during that time. This often led outsiders to mistakenly believe
3910-634: The 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies . Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine . This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English
4025-530: The 17th century. By contrast, genetic studies have found that, "The distribution [of southwestern Scottish ancestry] in Northern Ireland mirrors the distributions of the Plantations of Ireland throughout the 17th century. Thus the cluster will have experienced some genetic isolation by religion from adjacent Irish populations in the intervening centuries." The settlers also left a legacy in terms of language. The strong Ulster Scots dialect originated through
4140-789: The 1998 Good Friday Agreement , the language gradually received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and then, in 2003, by the British government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . In the 2006 St Andrews Agreement the British government promised to enact legislation to promote the language and in 2022 it approved legislation to recognise Irish as an official language alongside English. The bill received royal assent on 6 December 2022. The Irish language has often been used as
4255-403: The 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh , including ecclesiastical terms : examples are easpag (bishop) from episcopus , and Domhnach (Sunday, from dominica ). By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish , which
4370-571: The Act all detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in official courts, official publications, and placenames. The Act was recently amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the already preexisting legislation. All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions. The Official Languages Scheme
4485-471: The European Union , only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. This derogation ultimately came to an end on 1 January 2022, making Irish
4600-474: The Gaelic Highlands of Scotland. Six counties were involved in the official plantation – Donegal , Londonderry , Tyrone , Fermanagh , Cavan and Armagh . In the two officially unplanted counties of Antrim and Down , substantial Presbyterian Scots settlement had been underway since 1606. The plan for the plantation was determined by two factors. One was the wish to make sure
4715-480: The Gaelic Irish were nomadic. Michael Perceval-Maxwell estimates that by 1600 (before the worst atrocities of the Nine Years' War), Ulster's total adult population was only 25,000-40,000. Others estimate that Ulster's population in the year 1600 was about 200,000. The wars fought among Gaelic clans and between the Gaelic and English undoubtedly contributed to depopulation. The Tudor conquest of Ireland began in
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4830-461: The Gaels gone?", adding "We have in their stead an arrogant, impure crowd, of foreigners' blood". Historian Thomas Bartlett suggests that Irish hostility to the plantation may have been muted in the early years, as there were much fewer settlers arriving than expected. Bartlett writes that a hatred for the planters grew with the influx of settlers from the 1620s, and the increasing marginalization of
4945-549: The Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times , referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse , quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but
5060-514: The Irish. Historian Gerard Farrell writes that the plantation stoked a "smoldering resentment" in the Irish, among whom "a widespread perception persisted that they and the generation before them had been unfairly dispossessed of their lands by force and legal chicanery". Petty violence and sabotage against the planters was rife, and many Irish came to identify with the wood-kern who attacked settlements and ambushed settlers. Ferrell suggests it took many years for an Irish uprising to happen because there
5175-485: The Nine Years' War (known as "Servitors") led by Arthur Chichester successfully lobbied to be rewarded with land grants of their own. Since these former officers did not have enough private capital to fund the colonisation, their involvement was subsidised by the twelve great guilds. Livery companies from the City of London were coerced into investing in the project, as were City of London guilds which were granted land on
5290-556: The Pale would convert the native population to Anglicanism . Since 1606, there had been substantial lowland Scots settlement on disinhabited land in north Down, led by Hugh Montgomery and James Hamilton . In 1607, Sir Randall MacDonnell settled 300 Presbyterian Scots families on his land in Antrim. From 1609 onwards, British Protestant immigrants arrived in Ulster through direct importation by Undertakers to their estates and also by
5405-580: The Plantation remained threatened by the attacks of bandits, known as " wood-kern ", who were often Irish soldiers or dispossessed landowners. In 1609, Chichester had 1,300 former Gaelic soldiers deported from Ulster to serve in the Swedish Army . As a result, military garrisons were established across Ulster and many of the Plantation towns, notably Derry , were fortified. The settlers were also required to maintain arms and attend an annual military 'muster'. There had been very few towns in Ulster before
