87-598: A leprechaun ( Irish : lucharachán/leipreachán/luchorpán ) is a diminutive supernatural being in Irish folklore , classed by some as a type of solitary fairy . They are usually depicted as little bearded men , wearing a coat and hat, who partake in mischief. In later times, they have been depicted as shoe-makers who have a hidden pot of gold at the end of the rainbow . Leprechaun-like creatures rarely appear in Irish mythology and only became prominent in later folklore. The Anglo-Irish ( Hiberno-English ) word leprechaun
174-547: 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
261-717: 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
348-575: 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
435-478: 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,
522-553: 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
609-657: A diminutive size, who always carries a purse containing a shilling". The Irish term leithbrágan in O'Reilly's Dictionary has also been recognized as an alternative spelling. Other variant spellings in English have included lubrican , leprehaun , and lepreehawn . Some modern Irish books use the spelling lioprachán . The first recorded instance of the word in the English language was in Dekker 's comedy The Honest Whore , Part 2 (1604): "As for your Irish lubrican, that spirit / Whom by preposterous charms thy lust hath rais'd / In
696-460: 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
783-530: 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
870-575: 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
957-403: A poem entitled The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker , 18th century Irish poet William Allingham describes the appearance of the leprechaun as: ...A wrinkled, wizen'd, and bearded Elf , Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose, Silver buckles to his hose, Leather apron — shoe in his lap... The modern image of the leprechaun sitting on a toadstool , having a red beard and green hat, etc.
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#17327731304261044-625: 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
1131-547: 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
1218-616: A tweet on 12 July 2016 in response to the publication by the Irish Central Statistics Office (CSO) that Irish GDP had grown by 26.3%, and Irish GNP had grown by 18.7%, in the 2015 Irish national accounts. The growth was subsequently shown to be due to Apple restructuring its double Irish tax scheme which the EU Commission had fined €13bn in 2004–2014 Irish unpaid taxes, the largest corporate tax fine in history. The term has been used many times since. In
1305-572: A wider audience. The clurichaun is considered by some to be merely a leprechaun on a drinking spree. In the politics of the Republic of Ireland , leprechauns have been used to refer to the twee aspects of the tourism field in Ireland . This can be seen from this example of John A. Costello addressing the Oireachtas in 1963— For many years, we were afflicted with the miserable trivialities of our tourist advertising. Sometimes it descended to
1392-545: 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
1479-485: A wrong circle." The word may have been coined as a compound of the roots lú or laghu (from Greek : ἐ-λαχύ "small") and corp (from Latin : corpus "body"), or so it had been suggested by Whitley Stokes . Research published in 2019 suggests the word derives from the Luperci and associated Roman festival of Lupercalia . Folk etymology derives the word from leith (half) and bróg (brogue), because of
1566-609: Is Irish for the "Fairy Faith", a term for the collection of beliefs and practices observed by those who wish to keep good relationships with the aos sí and avoid angering them. General belief in the Celtic otherworld, the existence of aos sí and the ability of the aos sí to influence the local area and its people are all beliefs characteristic of the Creideamh Sí . It is characterised as an aspect of Irish popular religion and exists syncretically with folk Christianity. Effort
1653-603: 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
1740-550: Is a more modern invention, or borrowed from other strands of European folklore. The most likely explanation for the modern day Leprechaun appearance is that green is a traditional national Irish color dating back as far as 1642. The hat might be derived from the style of outdated fashion still common in Ireland in the 19th century. This style of fashion was commonly worn by Irish immigrants to the United States , since some Elizabethan era clothes were still common in Ireland in
1827-452: 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
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#17327731304261914-401: Is derived from proto-Celtic *sīdos ('abode'), and is related to the English words 'seat' and 'settle'. David Fitzgerald conjectured that the word sídh was synonymous with "immortal" and is compared with words such as sídsat ("they wait/remain"), síthbeo ("lasting"), sídhbuan ("perpetual"), and sídhbe ("long life"). In most of the tales concerning the sí , a great age or long life
