The Irish language in daily life

Newcomers commonly notice that Irish is visible even though almost everyone speaks English:

• Irish names. Places and public bodies have Irish names, for example Baile Átha Cliath for Dublin, and the police force is called An Garda Síochána.
• Bilingual websites and forms. Many government websites offer an Irish-language version.
• Irish words in everyday English. Some Irish words are used in English, such as craic, which Tourism Ireland describes as meaning fun, news or gossip, and a good time shared with others.
• Irish-medium schools. Some state-funded schools, called Gaelscoileanna, teach the national curriculum through Irish.

Under Article 8 of the Constitution, Irish is the national language and the first official language, and English is recognised as a second official language.

In the 2022 census, almost 1.9 million people (aged three and over) said they could speak Irish, up 6% on 2016, but 55% of them said they could not speak it well. Only 71,968 people spoke Irish daily outside the education system. Dublin City had the lowest proportion of Irish speakers of any area (33%). In practice, English is the everyday language of work, shops and public services in Dublin.

How much Irish you hear depends on where you are. In the Gaeltacht areas, in counties such as Donegal, Galway and Waterford, Irish is a community language; 66% of people in Gaeltacht areas were Irish speakers in 2022, and some Gaeltacht towns had daily-speaker rates of 69%. In Dublin, you are most likely to meet Irish in schools, on official signs and documents, in Irish-language schools and at cultural events.