The Irish language rights organisation Stádas, has called on the Government to seek official working status in the European Union "without further delay" after an estimated 5,000 people participated in a weekend rally in Dublin.
Some 80,000 signatures collected in an online petition was presented by its Finnish author Mr Panu Petteri Hoglund, to Sean Ó Neachtain MEP who attended the rally on behalf of an Taoiseach.
The rally held at Dáil Éireann on Saturday was the latest in a series of protests aimed at pressuring the Government to press for official status in the EU for the Irish language.
Stádas estimated attendance at the rally to be in the region of 5,000 people.
The protest was also attended by spokespersons from every party who spoke in favour of attaining official status for Irish.
Dr Padraig Ó Laighin spokesperson for Stádas said "this is not an inachieveable dream, or beyond our reach, it is simply the will of the people and all we asking is fair play for a national language and Ireland's 1st official language."
Dr Ó Laighin said confirmation received recently by the Dept of Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs from the European Commission supported the case made by Stádas that there was no legal basis to a compromise short of having official working status for the Irish language in the EU.
"Therefore," Dr Ó Laighin said "the government needs only to request official working status for the Irish language in the EU."
Motions calling on official status for Irish in the EU have already been passed in the Dáil and the Seanad and the majority of local authorities.
There have been many calls for the inclusion of Irish on the list of official EU languages as it complies with all requirements and is used in official business at all levels of public administration in Ireland - including the judicial, parliamentary and public administrative systems.