Galway Gaeltacht could be dead in a decade says new report
Galway’s Connemara Gaeltacht will be extinct within ten years, according to shocking new research.
The report warns that by 2025, Irish will no longer be the main language used in Gaeltacht areas in a social and community setting on a daily basis – English will become the dominant language of the majority.
One of the authors of the report, professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin, told the Connacht Tribune that the Irish language and the Gaeltacht is facing a “crisis”.
He said swift “decisive action” was required by Government if the Gaeltacht is to survive.
Professor Ó Giollagáin has recommended that an “emergency commission” to save the Irish language in Gaeltacht areas should be established immediately.
The problem is so grave and pressing that the emergency commission should include An Taoiseach, An Tánaiste and Government Ministers as well as highest ranking civil servants and officials.
“What I am clearly saying is this is a crisis. This is critical. The rate of the decline of the language is increasing at a more rapid rate than previously predicted. Now is the time for decisive action if we want to save the Gaeltacht. It will be too late in ten years’ time – it will be gone,” Professor Conchúr Ó Giollagáin, a co-author of the study.
Professor Ó Giollagáin explained that in ten years time, Irish will no longer be the dominant language used in a social setting on a daily basis. Based on the patterns and projections of Irish language usage among young people in Gaeltacht areas, the Gaeltacht will be extinct in ten years because it will only be parents and grandparents who speak the language and the ‘next generation’ who are in school now, will mostly speak English.
The researchers found that of the 155 electoral divisions in the Gaeltacht areas across the country, only 21 of them are communities where Irish is spoken daily by over two-thirds of the population.
A total of 12 of these 21 ‘strongest Gaeltacht speaking areas’ in the country , where there is upwards of 67% daily usage of Irish, are in Galway’s Gaeltacht in Chois Fharraige.
See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.