5520-531: The Plantation remains disputed. According to one interpretation, it created a society segregated between native Catholics and settler Protestants in Ulster and created a Protestant and British concentration in north-east Ireland. This argument therefore sees the Plantation as one of the long-term causes of the Partition of Ireland in 1921, as the north-east remained as part of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland . The densest Protestant settlement took place in
5635-441: The Plantation was the negotiation among various interest groups on the British side. The principal landowners were to be "Undertakers", wealthy men from England and Scotland who undertook to import tenants from their own estates. They were granted around 3000 acres (12 km ) each, on condition that they settle a minimum of 48 adult males (including at least 20 families), who had to be English-speaking and Protestant . Veterans of
5750-406: The Plantation. Most modern towns in the province can date their origins back to this period. Plantation towns generally have a single broad main street ending in a square in a design often known as a "diamond", which can be seen in communities like The Diamond, Donegal . The plantation was a mixed success from the point of view of the settlers. About the time the Plantation of Ulster was planned,
5865-620: The Republic of Ireland ), new appointees to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland , including postal workers , tax collectors , agricultural inspectors, Garda Síochána (police), etc., were required to have some proficiency in Irish. By law, a Garda who was addressed in Irish had to respond in Irish as well. In 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement ,
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#17327802905795980-770: The Scottish Presbyterians. The Wars eliminated the last major Catholic landowners in Ulster. Most Scottish planters came from southwest Scotland, but many also came from the unstable regions along the border with England. The plan was that moving Borderers (see Border Reivers ) to Ireland (particularly to County Fermanagh ) would both solve the Border problem and tie down Ulster. This was of particular concern to James VI of Scotland when he became King of England, since he knew Scottish instability could jeopardise his chances of ruling both kingdoms effectively. Another wave of Scottish immigration to Ulster took place in
6095-670: The Scottish army fought against the rebels until 1650, although much of the army was destroyed by the Irish forces at the Battle of Benburb in 1646. In the northwest of Ulster, the colonists around Derry and east Donegal organised the Laggan Army in self-defence. The British forces fought an inconclusive war with the Ulster Irish led by Owen Roe O'Neill . All sides committed atrocities against civilians in this war, exacerbating
6210-660: The Scottish forces and the Ulster Irish. As a result, the English Parliamentarians (or Cromwellians ) were generally hostile to Scottish Presbyterians after they re-conquered Ireland from the Catholic Confederates in 1649–53. The main beneficiaries of the postwar Cromwellian settlement were English Protestants like Sir Charles Coote, who had taken the Parliament's side over the King or
6325-582: The Ulster Catholics staged a rebellion . The mobilised natives turned on the British colonists, massacring about 4,000 and expelling about 8,000 more. Marianne Elliott believes that "1641 destroyed the Ulster Plantation as a mixed settlement". The initial leader of the rebellion, Felim O'Neill, had actually been a beneficiary of the Plantation land grants. Most of his supporters' families had been dispossessed and were likely motivated by
6440-746: The beginning of the following academic year. For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in English-medium schools to achieve competence in Irish, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern. In 2007, filmmaker Manchán Magan found few Irish speakers in Dublin , and faced incredulity when trying to get by speaking only Irish in Dublin. He
6555-722: The borders region comprised the most numerous group of immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland to the colonies in the years before the American Revolution . An estimated 150,000 left northern Ireland. They settled first mostly in Pennsylvania and western Virginia, from where they moved southwest into the backcountry of the Upland South , the Ozarks and the Appalachian Mountains . The legacy of
6670-408: The castle, keeping it for himself and improving it in the Scottish style. Sorley Boy swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth I and his son Randal was made 1st Earl of Antrim by King James I . Four years later, the Girona , a galleass from the Spanish Armada , was wrecked in a storm on the rocks nearby. The cannons from the ship were installed in the gatehouses and the rest of the cargo sold,
6785-529: The corner of the kitchen which did not collapse. However, the kitchen is still intact and next to the manor house. You can still see the oven, fireplace and entry ways into it. It wasn't until some time in the 18th century that the north wall of the residence building collapsed into the sea. The east, west and south walls still stand. Dunluce Castle served as the seat of the Earl of Antrim . Randal McDonnell, Earl of Antrim , and his wife Katherine Villiers, Duchess of Buckingham bought lavish furnishings. The castle
6900-435: The desire to recover their ancestral lands. Many colonists who survived rushed to the seaports and went back to Great Britain. The massacres made a lasting impression on psyche of the Ulster Protestant population. A. T. Q. Stewart states that "The fear which it inspired survives in the Protestant subconscious as the memory of the Penal Laws or the Famine persists in the Catholic." He also believed that "Here, if anywhere,
