The percentage of people in each administrative area in Ulster who have the ability to speak Irish. (Counties of the Republic of Ireland and District council areas of Northern Ireland.)

The Irish language (also known as Irish Gaelic) is a minority language in Northern Ireland (known in Irish as "Tuaisceart Éireann"). The dialect spoken there is known as Ulster Irish.

According to the 2001 census, the highest concentrations of Irish speakers can be found in Belfast, Derry City, Newry/South Armagh, Central Tyrone (between Dungannon and Omagh), and southern Londonderry (near Maghera).

Status

Official administrative identity in English, Irish and Ulster Scots

The British government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect to Irish in Northern Ireland.

The last native speakers of varieties of Irish native to what is now Northern Ireland died in the 20th century. Irish as spoken in Counties Down and Fermanagh were the first to die out, but native speakers of varieties spoken in the Glens of Antrim and the Sperrin Mountains of County Tyrone and County Londonderry survived into the 1950s and 1970s respectively. Whilst the Armagh dialect survived until the 1930s/40s. Varieties of Irish indigenous to the territory of Northern Ireland finally became extinct as spoken languages when the last native speaker of Rathlin Irish died in 1985. Most Irish speakers in Northern Ireland today speak the Donegal dialect of Ulster Irish.

Since 1921, the Irish language has been regarded with suspicion by Unionists in Northern Ireland, who have associated it with the Republic of Ireland and more recently, with the republican movement in Northern Ireland itself. Many republicans in Northern Ireland, including Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, learned Irish while in prison. The language was proscribed in state schools within a decade of partition, and public signs in Irish were effectively banned under laws by the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which stated that only English could be used. These were not formally lifted by the British government until the early 1990s.

A bilingual road safety sign in County Antrim

The Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 states: "It shall be the duty of the Department (of Education) to encourage and facilitate the development of Irish-medium education."

It has been claimed that Belfast now represents the fastest growing centre of Irish language usage in Ireland - and the Good Friday Agreement's provisions on "parity of esteem" have been used to give the language an official status there.

The Ultach Trust was established in 1989 by the British Government with a view to broadening the appeal of the language among Protestants and to counter the growing support for Sinn Féin which was popularising the Irish language, or according to others hyjacking the language movement.

According to the 2001 Census, 167,487 people (10.4% of the population) had "some knowledge of Irish" - of whom 154,622 were Catholics and 10,987 were Protestants and "other Christians".

Knowledge of Irish by persons over the age of 3 (2001 Census):

• Understands spoken Irish but cannot read write or speak Irish: 36,479
• Speaks but does not read or write Irish: 24,536
• Speaks and reads but does not write Irish: 7,183
• Speaks, reads, writes and understands Irish: 75,125
• Has other combination of skills: 24,167
• No knowledge of Irish: 1,450,467

Education

Sign of an Irish medium school in Newry

Comhairle na Gaelscolaiochta was established by the Minister of Education in 2000 to develop Irish-medium education Irish language pre-schools and primary schools are now thriving and there are Irish language secondary schools known as Méanscoileanna in Belfast, Armagh, and Derry.

In the academic year 2004-5, 3,713 children were enrolled in Irish-medium education:

• 44 nurseries (Naíscoileanna) with 855 pupils
• 32 primary schools (Bunscoileanna) with 2,328 pupils
• 2 secondary schools and a post-primary unit with 530 pupils.

The British Council administers a scheme to recruit Irish language assistants for English-medium schools in Northern Ireland http://www.britishcouncil.org/northernireland-education-irish-language-assistants.htm.

Examinations in Irish are gaining in popularity among school-age and adult students. In 2004, there were 333 entries for A-Level examinations in Irish and 2,630 for GCSE.

Media

Areas in Northern Ireland in which more than one third of the local population can speak Irish, according to the 2001 Census.

BBC Radio Ulster began broadcasting a nightly half-hour programme, called Blas ('taste'), in Irish in the early 1980s, and there is now an Irish language programme on the station every day. BBC Northern Ireland broadcast its first television programme in Irish in the early 1990s, SRL ('etc.'). Many areas of Northern Ireland can now tune into TG4, the Irish-language television channel, which is broadcast primarily from the Conamara Gaeltacht in the Republic. In March 2005, TG4 began broadcasting from the Divis transmitter near Belfast, as a result of agreement between the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Northern Ireland Office, although so far this is the only transmitter to carry it.

RTÉ's Irish-language radio station, Raidió na Gaeltachta which broadcasts in the Republic, is also available in some areas via signal overspill. Ofcom have awarded a broadcasting license to Raidió Fáilte, a community radio station based in West Belfast. The new service covers the Greater Belfast area and started broadcasting from October 2006.

Raidió Failte 107.1fm a community Irish language station broadcasts 24 hours per day seven days per week in Belfast. They broadcast a selection of programmes; music, chat, news, current affairs, sports, arts, literature, environmental and community issues. They are now also available worldwide on the internet at www.raidiofailte.com

An Irish-language daily newspaper called Lá Nua ('new day') is now published.

The Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission administers an Irish Language Broadcast Fund (announced by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in April 2004) to foster and develop an independent Irish language television production sector in Northern Ireland. The European Commission authorised public funding for the fund in June 2005 considering that "since the aid aims to promote cultural products and the Irish Language, it can be authorised under EC Treaty rules that allow state aids for the promotion of culture" http://www.cec.org.uk/ni/press/pr/0508.htm.

See also

• An Cumann Gaelach, QUB
• Northern Ireland

External links

• Ultach Trust
• Lá
• BBC Northern Ireland Irish language
• Comhairle na Gaelscolaiochta