Inactive
100-690: The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) ( Irish : Cumann Cearta Sibhialta Thuaisceart Éireann ) was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967, the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to discrimination against Catholics in areas such as elections (which were subject to gerrymandering and property requirements), discrimination in employment, in public housing and abuses of
200-547: 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
300-620: A South African-born lecturer in law at Trinity College Dublin , and Ciarán Mac an Áilí, a Derry-born Dublin solicitor who was a member of the International Commission of Jurists and president of the Irish Pacifist Association. The Republican movement increasingly saw campaigning around civil rights as a more productive way forward than the traditional armed struggle of physical force Republicanism. However, it would be an oversimplification to state that
400-717: 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
500-575: 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
600-549: A civil rights body and this took place in Belfast on 29 January 1967. Tony Smythe and James Shepherd from the National Council of Civil Liberties in London were present and there were more than 100 delegates from a variety of organisations, including Northern Ireland political parties. A 13-member steering committee was tasked at the Belfast meeting with drafting NICRA's constitution. One member, Dolley, had taken part at
700-624: A commission of inquiry set up by the British Government following the spread of civil unrest in 1969. The report by a Scottish judge, Lord Cameron stated, "certain at least of those who were prominent in the Association had objects far beyond the 'reformist' character of the majority of Civil Rights Association demands, and undoubtedly regarded the Association as a stalking-horse for achievement of other and more radical and in some cases revolutionary objects, in particular abolition of
800-478: 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,
900-553: 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
1000-794: A deliberate decision of some minority groups to relieve police pressure on the rioters in Londonderry . Amongst these groups must be included NICRA, whose executive decided to organise demonstrators in the Province so as to prevent reinforcement of the police in Londonderry." In December 1969 and January 1970, both Sinn Féin and the IRA split into " Official " and " Provisional " wings, with the "Official" wings retaining influence in NICRA. The British government introduced internment on 9 August 1971 at
1100-460: 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
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#17327828181971200-691: A liberal member of the Young Unionists and chairman of the Queen's University Belfast Conservative and Unionist Association, was later co-opted onto the executive council. NICRA, as it eventually emerged, differed from what had been outlined in Tuarisc and discussed at Agnew's home in Maghera. The form which NICRA took was determined by the coalition of forces which came together to create it, of which republicans were only one element. Civil rights were
1300-533: A mass reaction against the authorities". Events escalated until August 1969, when fighting broke out at the annual Apprentice Boys of Derry march as it marched through the city's walls and past a perimeter with the nationalist Bogside area. Initially some loyalist supporters had thrown pennies down from the walls onto Catholics and mocked the Bogside's poverty. Catholics then threw nails and stones at loyalists leading to an intense confrontation. The RUC intervened, and
1400-626: A member of the Connolly Association ) as "the way to undermine Ulster unionism". The idea shared certain attributes with that of infiltrating Northern Ireland's trade unions as a means of furthering republican objectives, which had previously been tried and abandoned by the IRA in the 1930s. The concept (set out in the August 1966 bulletin ( Tuarisc ) of the Wolfe Tone Societies) was to "demand more than may be demanded by
1500-491: A much wider international and internal support than traditional nationalist protests had done. NICRA's innovation (drawing on the approach adopted by the Campaign for Social Justice ) was to rely on and seek to vindicate civil rights, i.e. rights adhering to all citizens of Northern Ireland as British citizens under the existing constitutional settlement, rather than base its demands on the nationalist goal of reunification in
1600-548: A non-partisan civil rights campaign into one with wider objectives as an alternative to military operations, which the IRA Army Council had formally ceased on 26 February 1962, was pursued by the Dublin Wolfe Tone Society , although redirecting the civil rights movement to assist in the achievement of republican objectives had been mooted previously by others (including C. Desmond Greaves , then
1700-585: 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
1800-575: 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
1900-625: 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
