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85-547: Mountrath ( Irish : Maighean Rátha , meaning 'homestead of the ringfort') is a small town in County Laois , Ireland . The town lies on the R445 midway between Dublin and Limerick , exactly 96.5 km (60 mi) from both cities. The town was bypassed by the M7 motorway in 2010 leading to a significant easing of traffic congestion in the town. As of the 2022 census , Mountrath had

170-540: A unique dialect of Irish developed before falling out of use in the early 20th century. With a writing system , Ogham , dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by Latin script since the 5th century AD, Irish has one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Western Europe . On the island, the language has three major dialects: Connacht , Munster and Ulster Irish . All three have distinctions in their speech and orthography . There

255-466: A unit of account in some contexts. Penny is first attested in a 1394 Scots text, a variant of Old English peni , a development of numerous variations including pennig , penning , and pending . The etymology of the term "penny" is uncertain, although cognates are common across almost all Germanic languages and suggest a base * pan- , * pann- , or * pand- with the individualizing suffix -ing . Common suggestions include that it

340-697: A bargaining chip during government formation in Northern Ireland, prompting protests from organisations and groups such as An Dream Dearg . Irish became an official language of the EU on 1 January 2007, meaning that MEPs with Irish fluency can now speak the language in the European Parliament and at committees, although in the case of the latter they have to give prior notice to a simultaneous interpreter in order to ensure that what they say can be interpreted into other languages. While an official language of

425-560: A better future for Ireland and all her citizens." The Strategy was produced on 21 December 2010 and will stay in action until 2030; it aims to target language vitality and revitalization of the Irish language. The 30-page document published by the Government of Ireland details the objectives it plans to work towards in an attempt to preserve and promote both the Irish language and the Gaeltacht. It

510-472: A cultural and social force. Irish speakers often insisted on using the language in law courts (even when they knew English), and Irish was also common in commercial transactions. The language was heavily implicated in the "devotional revolution" which marked the standardisation of Catholic religious practice and was also widely used in a political context. Down to the time of the Great Famine and even afterwards,

595-541: A degree course in the NUI federal system to pass the subject of Irish in the Leaving Certificate or GCE / GCSE examinations. Exemptions are made from this requirement for students who were born or completed primary education outside of Ireland, and students diagnosed with dyslexia . NUI Galway is required to appoint people who are competent in the Irish language, as long as they are also competent in all other aspects of

680-522: A full penny into halves or quarters. In 1527, Henry VIII abolished the Tower pound of 5400 grains , replacing it with the Troy pound of 5760 grains (making a penny 5760/240 = 24 grains) and establishing a new pennyweight of 1.56 grams, although, confusingly, the penny coin by then weighed about 8 grains, and had never weighed as much as this 24 grains. The last silver pence for general circulation were minted during

765-460: A fully recognised EU language for the first time in the state's history. Before Irish became an official language it was afforded the status of treaty language and only the highest-level documents of the EU were made available in Irish. The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora , chiefly to Great Britain and North America, but also to Australia , New Zealand and Argentina . The first large movements began in

850-468: A new .950 or .960-fine penny with a smaller diameter. Surviving specimens have an average weight of 1.70 grams, although some estimate the original ideal mass at 1.76 grams. But despite the purity and quality of these pennies, they were often rejected by traders throughout the Carolingian period, in favor of the gold coins used elsewhere; this led to repeated legislation against such refusal, to accept

935-574: A paper suggested that within a generation, non-Gaeltacht habitual users of Irish might typically be members of an urban, middle class, and highly educated minority. Parliamentary legislation is supposed to be available in both Irish and English but is frequently only available in English. This is notwithstanding that Article 25.4 of the Constitution of Ireland requires that an "official translation" of any law in one official language be provided immediately in

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1020-554: A pass in Leaving Certificate Irish or English, and receive lessons in Irish during their two years of training. Official documents of the Irish government must be published in both Irish and English or Irish alone (in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003, enforced by An Coimisinéir Teanga , the Irish language ombudsman). The National University of Ireland requires all students wishing to embark on

1105-492: A penny were added to such combinations without a conjunction, as sixpence-farthing , and such constructions were also treated as single nouns. Adjectival use of such coins used the ending -penny, as sixpenny . The British abbreviation d. derived from the Latin denarius . It followed the amount, e.g. "11d". It has been replaced since decimalization by p , usually written without a space or period . From this abbreviation, it