2001-471: Is derived from D. R. McAnally ( Irish Wonders , 1888) derived in turn from John O'Hanlon (1870). It is stressed that the leprechaun, though some may call it fairy, is clearly to be distinguished from the Aos Sí (or the 'good people') of the fairy mounds ( sidhe ) and raths. Leprachaun being solitary is one distinguishing characteristic, but additionally, the leprachaun is thought to only engage in pranks on
2088-402: Is descended from Old Irish luchorpán or lupracán , via various ( Middle Irish ) forms such as luchrapán, lupraccán , (or var. luchrupán ). The current spelling leipreachán is used throughout Ireland, but there are numerous regional variants. John O'Donovan 's supplement to O'Reilly's Irish-English Dictionary defines lugharcán, lugracán, lupracán as "a sprite, a pigmy; a fairy of
2175-511: 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
2262-442: Is implied. In medieval Irish literature, the names aes síde and fír síde (folk of the síd ) are equivalent to the terms Tuath Dé and Tuatha Dé Danann . The only difference is that Tuath Dé tends to be used in contexts of legendary history and mythology. Writing in the 7th century, the Irish bishop Tírechán described the sídh folk as "earthly gods" ( Latin : dei terreni ). The 8th century Fiacc's Hymn says that
2349-587: 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
2436-412: 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
2523-532: Is the Irish name for a supernatural race in Gaelic folklore , similar to elves . They are said to descend from the Tuatha Dé Danann or the gods of Irish mythology . The name aos sí means "folk of the sí "; these are the burial mounds in which they are said to dwell, which are seen as portals to an Otherworld . Such abodes are referred to in English as 'shee', 'fairy mounds', 'elf mounds' or 'hollow hills'. The aos sí interact with humans and
2610-666: 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
2697-486: The leanan sídhe (the "fairy lover"), the cat-sìth (a fairy cat), and the cù-sìth (a fairy dog). The sluagh sídhe —"the fairy host"—is sometimes depicted in Irish and Scottish lore as a crowd of airborne spirits, perhaps the cursed, evil or restless dead. The siabhra (anglicised as "sheevra"), may be a type of these lesser spirits, prone to evil and mischief. However, an Ulster folk song also uses "sheevra" simply to mean "spirit" or "fairy". Creideamh Sí
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2784-631: 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 ")
2871-515: The sídhe ", has come to indicate any supernatural woman of Ireland who announces a coming death by wailing and keening . Her counterpart in Scottish mythology is the bean sìth (sometimes spelled bean-sìdh ). Other varieties of aos sí and daoine sìth include the Scottish bean-nighe (the washerwoman who is seen washing the bloody clothing or armour of the person who is doomed to die),
2958-463: The "trooping fairies" wear green. Yeats' leprechaun wore a jacket with seven rows of buttons with seven buttons to each row. Yeats describes that on the western coast, the red jacket is covered by a frieze one, whereas in Ulster the creature wears a cocked hat, and when he is up to anything unusually mischievous, he leaps onto a wall and spins, balancing himself on the point of the hat with his heels in
3045-571: 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
3132-789: 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
3219-548: The 19th century long after they were out of fashion, as depicted by the Stage Irish . The buckle shoes and other garments also have their origin in the Elizabethan period in Ireland. The leprechaun is similar to the clurichaun and the far darrig in that he is a solitary creature. Some writers even go as far as to replace these second two less well-known spirits with the leprechaun in stories or tales to reach
3306-407: The 20th century, it was generally held that the leprechaun wore red, not green. Samuel Lover , writing in 1831, describes the leprechaun as, ... quite a beau in his dress, notwithstanding, for he wears a red square-cut coat, richly laced with gold, and inexpressible of the same, cocked hat , shoes and buckles. According to Yeats , the solitary fairies, like the leprechaun, wear red jackets, whereas
3393-403: 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
3480-571: 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
3567-471: 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
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3654-409: The Irish adored the sídh folk before the coming of Saint Patrick . Due to the oral nature of Irish folklore, the exact origins of the fairies are not well defined. There are enough stories to support two possible origins. The fairies could either be fallen angels or the descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danann ; in the latter case, this is equivalent with aos sí . In the former case, it is said that
3741-549: 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
3828-564: 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 ,