2000-540: A republic comprising the whole island of Ireland. For many supporters of NICRA, that did not mean accepting the constitutional settlement or entail any obligation of loyalty to the UK: assertion of those rights was a device by which the condition of the Catholic minority could be improved. However, from the outset there were tensions within the association between those advocating militant and confrontational methods, in particular
2100-547: 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
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#17327828181972200-531: A speech to the Orange Order in 1933 stated "Many in this audience employ Catholics, but I have not one about my place. Catholics are out to destroy Ulster". Many historians regard the ethos of Northern Ireland as unambiguously sectarian. Since 1964, the Campaign for Social Justice had been collating and publicising in its journal The Plain Truth what it regarded as evidence of discrimination. Its precursor,
2300-516: A three-day riot ensued known as the Battle of the Bogside . Rioting quickly spread throughout nationalist areas in Northern Ireland, where at least seven were killed, and hundreds wounded. Thousands of Catholics were driven from their homes by loyalists. In a subsequent official inquiry, Lord Scarman concluded, "We are satisfied that the spread of the disturbances [in Derry in August 1969] owed much to
2400-545: 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
2500-603: 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
2600-452: 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
2700-706: Is an organisation based among Irish emigrants in Britain which supports the aims of Irish republicanism . It takes its name from James Connolly , a socialist republican , born in Edinburgh , Scotland and executed by the British Army for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising . It was formed in London in 1938 as the Connolly Club by members of the London branch of the Republican Congress ,
2800-511: Is considered to have passed off peacefully, though there are accounts of minor stone throwings with several marchers trying to break through the police line only to be rebuffed by the RUC and restrained by the marshalls. The chairperson of NICRA Betty Sinclair managed to convince the marchers to restrain themselves and show that they were "peaceful people asking for our civil rights in an orderly manner". The crowds dispersed without incident. Footage of
2900-511: 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
3000-587: 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
3100-412: 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
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3200-666: 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
3300-648: The Homeless Citizens League , had been holding marches to press for fair allocation of social housing. Both of these organisations had arisen at a time when the African-American civil rights organisation was headline news around the world. Both achieved success in bringing anti-Catholic discrimination to the attention of the media and, in the case of the Campaign for Social Justice , to politicians in Westminster. The idea of developing
3400-729: The Irish National Foresters , the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Wolfe Tone Societies would only further fuel their suspicions. After the failure of the IRA's Border Campaign , republicans had been seeking peaceful ways of advancing their cause by joining Trade Unions and the Northern Ireland Labour Party , and then NICRA when it was formed in 1967. On 4 October 1968, a day before NICRA's Derry march,
3500-634: The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in Northern Ireland . The Association continued to organise meetings throughout Britain and a number of new branches were established. The Connolly Association has produced a newspaper since 1939, known first as Irish Freedom and then from 1945 as the Irish Democrat . It supports the Good Friday Agreement but continues to press for an end to
3600-631: 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 ")
3700-872: The River Foyle , cross the river along Craigavon Bridge and proceed to the Diamond, the central point of the city. This route traversed certain Protestant districts and ended within the city's walls, which have major significance in Orange tradition. Local Unionists objected to the route of the march through what was viewed Unionist-dominated territory, and were concerned that the Diamond War Memorial would not be respected. Unionist opposition hardened after Cathal Goulding , then IRA chief of staff, appeared on Ulster television on 27 September claiming that
3800-570: The Special Powers Act . The genesis of the organisation lay in the emergence of a more self-confident Catholic professional middle class who, following the example of the US civil rights movement , campaigned for equal rights and reform. The Campaign for Social Justice was formed in January 1964. A younger generation, inspired by the 1960s wave of worker and student protests across Europe
3900-581: The Wolfe Tone Societies of Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Derry, and County Tyrone, and the IRA's chief of staff, Cathal Goulding , it was proposed that an organisation be created with wider civil rights objectives as its stated aim. After these discussions an ad hoc body was formed which organised a seminar on 8 November 1966 in Belfast. The main speakers were the president of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, Kader Asmal ,