1190-476: A population of 2,070. The river that flows through the town is called the Whitehorse and gets its name from the white colouring that was present in its water from the whiskey distillery that used to be in the centre of the town. The important Synod of Ráth Breasail was held near Mountrath in 1111 . In the beginning of the 17th century, the lands around Mountrath became the property of Charles Coote. Despite

1275-611: A religious context. An Irish translation of the Old Testament by Leinsterman Muircheartach Ó Cíonga , commissioned by Bishop Bedell , was published after 1685 along with a translation of the New Testament. Otherwise, Anglicisation was seen as synonymous with 'civilising' the native Irish. Currently, modern day Irish speakers in the church are pushing for language revival. It has been estimated that there were around 800,000 monoglot Irish speakers in 1800, which dropped to 320,000 by

1360-533: A single word, as twopence or tuppence , threepence or thruppence , etc. (Other values were usually expressed in terms of shillings and pence or written as two words, which might or might not be hyphenated.) Where a single coin represented a number of pence, it was treated as a single noun, as a sixpence . Thus, "a threepence" (but more usually "a threepenny bit") would be a single coin of that value whereas "three pence" would be its value, and "three pennies" would be three penny coins. In British English, divisions of

1445-604: A sixpence and four pennies."). It remains common in Scottish English, and is standard for all senses in American English, where, however, the informal "penny" is typically only used of the coins in any case, values being expressed in "cents". The informal name for the American cent seems to have spread from New York State . In Britain, prior to decimalization, values from two to eleven pence were often written, and spoken as

1530-537: A wider meaning, including the Gaelic of Scotland and the Isle of Man , as well as of Ireland. When required by the context, these are distinguished as Gaeilge na hAlban , Gaeilge Mhanann and Gaeilge na hÉireann respectively. In English (including Hiberno-English ), the language is usually referred to as Irish , as well as Gaelic and Irish Gaelic . The term Irish Gaelic may be seen when English speakers discuss

1615-401: Is also An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , a standardised written form devised by a parliamentary commission in the 1950s. The traditional Irish alphabet , a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters , has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet (albeit with 7–8 letters used primarily in loanwords ). Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of

1700-605: Is also the informal name of the cent unit of account in Canada, although one-cent coins were removed from circulation in 2012. The name penny is also used in reference to various historical currencies, also derived from the Carolingian system , such as the French denier and the German pfennig . It may also be informally used to refer to any similar smallest-denomination coin, such as

1785-699: Is common to speak of pennies and values in pence as "p". In North America , it is common to abbreviate cents with the currency symbol ¢ . Elsewhere, it is usually written with a simple  c . The medieval silver penny was modeled on similar coins in antiquity, such as the Greek drachma , the Carthaginian shekel , and the Roman denarius . Forms of these seem to have reached as far as Norway and Sweden . The use of Roman currency in Britain , seems to have fallen off after

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1870-511: Is divided into four separate phases with the intention of improving 9 main areas of action including: The general goal for this strategy was to increase the number of daily speakers from 83,000 to 250,000 by the end of its run. By 2022, the number of such speakers had fallen to 71,968. Before the partition of Ireland in 1921, Irish was recognised as a school subject and as "Celtic" in some third level institutions. Between 1921 and 1972, Northern Ireland had devolved government. During those years

1955-567: Is only in Gaeltacht areas that Irish continues to be spoken as a community vernacular to some extent. According to data compiled by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht , Sport and Media , only 1/4 of households in Gaeltacht areas are fluent in Irish. The author of a detailed analysis of the survey, Donncha Ó hÉallaithe of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology , described

2040-412: Is still spoken daily to some extent as a first language . These regions are known individually and collectively as the Gaeltacht (plural Gaeltachtaí ). While the fluent Irish speakers of these areas, whose numbers have been estimated at 20–30,000, are a minority of the total number of fluent Irish speakers, they represent a higher concentration of Irish speakers than other parts of the country and it

2125-709: The Fíor-Ghaeltacht (true Gaeltacht ), a term originally officially applied to areas where over 50% of the population spoke Irish. There are Gaeltacht regions in the following counties: Gweedore ( Gaoth Dobhair ), County Donegal, is the largest Gaeltacht parish in Ireland. Irish language summer colleges in the Gaeltacht are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to céilithe and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged. The Act

