107-599: Cathal Goulding ( Irish : Cathal Ó Goillín ; 2 January 1923 – 26 December 1998) was Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Official IRA . One of seven children born on East Arran Street in north Dublin to an Irish republican family, as a teenager Goulding joined Fianna Éireann , the youth wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He joined the IRA in 1939. In December of that year, he took part in
214-568: A constitutional ban on abortion . In 1992, he objected to the political reforms proposed by party leader Proinsias De Rossa , and remained in the Workers' Party after the formation of Democratic Left . He regarded Democratic Left as having compromised socialism in the pursuit of political office. In his later years, Goulding spent much of his time at his cottage in Raheenleigh near Myshall , County Carlow . He died of cancer in his native Dublin , and
321-626: A hurley stick and a pickaxe handle . Two men, one of them who admitted to OIRA membership, were imprisoned for his manslaughter . The OIRA lost a number of members who gradually drifted away from the ceasefire up to shortly after the 1981 Hunger Strike , many either joining the Provisional IRA or the INLA or some simply dropping out. From 1981 on, Sinn Féin the Workers Party, renamed the Workers' Party
428-540: 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
535-734: A "convenient stick with which to beat the West." Assistance from the Soviet Union first occurred in late 1972 when Yuri Andropov who was then the head of the KGB (later to become General Secretary of the Soviet Union) authorized weapons shipments. On 21 August 1972, Andropov had presented a plan known as SPLASH to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . It was entitled "Plan for
642-600: A Roman Catholic army chaplain. After the killing of William Best, a Catholic British soldier home on leave in Derry, the OIRA declared a ceasefire. In addition, the death of several militant OIRA figures such as Joe McCann in confrontations with British soldiers, enabled the Goulding leadership to call off their armed campaign, which it had never supported wholeheartedly. Although formally on ceasefire (except for "defensive actions") since 1972,
749-697: 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
856-560: 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
963-472: 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,
1070-541: 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
1177-460: 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
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#17330935035021284-709: A long period of inactivity, the Official IRA began talks with a view to decommissioning its stockpile of weapons, and in February 2010 the Newry-based Official Republican Movement announced that it had decommissioned its weapons. The process was confirmed to be completed by the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning on 8 February 2010, coming in the last 24 hours of the commission's existence. The decommissioning
1391-574: 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
1498-554: 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
1605-633: A raid on Irish Army ammunition stores in Phoenix Park , Dublin; and in November 1941 he was gaoled for a year in Mountjoy Prison for membership of an unlawful organisation and possession of IRA documents. On his release in 1942, he was immediately interned at the Curragh Camp , where he remained until 1944. Goulding was involved in 1945 in attempts to re-establish the IRA, which had been badly affected by
1712-611: 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
1819-612: A result, they were reluctant to use force to defend Catholic areas of Belfast when they came under attack from Ulster loyalists —a role the IRA had performed since the 1920s. Since the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marches began in 1968, there had been many cases of street violence. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) had been shown on television in undisciplined baton charges, and had already killed five non-combatant civilians, three of whom were children. The Orange Order 's "marching season" during
1926-517: A vote at the first IRA Convention where a two-thirds majority voted that republicans should take their seats if elected to the British, Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland Parliaments. At a second convention, a group consisting of Mac Stiofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill , Ó Brádaigh, Joe Cahill, Paddy Mulcahy, Leo Martin , and Sean Tracey, were elected as the "Provisional" Army Council. Their supporters included Seamus Twomey . Accounts at that time suggest that
2033-537: 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
2140-511: 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 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
2247-448: 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
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#17330935035022354-511: 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
2461-567: 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
2568-579: 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 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
2675-412: 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
2782-659: 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