4000-634: 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
4100-789: 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
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4200-403: 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
4300-571: 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
4400-473: The African American movement's vernacular, and protest songs such as "We Shall Overcome" and "We Shall Not Be Moved" became common at NICRA protests. In 1968, Derry civil rights leader Finbar O'Doherty would refer to Northern Irish Catholics as Ulster's "white negros" in a speech that gained traction in the world's press. This widespread attention, particularly in the United States, helped NICRA secure
4500-624: The Derry Housing Action Committee to call the march off. At a meeting of the South Derry IRA it was decided to push any of the politicians present on the day of the march into the police lines if marchers were blocked. The banned march started at the Waterside station, and attracted 400 protesters with local organisers duly insisting that MPs McAteer, Currie and Fitt should lead the march. Eamonn McCann (one of
4600-722: The Derry Housing Action Committee, the Derry City Republican Club, the James Connolly Society and NICRA. On 8 September, a notice of the "Derry march" was submitted, with the march taking place on 5 October 1968. The route proposed on behalf of the Civil Rights Association was one commonly followed by 'Protestant' and 'Loyalist' marches in Derry. It was to start from the Waterside Railway Station, east of
4700-404: 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
4800-430: The IRA admitted that it was infiltrating trade unions as well as civil rights marches. NICRA arose from a meeting of the republican Wolfe Tone Societies. The republican movement was influential in getting NICRA to participate in protest marches, however, due to the various different groups that made up NICRA, it could not control the organisation's direction. The radical views of individuals within NICRA were highlighted by
4900-422: The IRA set up the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. This would ignore the importance of campaigns that were emerging within Northern Ireland, such as the Campaign for Social Justice , and the growing numbers of middle class Catholic professionals, Labour activists and left-wing students who were prepared to take to the streets over civil rights. It was agreed that another meeting should be called to launch
5000-465: The IRA sought permission from its Dublin headquarters to participate, resulting in a call for as many republicans to attend from Northern Ireland as possible. The NICRA march took place on 24 August 1968, attracting around 2,500 people and was followed by five nationalist marching bands from Coalisland to Dungannon. RUC officers prevented the march from entering Dungannon while 1,500 counter demonstrators jeered. Speeches were generally considered 'mild' with
5100-444: The IRA were actively supporting the civil rights campaign. On 1 October, the Apprentice Boys of Derry announced their intention to march the same route on the same day and time, although its governor said he knew nothing of a planned parade. William Craig , the Northern Ireland Home Affairs Minister, banned both the civil rights march and the Apprentice Boys' march on police advice in the hope of avoiding serious disorder. Craig said he
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#17327828181975200-448: The Irish branch of the League Against Imperialism (a front for the Communist International ) and the British-based Irish Self-Determination League . They claimed as a goal to be working for a united and independent Ireland and to provide a social and cultural centre for those promoting the teachings of James Connolly. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Connolly Association influenced trade unionists in Belfast who went on to establish
5300-425: 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
5400-424: 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 ,
5500-415: The banner to which republicans, nationalists, communists, socialists, liberals and the unaffiliated could rally. NICRA's executive council brought together such diverse groups as the republican Wolfe Tone Society and the Campaign for Social Justice , whose founders and leaders believed traditional nationalist politics were ineffective in serving the needs of the Catholic minority. The constitution of NICRA
5600-577: 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
5700-405: The border, unification of Ireland outside the United Kingdom and the setting up of an all-Ireland Workers' Socialist Republic." Yet despite this, the aims of the NICRA executive, as set out in April 1969, maintained an aversion for an outright call for constitutional change in Northern Ireland and did not call for the end of partition. Bob Purdie has maintained that the outright republicanism of NICRA
5800-585: The border. As a result, fewer than 100 arrested were from the IRA. By this stage, support for NICRA began to wane, however NICRA continued to organise anti-internment marches. In Derry , on 30 January 1972, NICRA took part in a mass anti-internment march which had also been banned. Fourteen unarmed demonstrators were shot and killed by the Parachute Regiment during the march, and it became known as Bloody Sunday . Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ),