2210-645: The Mountrath Community School . Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family . It is a member of the Goidelic language group of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous to the island of Ireland . It

2295-619: The Republic of Ireland , and is also an official language of Northern Ireland and among the official languages of the European Union . The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Irish has no regulatory body but An Caighdeán Oifigiúil , the standard written form, is guided by a parliamentary service and new vocabulary by a voluntary committee with university input. In An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("The Official [Written] Standard ")

2380-518: The Roman withdrawal and subsequent Saxon invasions . Charlemagne 's father Pepin the Short instituted a major currency reform around AD 755, aiming to reorganize Francia 's previous silver standard with a standardized .940-fine denier ( Latin : denarius ) weighing ⁄ 240 pound . (As the Carolingian pound seems to have been about 489.5  grams , each penny weighed about 2  grams .) Around 790, Charlemagne introduced

2465-450: The euro cent or Chinese fen . The Carolingian penny was originally a 0.940-fine silver coin, weighing 1 ⁄ 240 pound . It was adopted by Offa of Mercia and other English kings and remained the principal currency in Europe over the next few centuries, until repeated debasements necessitated the development of more valuable coins. The British penny remained a silver coin until

2550-476: The "penny" since the early 19th century, began with the unpopular copper chain cent in 1793. Abraham Lincoln was the first historical figure to appear on a U.S. coin when he was portrayed on the one-cent coin to commemorate his 100th birthday. The penny that was brought to the Cape Colony (in what is now South Africa ) was a large coin—36 mm in diameter, 3.3 mm thick, and 1 oz (28 g)—and

2635-611: The 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland , which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies . Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine . This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English

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2720-769: The 1998 Good Friday Agreement , the language gradually received a degree of formal recognition in Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, and then, in 2003, by the British government's ratification in respect of the language of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . In the 2006 St Andrews Agreement the British government promised to enact legislation to promote the language and in 2022 it approved legislation to recognise Irish as an official language alongside English. The bill received royal assent on 6 December 2022. The Irish language has often been used as

2805-400: The 2021 census of Northern Ireland , 43,557 individuals stated they spoke Irish on a daily basis, 26,286 spoke it on a weekly basis, 47,153 spoke it less often than weekly, and 9,758 said they could speak Irish, but never spoke it. From 2006 to 2008, over 22,000 Irish Americans reported speaking Irish as their first language at home, with several times that number claiming "some knowledge" of

2890-403: The 6th century, used the Latin alphabet and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts. During this time, the Irish language absorbed some Latin words, some via Old Welsh , including ecclesiastical terms : examples are easpag (bishop) from episcopus , and Domhnach (Sunday, from dominica ). By the 10th century, Old Irish had evolved into Middle Irish , which

2975-563: The Act all detailing different aspects of the use of Irish in official documentation and communication. Included in these sections are subjects such as Irish language use in official courts, official publications, and placenames. The Act was recently amended in December 2019 in order to strengthen the already preexisting legislation. All changes made took into account data collected from online surveys and written submissions. The Official Languages Scheme

3060-463: The European Union , only co-decision regulations were available until 2022, due to a five-year derogation, requested by the Irish Government when negotiating the language's new official status. The Irish government had committed itself to train the necessary number of translators and interpreters and to bear the related costs. This derogation ultimately came to an end on 1 January 2022, making Irish

3145-477: The Frankish Empire, all these pennies were notionally fractions of shillings ( solidi ; sol ) and pounds ( librae ; livres ) but during this period neither larger unit was minted. Instead, they functioned only as notional units of account . (For instance, a "shilling" or "solidus" of grain was a measure equivalent to the amount of grain that 12 pennies could purchase.) English currency

3230-536: The Irish language policy followed by Irish governments as a "complete and absolute disaster". The Irish Times , referring to his analysis published in the Irish language newspaper Foinse , quoted him as follows: "It is an absolute indictment of successive Irish Governments that at the foundation of the Irish State there were 250,000 fluent Irish speakers living in Irish-speaking or semi Irish-speaking areas, but

