The creeping prominence of the Irish language

Well that's grand and I don't see any problem with that.

And yet you could change your mind in the morning and tap into all those years of learning.

Say you got with one of the TG4 weather people on a mad night out in Galway... 😄

I don't think anyone would say the national anthem is a string of loanwords it's entirely in Irish these days but the rest fit the definition.

There's a huge gulf between incentivised not to and given a choice. India's national anthem is also in a minority language.

You may think of France when you think of croissants because that's where you think they originate but most people don't think of them as French (the language) because they're established loanwords. I don't think of places called whatever aras ect as being Irish words, it's just what they're called.

A few errors there,

1 Irish didn't have to be made official, the people wanted it to be

2 Irish declined massively in the century before it was made official. If this graph is to be believed, the stabilisation and growth of the language coincides with the time it was made official:

3 The Irish haven't orphaned their language, far from it. You are conflating difficulty with rejection. We do not learn non native languages to fluency in general in Ireland and we are very much like the English speaking world in this respect.

Speaking to foreigners who have learnt Irish as well as English (as second languages). they explained to me how difficult English is to learn as a second language.

But they manage it

The problem is you (I assume) have not tried speaking Irish outside of an academic environment. If you were discussing Dublin GAA/GAA in general 'as Gaeilge' suddenly you would find you are learning a vocabulary around something that interests you. I bet you pick up words of Irish when watching matches on TG4. If the focus is on the spoken word first around day to day life/interests suddenly it opens itself up and is far removed from the learning 'by rote' which many Irish people were subjected to in the Irish education system.

Insomuch as you never really forget anything you're taught if you continually apply and even if you don't could recover it with some effort. Right now I don't remember anything beyond a smattering of words. And the real issue with Irish is what's the incentive to continue it beyond appeals to "it's nice to have" or heritage? I didn't see any and it seems most other people don't either.

And the reason for that is because that's what people wanted. Your analysis is far too simplistic. You can't force people to speak Irish. There is also even less incentive to speak Irish now than in the 1920s/30s. Want to travel abroad well English is the de facto language of international communication. Again in the region of 75% of English speakers worldwide are not native speakers. If you have ever travelled abroad or worked with people internationally you'll understand how pervasive English is. Want a job in Ireland in any company that has any dealing with a company outside Ireland you need English. Want to watch nearly anything on TV or in the cinema again you need English. Want to use the Internet again it's far easier through English, look at Wikipedia and the amount of articles in English versus any other language. Want to watch Netflix, Youtube, listen to Spotify etc again all through English. Go to college/University you need to know English given how little research is actually published in Irish. If Want to publish any research in any major publication you need to do so in English given how few people speak Irish worldwide. If you do any sort of professional/trade exam again the exam will have to be done through English. On top of that anyone who speaks Irish is also going to be a native speaker of English bar a few rare exceptions. They are all reasons for the decline of Irish not some law that recognised the obvious.

The decline of Irish didn't start a hundred years ago. Ireland was a solidly English speaking country already by the time of independence. The measures over the last 100 years have probably slowed the decline but that's it. The switch from Irish to English was driven and is being driven by wider societal factors(note how Ireland didn't switch religion to match England, so making something official in law can have minimal effect). Many of which I've listed above.

I fully support any parent who wants a non-denominational education for their kids. I'd be interested in a link to the numbers if you can find one, BTW.

However, as a parent who wanted non-religious education for my children, I found that the only Irish-language education available was in a catholic school.

When are we going to have non-denominational education through Irish?

And calling Irish "the national language" is doubly inaccurate, we have two official languages in this state

He's simply using the definition that is in the Constitution, which calls Irish the National Language. It calls English another official language, IIRC.

As well as this legal definition, it is historically correct.

@deirdremf You asked about alternative to catholic education through the Irish language. I am in north Dublin there are two new multi denominational Gael Scoil primaries in the area - both recent enough one just had their first intake of Junior infants in September. So it seems the demand for this model is increasing. I am aware of one family who son started - all good and it suits their family - they are both active users of the Irish language so he will have plenty of immersion both in and outside school.

The only concern I would have is now there are four Gael scoil primaries there remains only one secondary within easy reach with limited capacity - hopefully capacity will be ramped up to facilitate the learners who want to continue in secondary within Gael scoil education.

Ideally there would be choice accessible by as many as possible - I am aware how lucky we are to have the option of Educate Together all the way through primary and secondary. Hopefully the development of the multi denomination Gael Scoil model will bring a wider audience to those who prefer this option.