User:Lesj111/Status of the Irish language

History of revitalization
Following the Irish War of Independence, the first official language policy was implemented by the Irish government. It was based on the revitalization method pioneered by the Gaelic League which aimed to create a monolingual Irish speaking nation. This method largely failed to increase the number of Irish speakers due to its emphasis on teaching the Irish language while failing to encourage the use of spoken Irish. In response to the continuing decline of the number of Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht during the 1960s, there was a policy shift to Irish-English bilingualism.

According to a 2012 study by John Walsh, the Official Language Act 2003 was a positive adjustment in terms of improving the quality of Irish language revitalization. The study argues that the official policies laid out in the Act are in line with current policies which we need. However, the effective implementation has been hamstrung by lack of funding and linguistic bias. Because of this, the number of Irish speakers has continued to decline. Only 1.8% of Irish speakers reported speaking the language at home, while 40% report some knowledge of the language. Despite political rhetoric from the Irish government there has been a chronic lack of funding which has harmed the effectiveness of the program. The study also found that private businesses prefer to meet the requirements by having undergo language training. Walsh argues that an emphasis on hiring native Irish speakers to train employees would be more effective and produce more fluent Irish speakers.