3315-597: The Republic of Ireland ), new appointees to the Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland , including postal workers , tax collectors , agricultural inspectors, Garda Síochána (police), etc., were required to have some proficiency in Irish. By law, a Garda who was addressed in Irish had to respond in Irish as well. In 1974, in part through the actions of protest organisations like the Language Freedom Movement ,

3400-731: The beginning of the following academic year. For a number of years there has been vigorous debate in political, academic and other circles about the failure of most students in English-medium schools to achieve competence in Irish, even after fourteen years of teaching as one of the three main subjects. The concomitant decline in the number of traditional native speakers has also been a cause of great concern. In 2007, filmmaker Manchán Magan found few Irish speakers in Dublin , and faced incredulity when trying to get by speaking only Irish in Dublin. He

3485-470: The bishop. He made application for a site to Mr. Hawkesworth, agent to Lord Castlecoote. This gentleman found Dr. Delany a suitable plot from his own landholdings and shortly after, through his influence with the proprietor, procured a perpetual peppercorn lease as a site for a parish church. Building commenced about 1795. On 18 April 1809, the Convent of St. Brigid, at Mountrath, was founded by three sisters from

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3570-702: The castle and estate of Mountrath, along with other properties and following the Restoration , was created Earl of Mountrath . This title was extant until the death of Charles Henry, the 7th Earl, in 1802, when it became extinct. Newpark, adjoining the town, was the residence of the Earl of Mountrath. In 1831 the town contained 429 houses; iron was made and wrought here till the neighbouring woods were consumed for charcoal fuel. The Post Chaise Companion, published in 1805, states that: In his 1837 Topographical Dictionary of Ireland entry for Mountrath, Samuel Lewis states that: In

3655-483: The coinage. The size and denomination of the 1816 British coins, with the exception of the four-penny coins, were used in South Africa until 1960. Handling and counting penny coins entail transaction costs that may be higher than a penny. It has been claimed that, for micropayments , the mental arithmetic costs more than the penny. Changes in the market prices of metals, combined with currency inflation, have caused

3740-470: The coins still in circulation were almost entirely melted down for the value of their gold. Only eight gold pennies are known to survive. It was not until the reign of Edward III that the florin and noble established a common gold currency in England. The earliest halfpenny and farthing (¼ d. ) found date from the reign of Henry III . The need for small change was also sometimes met by simply cutting

3825-468: The end of the famine, and under 17,000 by 1911. Irish is recognised by the Constitution of Ireland as the national and first official language of Republic of Ireland (English being the other official language). Despite this, almost all government business and legislative debate is conducted in English. In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde , was inaugurated as

3910-546: The expense of the Napoleonic Wars prompted the use of base metals in 1797. Despite the decimalization of currencies in the United States and, later, throughout the British Commonwealth , the name remains in informal use. No penny is currently formally subdivided, although farthings ( 1 ⁄ 4 d), halfpennies , and half cents have previously been minted and the mill ( 1 ⁄ 10 ¢) remains in use as

3995-437: The face of Carthaginian goddess Tanit was represented on nearly all Carthaginian currency . Following decimalization , the British and Irish coins were marked "new penny" until 1982 and 1985, respectively. From the 16th century, the regular plural pennies fell out of use in England, when referring to a sum of money (e.g. "That costs tenpence."), but continued to be used to refer to more than one penny coin ("Here you are,

4080-545: The first President of Ireland . The record of his delivering his inaugural Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish is one of only a few recordings of that dialect. In the 2016 census, 10.5% of respondents stated that they spoke Irish, either daily or weekly, while over 70,000 people (4.2%) speak it as a habitual daily means of communication. From the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 (see History of

4165-452: The governor, issued a proclamation that only British Sterling would be legal tender in the Cape Colony (colonial South Africa ). The new British coins (which were introduced in England in 1816), among them being the shilling, six-pence of silver, the penny, half-penny, and quarter-penny in copper, were introduced to the Cape. Later two-shilling, four-penny, and three-penny coins were added to

4250-514: The king's currency. Some of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms initially copied the solidus , the late Roman gold coin ; at the time, however, gold was so rare and valuable that even the smallest coins had such a great value that they could only be used in very large transactions and were sometimes not available at all. Around 641–670, there seems to have been a movement to use coins with lower gold content. This decreased their value and may have increased