7015-418: The early Christians and Vikings who were drawn to this place where an early Irish fort once stood. In the 13th century, Richard Óg de Burgh, 2nd Earl of Ulster , built the first castle at Dunluce. It was first documented to be in the hands of the McQuillan family in 1513. The earliest features of the castle are two large drum towers about 9 metres (30 ft) in diameter on the eastern side, both relics of
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#17327802905797130-468: The eastern counties of Antrim and Down, which were not part of the Plantation, whereas Donegal, in the west, was planted but did not become part of Northern Ireland. Therefore, it is also argued that the Plantation itself was less important in the distinctiveness of the north-east of Ireland than natural population flow between Ulster and Scotland. A. T. Q. Stewart , a protestant from Belfast, concluded: "The distinctive Ulster-Scottish culture, isolated from
7245-664: The education system. Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968. In response to the 2021 census of Northern Ireland , 43,557 individuals stated they spoke Irish on a daily basis, 26,286 spoke it on a weekly basis, 47,153 spoke it less often than weekly, and 9,758 said they could speak Irish, but never spoke it. From 2006 to 2008, over 22,000 Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as their first language at home, with several times that number claiming "some knowledge" of
7360-425: The end of the Nine Years' War . The original proposals were smaller, involving planting settlers around key military posts and on church land, and would have included large land grants to native Irish lords who sided with the English during the war, such as Niall Garve O'Donnell . However, in 1608 Sir Cahir O'Doherty of Inishowen launched a rebellion , capturing and burning the town of Derry . The brief rebellion
7475-414: The end of the famine, and under 17,000 by 1911. Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of Republic of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and legislative debate is conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde , was inaugurated as
7590-426: The fact that the Plantation had decreed that the Irish population be displaced, this did not generally happen in practice. Firstly, some 300 native landowners who had taken the English side in the Nine Years' War were rewarded with land grants. Secondly, the majority of the Gaelic Irish remained in their native areas, but were now only allowed worse land than before the plantation. They usually lived close to and even in
7705-430: The first President of Ireland . The record of his delivering his inaugural Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect. In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication. From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see History of
7820-402: The funds being used to restore the castle. MacDonnell's granddaughter Rose was born in the castle in 1613. A local legend states that at one point, part of the kitchen next to the cliff face collapsed into the sea, after which the wife of the owner refused to live in the castle any longer. According to a legend, when the kitchen fell into the sea, only a kitchen boy survived, as he was sitting in
7935-430: The imposition of English government in Ulster and sought to affirm their own control. Following an extremely costly series of campaigns by the English the war ended in 1603 with the Treaty of Mellifont . The terms of surrender granted to what remained of O'Neills forces were considered generous at the time. After the Treaty of Mellifont, the northern chieftains attempted to consolidate their positions, whilst some within
8050-489: The land in Ulster. The peasant Irish population was intended to be relocated to live near garrisons and Protestant churches. Moreover, the planters were barred from selling their lands to any Irishman and were required to build defences against any possible rebellion or invasion. The settlement was to be completed within three years. In this way, it was hoped that a defensible new community composed entirely of loyal British subjects would be created. The second major influence on
8165-498: The language family, is derived from the Old Irish term. Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include: Gaeilge [ˈɡeːlʲɟə] in Galway, Gaeilg / Gaeilic / Gaeilig [ˈɡeːlʲəc] in Mayo and Ulster , Gaelainn / Gaoluinn [ˈɡeːl̪ˠən̠ʲ] in West/Cork, Kerry Munster , as well as Gaedhealaing in mid and East Kerry/Cork and Waterford Munster to reflect local pronunciation. Gaeilge also has
8280-410: The language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language. This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched the Gaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language. The vehicle of
8395-476: The language. For most of recorded Irish history , Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people , who took it with them to other regions , such as Scotland and the Isle of Man , where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx . It was also, for a period, spoken widely across Canada , with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890. On the island of Newfoundland ,