5900-445: The civil rights movement be developed towards unity of political objectives to be won, and that ultimately (but not necessarily immediately) the political objective agreed by the organised radical groups be seen within the framework of a movement towards the achievement of a 32-county democratic republic." At a meeting which took place in Maghera on 13–14 August 1966 at the home of Kevin Agnew (a Derry republican solicitor), attended by
6000-566: The compromising elements that exist among the Catholic leadership. Seek to associate as wide a section of the community as possible with these demands, in particular the well-intentioned people in the Protestant population and the trade union movement." In 1969, after the civil rights movement had been active for several years, the strategy was described in Ireland Today , published by the Republican Education Department, as requiring that "the civil rights movement include all elements that are deprived, not just republicans, and that unity in action within
6100-419: The crossroads" speech on television on 9 December, appealing for calm. As a result of the announcement of various reforms, NICRA declared a halt to marches until 11 January 1969, while People's Democracy disagreed with this stance. Leading Derry Housing Action Committee member, Eamonn McCann , later admitted that, "our conscious if unspoken strategy was to provoke the police into over-reaction and thus spark off
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#17327828181976200-664: 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
6300-414: 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
6400-420: The exception of the address given by Gerry Fitt who said: "My blood is boiling at the police ban and let me tell the County Inspector and District Inspector who are in charge of the police here to-night that they are only a pair of black bastards of Gestapo and we are not afraid of the blackthorn sticks and batons and but for the presence of women and children I would lead the march into The Square". The march
6500-430: 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
6600-498: 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
6700-410: 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
6800-425: 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 ,
6900-507: The latter's importance declined, when violence escalated between late 1969 until 1972, when NICRA ceased its work. Since Northern Ireland's creation in 1921, the Catholic minority had suffered from discrimination from the Protestant and Unionist majority. James Craig , the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, declared to the Stormont Parliament "we are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State". Basil Brooke , who would later serve as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland for 20 years, in
7000-497: The maintenance of civil liberties, including freedom of speech, propaganda and assembly". NICRA's aims were: It had six main demands: In conscious imitation of the philosophy of, and tactics used by, the American Civil Rights Movement , and modeled somewhat on the National Council for Civil Liberties , the new organisation held marches, pickets, sit-ins and protests to pressure the Government of Northern Ireland to grant these demands. The Northern Irish movement incorporated much of
7100-426: The march can be found in the RTE archives. The Coalisland-Dungannon march was considered a "disappointing anti-climax" and some more radical marchers felt that the police barricade should have been broken and that future police barricades would be broken. The Derry Housing Action Committee requested that the next march be held in Derry and was supported by the Derry Labour Party, the Derry Labour Party Young Socialists,
7200-534: The marchers sat down and gave short speeches. This was followed by some retaliation from the marchers who hurdled stones and placards at the police. The police eventually moved in with batons, chasing and hitting those who fell by the wayside. The footage of police brutality garnered global attention, the event having since been recalled, colloquially and academically, as the onset of the Troubles . Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill made his "Ulster at
7300-695: The meeting at Agnew's house. The original committee consisted of: NICRA held a meeting to ratify the constitution on 9 April 1967. It was on this date that NICRA officially came into existence. There were some changes as the steering committee became NICRA's executive council, with Ken Banks of the Ardoyne Tenants Association replacing Jim Andrews; Kevin Agnew, a republican solicitor, replacing McMillen; and Terence O'Brien (unaffiliated) replacing McGettigan. Betty Sinclair became chairman. Robin Cole,
7400-526: 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
7500-804: 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
7600-469: 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
7700-655: 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