4335-698: The language family, is derived from the Old Irish term. Endonyms of the language in the various modern Irish dialects include: Gaeilge [ˈɡeːlʲɟə] in Galway, Gaeilg / Gaeilic / Gaeilig [ˈɡeːlʲəc] in Mayo and Ulster , Gaelainn / Gaoluinn [ˈɡeːl̪ˠən̠ʲ] in West/Cork, Kerry Munster , as well as Gaedhealaing in mid and East Kerry/Cork and Waterford Munster to reflect local pronunciation. Gaeilge also has

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4420-410: The language was in use by all classes, Irish being an urban as well as a rural language. This linguistic dynamism was reflected in the efforts of certain public intellectuals to counter the decline of the language. At the end of the 19th century, they launched the Gaelic revival in an attempt to encourage the learning and use of Irish, although few adult learners mastered the language. The vehicle of

4505-472: The language. For most of recorded Irish history , Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people , who took it with them to other regions , such as Scotland and the Isle of Man , where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx . It was also, for a period, spoken widely across Canada , with an estimated 200,000–250,000 daily Canadian speakers of Irish in 1890. On the island of Newfoundland ,

4590-622: The latter portion of the eighteenth and early nineteenth twentieth century, the Orange Order was strong in the town of Mountrath and surrounding townships. Older leases granted on the Castlecoote estate, on which the town was built, were written in strict accordance with the Penal Laws, and contained a clause prohibiting the letting, selling, or bestowal of ground for the purpose of erecting a Roman Catholic Church . In consequence of this prohibition,

4675-563: The mid-18th century, English was becoming a language of the Catholic middle class, the Catholic Church and public intellectuals, especially in the east of the country. Increasingly, as the value of English became apparent, parents sanctioned the prohibition of Irish in schools. Increasing interest in emigrating to the United States and Canada was also a driver, as fluency in English allowed

4760-636: The mid-9th century. The first Carolingian-style pennies were introduced by King Offa of Mercia ( r. 757–796), modeled on Pepin's system. His first series was 1 ⁄ 240 of the Saxon pound of 5400 grains (350 grams) , giving a pennyweight of about 1.46 grams . His queen Cynethryth also minted these coins under her own name. Near the end of his reign, Offa minted his coins in imitation of Charlemagne's reformed pennies. Offa's coins were imitated by East Anglia , Kent , Wessex and Northumbria , as well as by two Archbishops of Canterbury . As in

4845-545: The mother house at Tullow and brought from Tullow by horse and dray by Bill Delaney and Michael Fitzpatrick. Soon after, the Monastery of St. Patrick was established. Both convent and monastery communities were employed in the education of Roman Catholic pupils. A new church was completed in 1867. In October 2017 the Brigidine Sisters gifted the convent to the community of Mountrath for the long-term benefit and development of

4930-771: The name of the language is Gaeilge , from the South Connacht form, spelled Gaedhilge prior the spelling reform of 1948, which was originally the genitive of Gaedhealg , the form used in Classical Gaelic . The modern spelling results from the deletion of the silent ⟨dh⟩ in Gaedhilge . Older spellings include Gaoidhealg [ˈɡeːʝəlˠəɡ] in Classical Gaelic and Goídelc [ˈɡoiðʲelɡ] in Old Irish . Goidelic , used to refer to

5015-424: The need for small change. Finally, amid the Napoleonic Wars , the government authorized Matthew Boulton to mint copper pennies and twopences at Soho Mint in Birmingham in 1797. Typically, 1 lb. of copper produced 24 pennies. In 1860, the copper penny was replaced with a bronze one (95% copper, 4% tin , 1% zinc ). Each pound of bronze was coined into 48 pennies. The United States' cent, popularly known as

5100-409: The new immigrants to get jobs in areas other than farming. An estimated one quarter to one third of US immigrants during the Great Famine were Irish speakers. Irish was not marginal to Ireland's modernisation in the 19th century, as is often assumed. In the first half of the century there were still around three million people for whom Irish was the primary language, and their numbers alone made them

5185-522: The number now is between 20,000 and 30,000." In the 1920s, when the Irish Free State was founded, Irish was still a vernacular in some western coastal areas. In the 1930s, areas where more than 25% of the population spoke Irish were classified as Gaeltacht . Today, the strongest Gaeltacht areas, numerically and socially, are those of South Connemara , the west of the Dingle Peninsula , and northwest Donegal, where many residents still use Irish as their primary language. These areas are often referred to as