8510-443: The mainstream of Catholic and Gaelic culture, would appear to have been created not by the specific and artificial plantation of the early seventeenth century, but by the continuous natural influx of Scottish settlers both before and after that episode ...." The Plantation of Ulster is also widely seen as the origin of mutually antagonistic Catholic/Irish and Protestant/British identities in Ulster. Richard English , an expert on
8625-632: The mentality of siege was born, as the warning bonfires blazed from hilltop to hilltop, and the beating drums summoned men to the defence of castles and walled towns crowded with refugees." In the summer of 1642, the Scottish Parliament sent some 10,000 soldiers to quell the Irish rebellion. In revenge for the massacres of Scottish colonists, the army committed many atrocities against the Catholic population. Based in Carrickfergus ,
8740-526: The mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, the Catholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, parents sanctioned the prohibition of Irish in schools. Increasing interest in emigrating to the United States and Canada was also a driver, as fluency in English allowed
8855-804: The name of the language is Gaeilge , from the South Connacht form, spelled Gaedhilge prior the spelling reform of 1948, which was originally the genitive of Gaedhealg , the form used in Classical Gaelic . The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent ⟨dh⟩ in Gaedhilge . Older spellings include Gaoidhealg [ˈɡeːʝəlˠəɡ] in Classical Gaelic and Goídelc [ˈɡoiðʲelɡ] in Old Irish . Goidelic , used to refer to
8970-580: The native Irish nobility losing their land and led to centuries of ethnic and sectarian animosity, which at times spilled into conflict , notably in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and, more recently, the Troubles . Before the plantation, Ulster had been the most Gaelic province of Ireland, as it was the least anglicized and the most independent of English control. The region was almost wholly rural and had few towns or villages. Throughout
9085-475: The native Irish reaction to the plantation was generally hostile, and native writers lamented what they saw as the decline of Gaelic society and the influx of foreigners. The Plantation of Ulster was the biggest of the Plantations of Ireland . It led to the founding of many of Ulster's towns and created a lasting Ulster Protestant community in the province with ties to Britain. It also resulted in many of
9200-464: The native Irish to the plantation was generally hostile. Chichester wrote in 1610 that the native Irish in Ulster were "generally discontented, and repine greatly at their fortunes, and the small quantity of land left to them". That same year, English army officer Toby Caulfield wrote that "there is not a more discontented people in Christendom" than the Ulster Irish. Irish Gaelic writers bewailed
9315-558: The native population were usually monoglot Irish speakers. However, ministers chosen to serve in the plantation were required to take a course in the Irish language before ordination, and nearly 10% of those who took up their preferments spoke it fluently. Nevertheless, conversion was rare, despite the fact that, after 1621, Gaelic Irish natives could be officially classed as British if they converted to Protestantism. Of those Catholics who did convert to Protestantism, many made their choice for social and political reasons. The reaction of
9430-469: The new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. An estimated one quarter to one third of US immigrants during the Great Famine were Irish speakers. Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them
9545-655: The number now is between 20,000 and 30,000." In the 1920s, when the Irish Free State was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas. In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified as Gaeltacht . Today, the strongest Gaeltacht areas, numerically and socially, are those of South Connemara , the west of the Dingle Peninsula , and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as
9660-526: The official plantation began in 1609. Most of the land had been confiscated from the native Gaelic chiefs , several of whom had fled Ireland for mainland Europe in 1607 following the Nine Years' War against English rule . The official plantation comprised an estimated half a million acres (2,000 km ) of arable land in counties Armagh , Cavan , Fermanagh , Tyrone , Donegal , and Londonderry . Land in counties Antrim , Down , and Monaghan
9775-503: The other official language, if not already passed in both official languages. In November 2016, RTÉ reported that over 2.3 million people worldwide were learning Irish through the Duolingo app. Irish president Michael D. Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project". There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish
9890-524: The personal estates of the chieftains, but now they treated the chieftains as sole owners of their whole territories, so that all the land could be confiscated. Most of this land was deemed to be forfeited (or escheated ) to the Crown because the chieftains were declared to be attainted . English judges had also declared that titles to land held under gavelkind , the native Irish custom of inheriting land, had no standing under English law. Davies used this as
10005-555: The plantation. In an entry for the year 1608, the Annals of the Four Masters states that the land was "taken from the Irish" and given "to foreign tribes", and that Irish chiefs were "banished into other countries where most of them died". Likewise, an early 17th-century poem by the Irish bard Lochlann Óg Ó Dálaigh laments the plantation, the displacement of the native Irish, and the decline of Gaelic culture. It asks "Where have