3915-479: The U.S., Leprechauns are often associated with St. Patrick's Day along with the color green and shamrocks. The Disney film Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959)—based on Herminie Templeton Kavanagh 's Darby O'Gill books—which features a leprechaun king, is a work in which Fergus mac Léti was "featured parenthetically". In the film, the captured leprechaun king grants three wishes, like Fergus in
4002-400: The air. According to McAnally the universal leprechaun is described as follows: He is about three feet high, and is dressed in a little red jacket or roundabout, with red breeches buckled at the knee, gray or black stockings , and a hat, cocked in the style of a century ago, over a little, old, withered face. Round his neck is an Elizabethan ruff, and frills of lace are at his wrists. On
4089-746: 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
4176-718: 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
4263-405: The eighth century (Binchy 1952). The second version is a copy of the 8th century text written on a single leaf inserted into London, British Library MS Harley 432 f.5 (CIH ii: 354.28–355.41). The saga was rewritten in the 13th century as a burlesque version. The text contains an episode in which Fergus mac Léti , King of Ulster , falls asleep on the beach and wakes to find himself being dragged into
4350-474: 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
4437-590: The fairies are angels who have fallen from heaven, but whose sins were not great enough to warrant hell. In many Gaelic tales, the aos sí are later literary versions of the Tuatha Dé Danann ("People of the Goddess Danu ")—the deities and deified ancestors of Irish mythology . Some sources describe them as the survivors of the Tuatha Dé Danann who retreated into the Otherworld when fleeing
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#17327731304264524-560: 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
4611-554: The frequent portrayal of the leprechaun as working on a single shoe, as evident in the alternative spelling leithbrágan . The earliest known reference to the leprechaun appears in the medieval tale known as the Echtra Fergus mac Léti ( ' Adventure of Fergus son of Léti ' ). The saga exists in two widely divergent versions. The first of these is written in Dublin, Trinity College MS 1337 pp. 363b–365a, better known as H. 3. 18 (CIH iii: 882.4–883.28) and has been dated to
4698-399: The great wealth of the leprechauns comes from the "treasure- crocks , buried of old in war-time", which they have uncovered and appropriated. According to David Russell McAnally, the leprechaun is the son of an "evil spirit" and a "degenerate fairy" and is "not wholly good nor wholly evil". The leprechaun originally had a different appearance depending on where in Ireland he was found. Before
4785-551: The human world. They are variously said to be the ancestors, the spirits of nature, or goddesses and gods. In modern Irish, they are also called daoine sí ; in Scottish Gaelic daoine sìth ('folk of the fairy mounds'). In the Irish language , aos sí , earlier aes sídhe , means "folk of the fairy mounds". In Old Irish , it was áes síde . The word sí or sídh in Irish means a fairy mound or ancient burial mound, which were seen as portals to an Otherworld . It
4872-716: 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
4959-410: 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
5046-425: 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 ,
5133-527: The level of mischief, and requiring special caution, but in contrast, the Aos Sí may carry out deeds more menacing to humans, e.g., the spiriting away of children. This identification of leprechaun as a fairy has been consigned to popular notion by modern folklorist Diarmuid Ó Giolláin. Ó Giolláin observes that the dwarf of Teutonic and other traditions, as well as the household familiar , are more amenable to comparison. According to William Butler Yeats ,
5220-465: The lowest depths, to the caubeen and the shillelagh , not to speak of the leprechaun. Films, animated cartoons, and advertising have popularised a specific image of leprechauns which bears little resemblance to anything found in the cycles of Irish folklore. Some argue that the popularised image of the leprechaun is little more than a series of stereotypes based on derogatory anti-Irish 19th-century caricatures . Many Celtic music groups have used
5307-582: 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
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#17327731304265394-674: The mortal Sons of Míl Espáine who, like many other early invaders of Ireland, came from Iberia. As part of the terms of their surrender to the Milesians , the Tuatha Dé Danann agreed to retreat and dwell underground. In folk belief and practice, the aos sí are often appeased with offerings and care is taken to avoid angering or insulting them. Often, they are not named directly, but rather spoken of as "The Good Neighbours", "The Fair Folk", or simply "The Folk". The most common names for them, aos sí , aes sídhe , daoine sídhe (singular duine sídhe ) and daoine sìth mean, literally, "people of
