Research suggests that half of the world’s languages will become extinct before the end of this century. With so many tongues facing language shift, what hope is there for reviving languages which are already moribund? Very often minority languages disappear from countries where the powerful speak a different language. This is not the case in Ireland. Not only have governments (since independence in 1921) not been hostile to Irish, they have vowed to revitalize it. As such, Ireland provides a fascinating case study of what is possible when it comes to language maintenance in apparently favorable circumstances.

The continued existence of any language depends upon the existence of a critical mass of native speakers. Ultimately, governments can only claim success in terms of language maintenance if they have expanded or at least halted the decline in the number of native speakers. Since independence, successive Irish governments have attempted to do this in two ways—one, by trying to reintroduce Irish as the main language in the English-speaking part of the country, (the Galltacht) and two, by attempting to preserve the Irish speaking on the peripheral western seaboard.

Political rhetoric aside, little practical effort was ever made to promote Irish in public life in the Irish state. It was never used as the language of parliament or of any government department apart from education, where it was used only occasionally. Up until 1973, Irish proficiency was a requirement for anyone applying to work in the civil service but in practice the vast majority of employees never used it. It was a similar situation in the police, army and legal profession. One policy instrument alone was relied on to enact the shift from English to Irish—the National School system.

The State’s first government was much influenced by the advice of the Irish National Teacher’s Association. He believed schools could restore the native language, “… even without aid from the home.” Accordingly, in the early days of the state, Irish was used as the medium of instruction in infant classes and in geography, history and singing lessons for older children. It later became the official language of instruction in every class where teachers were “competent to use it.” In practice, how much of the curriculum was taught through Irish was left up to each parish. In 1939 a record 704 schools (of around 5000) taught exclusively through Irish, while a further 50% taught partly through Irish.

However, disenchantment set in (as primary and high school graduates realized there was no communicative need for Irish) and by 1960, the Department of Education was actively discouraging the use of Irish in infant classes. A study a few years later further undermined classroom bilingualism arguing that it had a deleterious effect on children’s English, whilst failing to improve their Irish. In 1970 the use of Irish in infants’ classes stopped. By 2006, a government report concluded that there had been a “substantial decline in achievement in Irish listening and Irish speaking in ordinary schools since 1985.”

Irish public education failed to deliver the promised reversing language shift. How or why children were expected to use Irish outside school when society, in general, did not was never made explicit. Perhaps some felt that the language was inextricably bound up with national identity and that patriotism would ensure its survival. Evidently, this was not enough when other markers of Irishness existed, (like residence in the Irish State, or belonging to the Catholic Church.) Many linguists argue that languages only survive when there is a communicative need for them. There never was for Irish in the English speaking Galltacht.

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