10120-563: The planters, twelve years of bloody war, and ultimately the re-conquest of the province by the English parliamentary New Model Army that confirmed English and Protestant dominance in the province. After 1630, Scottish migration to Ireland waned for a decade. In the 1630s, Presbyterians in Scotland staged a rebellion against Charles I for trying to impose Anglicanism . The same was attempted in Ireland, where most Scots colonists were Presbyterian. A large number of them returned to Scotland as
10235-557: The political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament , the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. After
10350-668: The population displacement begun by the Plantation. In addition to fighting the Ulster Irish, the British settlers fought each other in 1648–49 over the issues of the English Civil War . The Scottish Presbyterian army sided with the King and the Laggan Army sided with the English Parliament. In 1649–50, the New Model Army , along with some of the British colonists under Charles Coote , defeated both
10465-556: The population in the Finn and Foyle valleys (around modern County Londonderry and east Donegal ), in north Armagh and in east Tyrone . Moreover, the unofficial settlements in Antrim and Down were thriving. The settler population grew rapidly, as just under half of the planters were women. The attempted conversion of the Irish to Protestantism was generally a failure. One problem was language difference. The Protestant clerics imported were usually all monoglot English speakers, whereas
10580-571: The region most resistant to English control. The plantation was also meant to sever Gaelic Ulster's links with the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland. The colonists (or "British tenants") were required to be English-speaking, Protestant , and loyal to the king. Some of the undertakers and settlers, however, were Catholic. The English settlers were mostly Anglican Northerners and the Scottish settlers were mostly Presbyterian Lowlanders . Although some "loyal" natives were granted land,
10695-492: The relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx). Gaelic is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" ( / ɜːr s / URS )
10810-432: The requirement for entrance to the public service was changed to proficiency in just one official language. Nevertheless, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools in the Republic of Ireland that receive public money (see Education in the Republic of Ireland ). Teachers in primary schools must also pass a compulsory examination called Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge . As of 2005, Garda Síochána recruits need
10925-647: The revival was the Gaelic League ( Conradh na Gaeilge ), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature. Although it has been noted that the Catholic Church played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the Protestant Church of Ireland also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in
11040-402: The same townlands as the settlers and the land they had farmed previously. The main reason for this was that Undertakers could not import enough English or Scottish tenants to fill their agricultural workforce and had to fall back on Irish tenants. However, in a few heavily populated lowland areas (such as parts of north Armagh) it is likely that some population displacement occurred. However,
11155-565: The settlement could not be destroyed by rebellion as the first Munster Plantation had been in the Nine Years' War. This meant that, rather than settling the planters in isolated pockets of land confiscated from the Irish, all of the land would be confiscated and then redistributed to create concentrations of British settlers around new towns and garrisons. What was more, the new landowners were explicitly banned from taking Irish tenants and had to import workers from England and Scotland. The remaining Irish landowners were to be granted one quarter of
11270-456: The town was built around 1608 by Randall MacDonnell , the first Earl of Antrim , and pre-dates the official Plantation of Ulster . It may have contained the most revolutionary housing in Europe when it was built in the early 17th century, including indoor toilets which had only started to be introduced around Europe at the time, and a complex street network based on a grid system. 95% of the town
11385-726: The vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). In 2016, the university faced controversy when it announced the planned appointment of a president who did not speak Irish. Misneach staged protests against this decision. The following year the university announced that Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh , a fluent Irish speaker, would be its 13th president. He assumed office in January 2018; in June 2024, he announced he would be stepping down as president at
11500-646: The west bank of the River Foyle , to build their own city on the site of Derry (renamed Londonderry after them) as well as lands in County Coleraine. They were known jointly as The Honourable The Irish Society . The final major recipient of lands was the Protestant Church of Ireland , which was granted all the churches and lands previously owned by the Roman Catholic Church . The British government intended that clerics from England and