5481-416: The mounds" (referring to the sídhe ). The aos sí are generally described as stunningly beautiful, though they can also be terrible and hideous. Aos sí are seen as fierce guardians of their abodes—whether a fairy hill, a fairy ring , a special tree (often a hawthorn ) or a particular loch or wood. It is believed that infringing on these spaces will cause the aos sí to retaliate in an effort to remove
5568-804: 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
5655-469: 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
5742-655: 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
5829-503: 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
5916-468: The people or objects that invaded their homes. Many of these tales contribute to the changeling myth in west European folklore , with the aos sí kidnapping trespassers or replacing their children with changelings as a punishment for transgressing. The aos sí are often connected to certain times of year and hours; as the Gaelic Otherworld is believed to come closer to the mortal world at
6003-496: The perfect opportunity for a human being to capture the Leprechaun, refusing to release him until the Leprechaun gives his captor supernatural wealth. The leprechaun has been classed as a "solitary fairy" by the writer and amateur folklorist William Butler Yeats . Yeats was part of the revivalist literary movement greatly influential in "calling attention to the leprechaun" in the late 19th century. This classification by Yeats
6090-557: 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
6177-492: 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 )
6264-432: 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
6351-647: 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
6438-525: The saga. While the film project was in development, Walt Disney was in contact with, and consulting Séamus Delargy and the Irish Folklore Commission , but never asked for leprechaun material, even though a large folkloric repository on such subject was housed by the commission. Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ),
6525-461: The sea by three lúchorpáin . He captures his abductors, who grant him three wishes in exchange for release. The leprechaun is said to be a solitary creature, whose principal occupation is making and cobbling shoes, and who enjoys practical jokes. In McAnally's 1888 account, the Leprechaun was not a professional cobbler , but was frequently seen mending his own shoes, as "he runs about so much he wears them out" with great frequency. This is, he claims,
6612-429: The term leprechaun as part of their naming convention or as an album title. Some popular forms of American music, including heavy metal , celtic metal , punk rock , and jazz , have also made use of the mythological character. Famous leprechaun characters include: Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman coined the term " leprechaun economics " to describe distorted or unsound economic data, which he first used in
6699-555: The times of dusk and dawn, the aos sí correspondingly become easier to encounter. Some festivals such as Samhain , Bealtaine and Midsummer are also associated with the aos sí. A sídh (anglicized 'shee') is burial mound ( tumuli ) associated with the aos sí . In modern Irish, the word is sí (plural síthe ); in Scottish Gaelic it is sìth (plural sìthean ); in Old Irish it is síd (plural síde ). These sídhe are referred to in English as 'fairy mounds', 'elf mounds' or 'hollow hills'. In some later English-language texts,
6786-726: 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
6873-498: The wild west coast, where the Atlantic winds bring almost constant rains, he dispenses with ruff and frills and wears a frieze overcoat over his pretty red suit, so that, unless on the lookout for the cocked hat, ye might pass a Leprechawn on the road and never know it's himself that's in it at all. This dress varied by region. In McAnally's account there were differences between leprechauns or Logherymans from different regions: In
6960-489: The word sídhe is incorrectly used both for the mounds and the people of the mounds. For example, W. B. Yeats , writing in 1908, referred to the aos sí simply as "the sídhe ". However, sidh in older texts refers specifically to "the palaces, courts, halls or residences" of the otherworldly beings that supposedly inhabit them. The Aos sí are known by many names in Ireland, among them: The banshee or bean sídhe (from Old Irish : ban síde ), which means "woman of
7047-594: 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
7134-531: 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
7221-668: 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
7308-665: 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. Aos S%C3%AD Aos sí ( pronounced [iːsˠ ˈʃiː] ; English approximation: / iː s ˈ ʃ iː / eess SHEE ; older form: aes sídhe [eːsˠ ˈʃiːə] )
7395-474: 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
7482-693: 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
7569-442: 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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