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5270-539: The number that could be minted, but these paler coins do not seem to have solved the problem of the value and scarcity of the currency. The miscellaneous silver sceattas minted in Frisia and Anglo-Saxon England after around 680 were probably known as "pennies" at the time. (The misnomer is based on a probable misreading of the Anglo-Saxon legal codes.) Their purity varied and their weight fluctuated from about 0.8 to about 1.3 grams. They continued to be minted in East Anglia under Beonna and in Northumbria as late as

5355-448: The other official language, if not already passed in both official languages. In November 2016, RTÉ reported that over 2.3 million people worldwide were learning Irish through the Duolingo app. Irish president Michael D. Higgins officially honoured several volunteer translators for developing the Irish edition, and said the push for Irish language rights remains an "unfinished project". There are rural areas of Ireland where Irish

5440-402: The place of worship used by local Catholics stood upon a sand-bank beside a tributary of the River Nore called 'The Brook". In 1794, Dr. Delany, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, whose mother was a Fitzpatrick of Deerpark, proposed to build a parish church. Lord Castlecoote was publicly opposed to the proposal but the political climate of toleration that followed the Relief Act of 1793 encouraged

5525-415: The political party holding power in the Stormont Parliament , the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), was hostile to the language. The context of this hostility was the use of the language by nationalists. In broadcasting, there was an exclusion on the reporting of minority cultural issues, and Irish was excluded from radio and television for almost the first fifty years of the previous devolved government. After

5610-484: The reign of Charles II around 1660. Since then, they have only been coined for issue as Maundy money , royal alms given to the elderly on Maundy Thursday . Throughout the 18th century, the British government did not mint pennies for general circulation and the bullion value of the existing silver pennies caused them to be withdrawn from circulation. Merchants and mining companies, such as Anglesey 's Parys Mining Co. , began to issue their own copper tokens to fill

5695-436: The relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx). Gaelic is a collective term for the Goidelic languages, and when the context is clear it may be used without qualification to refer to each language individually. When the context is specific but unclear, the term may be qualified, as Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic or Manx Gaelic. Historically the name "Erse" ( / ɜːr s / URS )

5780-432: The requirement for entrance to the public service was changed to proficiency in just one official language. Nevertheless, Irish remains a required subject of study in all schools in the Republic of Ireland that receive public money (see Education in the Republic of Ireland ). Teachers in primary schools must also pass a compulsory examination called Scrúdú Cáilíochta sa Ghaeilge . As of 2005, Garda Síochána recruits need

5865-452: The revival was the Gaelic League ( Conradh na Gaeilge ), and particular emphasis was placed on the folk tradition, which in Irish is particularly rich. Efforts were also made to develop journalism and a modern literature. Although it has been noted that the Catholic Church played a role in the decline of the Irish language before the Gaelic Revival, the Protestant Church of Ireland also made only minor efforts to encourage use of Irish in

5950-446: The town and surrounding areas. In 2018 a fitness and martial arts academy opened its doors to the public offering Karate, Jujitsu, Kickboxing and Fitness classes. In 2018, building work commenced on a new Enterprise Hub and Community Centre within the confines of the convent buildings.{} Near Mountrath on the R445 towards Portlaoise is a shapeless old Wish Tree in the form of a Sycamore tree called St Fintan's Well . The original well

6035-474: The twopence was correspondingly larger at 41 mm in diameter, 5 mm thick and 2 oz (57 g). On them was Britannia with a trident in her hand. The English called this coin the Cartwheel penny due to its large size and raised rim, but the Capetonians referred to it as the Devil 's Penny as they assumed that only the Devil used a trident. The coins were very unpopular due to their large weight and size. On 6 June 1825, Lord Charles Somerset ,

6120-705: The vacancy to which they are appointed. This requirement is laid down by the University College Galway Act, 1929 (Section 3). In 2016, the university faced controversy when it announced the planned appointment of a president who did not speak Irish. Misneach staged protests against this decision. The following year the university announced that Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh , a fluent Irish speaker, would be its 13th president. He assumed office in January 2018; in June 2024, he announced he would be stepping down as president at

