Ireland has a languages question. Can the official policy of renewing the Irish language to make citizens bilingual with English or multilingual with third languages match the actual overwhelming dominance of English in Irish life?
The languages question is topical following Catherine Connolly’s commitment to make the promotion of the Irish language a prominent theme of her presidency. That fits well with new research from Trinity College Dublin showing how multilingualism’s cognitive interaction protects healthy ageing – and boosts lifelong intelligence. Language capacity helps economic competitiveness, since Irish people and firms without third languages fall behind Europeans and others in labour and business markets.
All this highlights a big opportunity to promote multilingualism. But historical and current policy research shows how the State ideology of reviving Irish through the educational system after independence clashed repeatedly with cultural practice in the use of English as the language of politics, bureaucracy, law, commerce, religion – and emigration.
Language specialists echo popular opinion in saying Ireland’s official policy never achieved real everyday bilingualism or the necessary strong support for Gaeltacht areas. As a result, the long secular decline of Irish from the 17th century, which accelerated after the 1846-49 famine with millions of Irish speakers lost through death or emigration, continued almost unabated. It spread from the top down socially, from east to west of the country and from the towns to the countryside, spurred on by the constant British imperial hostility to Irish as a backward, primitive tongue.
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Official policy from the 1920s, inspired by the Irish cultural revival, removed that hostility but missed the opportunity to create a thriving bilingualism. A similar opportunity arose when Ireland joined the EEC in the 1970s, as compulsory secondary education introduced more students to French, German, Spanish and Italian when diplomatic, trade and cultural horizons widened. But it is only this year that proper efforts are being made to introduce third languages in primary schools.
Ireland’s linguistic profile has changed enormously in the last generation, which could be a spur for a new multilingualism. The 2022 census shows 40 per cent of people could speak Irish, 10 per cent very well, 32 per cent well and 55 per cent not well. Daily Irish speakers numbered 72,000. Younger people did best with Irish and overall numbers increased 6 per cent compared to 2016.
Those speaking a language other than English or Irish at home numbered 751,507, a 23 per cent increase since 2016. Polish, French and Spanish were the most common languages among the Irish-born residents, followed by Romanian, Portuguese, Lithuanian, German, Chinese Malayalam, Arabic, Russian and Italian. Ukrainian would now be common because of the influx of refugees. Overall, 20 per cent of 2022 residents were born abroad – more than one million people – and they speak 212 languages. In Northern Ireland the 2021 census reported 228,600 people (12.4 per cent of the population) with some ability in Irish. Other languages spoken are similar to the Republic, with 13 per cent of the population born abroad.
A 2023 Eurobarometer survey of languages spoken in the 27 EU member states reported 18 per cent of Irish respondents could speak a foreign language well enough to hold a conversation, compared to the EU average of 59 per cent. Only about 5 per cent can speak at least two foreign languages here, compared to the EU average of 28 per cent. Other EU member states start foreign languages – especially English – in primary school. Multilingual skills are greater among higher-educated groups and younger people in the EU.
These figures map the Irish languages question and the opportunities it presents. There is hope in the new energy around Irish and the growing understanding by government and business that the linguistic competence deficit is part of a wider infrastructural one. But language specialists doubt whether existing educational policies can deliver the multilingualism needed and desired.
They say the Government’s Languages Connect programme for secondary and higher levels is way off its ambitious targets. Only 4 per cent of university students study a foreign language, much fewer than the 20 per cent aimed for and needed for teaching, business and access to international organisations, including the European institutions.
Official and private Ireland remains locked into the anglophone world, despite Brexit and the disentangling of transatlantic relations. That was reinforced during the Celtic Tiger years. Current migration overwhelmingly goes to English-speaking countries, just as immigration tilts to the global south.
To say that matters less in an increasingly English-speaking world with automatic translation is to miss the undoubted cognitive, expressive and communicative benefits of learning third languages additional to English and Irish. Structurally, Ireland has a real opportunity to make this multilingual leap; but we still need the political will and cultural skills to do it successfully.
