Gaeltacht Affairs (original) (raw)
Gaeltacht affairs of the Gaeltacht areas and the current state of the Irish language
The Gaeltacht covers areas in counties: Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry, Cork, Meath and Waterford. Details of each Gaeltacht area are available in the Language Planning Guidelines.
According to the CSO, of the 1.76 million people who said they could speak Irish, 73,803 said they spoke it daily outside the education system, 3,382 people drop from a figure of 2011.
Of the Gaeltacht areas, of the 73,803 daily Irish speakers (outside the education system), 20,586 (27.9%) lived in Gaeltacht areas. The total population of all Gaeltacht areas stood at 96,090 persons in April 2016, a decrease of 0.6% from the number of 96,628 persons in 2011.
Of these, 63,664 people (66.3%) indicated that they spoke Irish and 20,586 people - or 21.4% of the total - said they spoke Irish daily outside the education system. This represented a decrease of 11.2% on the number of daily Irish speakers in 2011 (23,175 people).
State policy on the Irish language and the Gaeltacht
Recognising its particular importance as the homeland of the Irish language, particular emphasis is placed on the importance of the Gaeltacht being given due care in the Strategy and indeed in previous government statements and policies.
The implementation of the Community and Language Support Programme, and the Language Planning process as set out under the Gaeltacht Act 2012 is responsible for the overall implementation of the strategy as it applies to Gaeltacht areas.
In addition, the department also provides funding to, and works closely with, Údarás na Gaeltachta as the regional development agency for the Gaeltacht.
The general report outlines the department's work in the Gaeltacht for 2019 on how the Exchequer provision in 2019 was used for the Community and Language Support Program, the language planning process and Údarás na Gaeltachta.