11615-452: The west of Scotland meant that Scottish participation was a practical necessity. James saw the Gaels as barbarous and rebellious, and believed Gaelic culture should be wiped out. For centuries, Scottish Gaelic mercenaries called gallowglass ( gallóglaigh ) had been migrating to Ireland to serve under the Irish chiefs. Another goal of the plantation was to sever Gaelic Ulster's links with
11730-594: The work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating , is said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on. From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors: The change was characterised by diglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By
11845-534: Was abandoned because of the impoverishment of the MacDonnells in 1690, following the Battle of the Boyne . Since that time, the castle has deteriorated and parts were scavenged to serve as materials for nearby buildings. In 2011, major archaeological excavations found significant remains of the "lost town of Dunluce", which was razed to the ground in the Irish uprising of 1641 . Lying adjacent to Dunluce Castle,
11960-531: Was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish; as well as Scottish Gaelic. Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as Primitive Irish . These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish underwent a change into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from
12075-541: Was continuing English migration throughout this period, particularly the 1650s and 1680s, notably amongst these settlers were the Quakers from the North of England, who contributed greatly to the cultivation of flax and linen. In total, during the half century between 1650 and 1700, 100,000 British settlers migrated to Ulster, just over half of which were English. Despite the fact that Scottish Presbyterians strongly supported
12190-578: Was depopulation, because many native leaders had been removed, and those who remained only belatedly realised the threat of the plantation. By the 1630s it is suggested that the plantation was settling down with "tacit religious tolerance", and in every county Old Irish were serving as royal officials and members of the Irish Parliament. However, in the 1640s, the Ulster Plantation was thrown into turmoil by civil wars that raged in Ireland, England and Scotland . The wars saw Irish rebellion against
12305-668: Was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of the Official Languages Act 2003 . The purpose of the Scheme is to provide services through the mediums of Irish and/or English. According to the Department of the Taoiseach, it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build
12420-621: Was ended by Sir Richard Wingfield at the Battle of Kilmacrennan . The rebellion prompted Arthur Chichester , the Lord Deputy of Ireland , to plan a much bigger plantation and to expropriate the legal titles of all native landowners in the province. John Davies , the Attorney-General for Ireland , used the law as a tool of conquest and colonization. Before the Flight of the Earls, the English administration had sought to minimize
12535-591: Was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them. Plantation of Ulster The Plantation of Ulster ( Irish : Plandáil Uladh ; Ulster Scots : Plantin o Ulstèr )
12650-474: Was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the number and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies. Compliance with the Act is monitored by the An Coimisinéir Teanga (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004 and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the Act are brought to them. There are 35 sections included in
12765-409: Was privately colonised with the king's support. Among those involved in planning and overseeing the plantation were King James, the Lord Deputy of Ireland , Arthur Chichester , and the Attorney-General for Ireland , John Davies . They saw the plantation as a means of controlling, anglicising , and "civilising" Ulster. The province was almost wholly Gaelic , Catholic , and rural and had been
12880-637: Was spoken throughout Ireland, Isle of Man and parts of Scotland . It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the 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 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, sometimes called Late Modern Irish, as attested in
12995-425: Was the organised colonisation ( plantation ) of Ulster – a province of Ireland – by people from Great Britain during the reign of King James VI and I . Most of the settlers (or planters ) came from southern Scotland and Northern England ; their culture differed from that of the native Irish . Small privately funded plantations by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while
13110-626: Was the second son of Good John of Islay, Lord of the Isles , 6th chief of Clan Donald in Scotland. John Mor MacDonald l was born through John of Islay's second marriage to Princess Margaret Stewart, daughter of King Robert II of Scotland . In 1584, on the death of James MacDonald the 6th chief of the Clan MacDonald of Antrim and Dunnyveg, the Antrim Glens were seized by Sorley Boy MacDonnell , one of his younger brothers. Sorley Boy took
13225-442: Was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary No Béarla . There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in Dublin. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction. Such schools are known as Gaelscoileanna at primary level. These Irish-medium schools report some better outcomes for students than English-medium schools. In 2009,
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