6205-597: The wild surrounding country, which was covered with woodlands, he laid the foundation of the present town. In 1628 Coote obtained for the inhabitants a grant of two weekly markets and two fairs, and established a very extensive linen and fustian manufactory. In the year 1641, as a Royalist supporter, much of his property was destroyed during the Irish Confederacy in the War of the Three Kingdoms . His son Sam Coote regained

6290-594: The work of such writers as Geoffrey Keating , is said to date from the 17th century, and was the medium of popular literature from that time on. From the 18th century on, the language lost ground in the east of the country. The reasons behind this shift were complex but came down to a number of factors: The change was characterised by diglossia (two languages being used by the same community in different social and economic situations) and transitional bilingualism (monoglot Irish-speaking grandparents with bilingual children and monoglot English-speaking grandchildren). By

6375-460: Was 1,873,997, representing 40% of respondents, but of these, 472,887 said they never spoke it and a further 551,993 said they only spoke it within the education system. Linguistic analyses of Irish speakers are therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2022 was 20,261 in the Gaeltacht and 51,707 outside it, totalling 71,968. In response to

6460-523: Was also sometimes used in Scots and then in English to refer to Irish; as well as Scottish Gaelic. Written Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD, a stage of the language known as Primitive Irish . These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish underwent a change into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from

6545-643: Was enacted 1 July 2019 and is an 18-page document that adheres to the guidelines of the Official Languages Act 2003 . The purpose of the Scheme is to provide services through the mediums of Irish and/or English. According to the Department of the Taoiseach, it is meant to "develop a sustainable economy and a successful society, to pursue Ireland's interests abroad, to implement the Government's Programme and to build

6630-483: Was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them. Pennies Penny

6715-636: Was filled in, but the water re-appeared in the centre of the tree. Hundreds of pennies have been beaten into the bark as good luck offerings, until they eventually killed the tree but it began to sprout new shoots from its trunk and is growing again. Local folklore suggests that the water in the centre of the tree was a cure for warts. The local secondary schools of St Aengus and The Brigidine Convent in Mountrath both closed in mid-2009. In September 2009 they amalgamated with nearby Patrician College in Ballyfin to form

6800-454: Was notionally .925-fine sterling silver at the time of Henry II , but the weight and value of the silver penny steadily declined from 1300 onwards. In 1257, Henry III minted a gold penny which had the nominal value of 1 shilling 8 pence (i.e. 20 d. ). At first, the coin proved unpopular because it was overvalued for its weight; by 1265 it was so undervalued—the bullion value of its gold being worth 2 shillings (i.e. 24 d. ) by then—that

6885-560: Was originally * panding as a Low Franconian form of Old High German pfant "pawn" (in the sense of a pledge or debt, as in a pawnbroker putting up collateral as a pledge for repayment of loans); * panning as a form of the West Germanic word for " frying pan ", presumably owing to its shape; and * ponding as a very early borrowing of Latin pondus (" pound "). Recently, it has been proposed that it may represent an early borrowing of Punic pn ( Pane or Pene , "Face"), as

6970-465: Was passed 14 July 2003 with the main purpose of improving the number and quality of public services delivered in Irish by the government and other public bodies. Compliance with the Act is monitored by the An Coimisinéir Teanga (Irish Language Commissioner) which was established in 2004 and any complaints or concerns pertaining to the Act are brought to them. There are 35 sections included in

7055-678: Was spoken throughout Ireland, Isle of Man and parts of Scotland . It is the language of a large corpus of literature, including the Ulster Cycle . From the 12th century, Middle Irish began to evolve into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland, and into the Manx language in the Isle of Man . Early Modern Irish , dating from the 13th century, was the basis of the literary language of both Ireland and Gaelic-speaking Scotland. Modern Irish, sometimes called Late Modern Irish, as attested in

7140-547: Was the majority of the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century, in what is sometimes characterised as a result of linguistic imperialism . Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in Ireland's Gaeltacht regions, in which 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022. The total number of people (aged 3 and over) in Ireland who declared they could speak Irish in April 2022

7225-442: Was unable to accomplish some everyday tasks, as portrayed in his documentary No Béarla . There is, however, a growing body of Irish speakers in urban areas, particularly in Dublin. Many have been educated in schools in which Irish is the language of instruction. Such schools are known as Gaelscoileanna at primary level. These Irish-medium schools report some better outcomes for students than English-medium schools. In 2009,

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