7800-508: The organisers of the march) estimated that a further 200 watched from the pavements. Others there included Republican Labour MP Gerry Fitt , who brought three British Labour Party MPs with him, and members of the media. The marchers decided to ignore the rerouting and were stopped by the Royal Ulster Constabulary before it had properly begun. After several marchers were hit by police batons, with Fitt being hospitalised,
7900-503: 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
8000-557: 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
8100-492: 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 )
8200-561: The request of the Northern Ireland Prime Minister, Brian Faulkner . The British Army, in co-operation with the RUC, arrested and interned 342 people suspected of being involved with the IRA. 116 of those interned were subsequently found to have no involvement with the IRA and were quickly released. The introduction of internment was not a closely guarded secret, with newspaper editorials appearing and discussion on television. The IRA went underground or fled across
8300-488: 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
8400-647: 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
8500-495: The socialist and republican elements of the movement, such as Eamonn McCann , Michael Farrell and Cyril Toman , and those who remained wedded to the pacifist American civil rights model. Toman later joined Provisional Sinn Féin . The Northern Ireland government accused NICRA of being a front for republican and communist ideologies. Unionists suspected that NICRA was a front for the IRA. The involvement of republicans, such as IRA chief of staff Cathal Goulding , and groups like
8600-569: The unionist-dominated Market Square as provocative. Hoping to avoid a confrontation, the UUP MP for South Tyrone, John Taylor , tried to get Paisley to abandon the counter protest, and have the NICRA march rerouted. The call for a reroute was supported by the Unionist mayor of Dungannon district. Late on 23 August arrangements were made to halt the march near Quarry Lane at Thomas Street, Dungannon, and divert it to Anne Street. The Tyrone Brigade of
8700-671: 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
8800-594: 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
8900-475: Was also ready to take to the street to protest. They would go on to form People's Democracy in 1968. The failure of the 1956-62 IRA border campaign encouraged Irish Republicans to prioritise radical popular street campaigns rather than rely on traditional physical force tactics. In this rethink of Republican strategy a key meeting took place in Maghera in August 1966 between the Wolfe Tone Societies which
9000-531: 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
9100-583: Was attended by Cathal Goulding , then chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). During its formation, NICRA's membership extended to trade unionists, communists, liberals, socialists, with republicans eventually constituting five of the 13 members of its executive council. The organisation initially also had some unionists, with Young Unionist Robin Cole taking a position on its executive council. Official Sinn Féin and Official IRA influence over NICRA grew in later years, but only as
9200-487: Was based on that of the British National Council for Civil Liberties. NICRA's name was expressed in English only. The constitution emphasised the association's character as non-party and non-denominational, and as a body which would make representations on the broad issues of civil liberties and would also take up individual cases of discrimination and ill-treatment and stated NICRA's aims as "to assist in
9300-668: 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
9400-532: 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. Connolly Association Defunct The Connolly Association
9500-537: Was more an issue of perception than of purpose and that the "civil rights movement was perfectly sincere in its view of its marches as non-sectarian". In an effort to highlight the issue of public housing being allocated preferentially to Protestants in County Tyrone, Austin Currie , at a meeting of NICRA in Maghera on 27 July 1968, proposed holding a protest march from Coalisland to Dungannon Market Square. There
9600-402: Was not against freedom of expression but that it should not be done in areas where it is likely to cause provocation, especially as he saw NICRA as "a republican-nationalist organisation". With the march banned, and fearing that the presence of radicals may lead to violence, some members of NICRA's executive believed that they should withdraw their support for the march and unsuccessfully lobbied
9700-421: Was opposition to the idea from some in NICRA's executive, in particular from the NICRA chair and veteran communist Betty Sinclair who felt that unionists would see the march simply as a nationalist demonstration. After extended discussion the proposal was agreed and a march organised for 24 August. A counter-protest was planned by Ian Paisley 's Ulster Protestant Volunteers, who viewed the proposed march through
9800-474: 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
9900-693: 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
10000-495: 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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