2889-660: The 1972 Aldershot bombing . In May 1972, it declared a ceasefire and vowed to limit its actions to defence and retaliation. By this time, the Provisional IRA had become the larger and more active faction. Following the ceasefire, the OIRA began to be referred to as "Group B" within the Official movement. It became involved in feuds with the Provisional IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), an OIRA splinter group formed in 1974. It has also been involved in organized crime and vigilantism . The Official IRA
2996-625: The Bogside area) as well as Newry and South County Down . While the OIRA occasionally fought the British Army and the RUC throughout 1970 (as well as the Provisional IRA during a 1970 feud), they did not have a strong paramilitary presence until early 1971. In August 1971, after the introduction of internment without trial , OIRA units fought numerous gun battles with British troops who were deployed to arrest suspected republicans. The Official IRA company in
3103-540: The Northern Ireland riots of August 1969 . IRA units offered resistance, however very few weapons were available for the defence of Catholic areas. Many local IRA figures, and ex-IRA members such as Joe Cahill and Billy McKee , were incensed by what they saw as the leadership's decision not to take sides and in September, they announced that they would no longer be taking orders from the Goulding leadership. Discontent
3210-608: The Reduktor . Official IRA members also travelled to the Soviet Union for training. North Korea also sent arms to the Officials and taught them with assassination techniques and bomb-making skills. Throughout the 1980s, at least 5,000 weapons were supplied by Soviet and North Korean officials to the OIRA. In July 1973, Irish Garda discovered eight cases of 17 rifles, 29,000 rounds of ammunition and about 60 pounds of gunpowder in Dublin sent to
3317-619: 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 ")
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3424-617: The Soviet Union 's KGB and North Korea . The report said that the weapons were to be used to defend Catholic areas if there was an outbreak of major sectarian conflict, and that the plan was known only to a few high-ranking members of the organisation. The Official IRA had relations with the Soviet Union during the Troubles. One Irish diplomat in Moscow once wrote that Ireland provided the Soviets with
3531-516: The Ulster Protestant and Irish Catholic working classes , fomented and continued by the ruling class . Its effect was to depress wages, since worker could be set against worker. They concluded that the first step on the road to a 32-county socialist republic in Ireland was the "democratisation" of Northern Ireland (i.e., the removal of discrimination against Catholics) and radicalisation of
3638-780: The Wicklow Mountains . He took charge of the IRA's Dublin Brigade in 1951. In 1953, he (along with Seán Mac Stíofáin and Manus Canning ) was involved in an arms raid on the Officers' Training Corps armoury at Felsted School in Essex. The raid provided the IRA with 99 rifles, 18 Bren and Sten guns, one anti-tank gun, a two-inch mortar and a Browning machine gun. The three men were arrested and sentenced with eight-year prison terms, but were released in 1959 after serving only six years at Pentonville , Wakefield and Stafford prisons. In 1956, an attempt
3745-530: The "Stickies" because they sold stick-on lilies to commemorate the Easter Rising . The Provisionals, by contrast, were known as "Pinnies" (pejoratively "Pinheads") because they produced pinned-on lilies. The term "Stickies" persisted for the Officials, although Pinnies (and Pinheads) disappeared, in favour of the nickname "Provos" and for a time, "Provies" for the Provisional IRA. (The paper-and-pin Easter Lily of
3852-611: 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
3959-719: 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
4066-403: 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
4173-563: 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
4280-454: The British presence would be counter-productive, since it would delay the day when the workers would unite to address social and economic issues. The sense that the IRA seemed to be drifting away from its conventional republican roots into Marxism angered more traditional republicans. The radicals viewed Ulster Protestants with unionist views as "fellow Irishmen deluded by bourgeois loyalties, who needed to be engaged in dialectical debate". As
4387-463: 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
Cathal Goulding - Misplaced Pages Continue
4494-580: The IRA members split roughly in half, with those loyal to the Goulding-led "Official" IRA prominent in some areas while the Provisional IRA were prominent in others. A strong area for the Official IRA in Belfast was the Lower Falls and Markets district, which were under the command of Billy McMillen . Other OIRA units were located in Derry, Newry , Strabane , Dublin, Wicklow and other parts of Belfast. However,
4601-677: The IRA was the traditional commemorative badge of the Easter Rising, whereas the self-adhesive Easter Lily of the Officials was a novel invention, symbolic of the divergence of opinion between them). Initially there was much confusion among republicans on the ground; Martin McGuinness for example, joined the Official IRA in 1970, unaware that there had been a split and only later joined the Provisionals. The Provisionals eventually extended their armed campaign from defence of Catholic areas. Despite
4708-576: The Inland Revenue in Northern Ireland—McDonagh was described in court as an Official IRA commander. In February 1992 a British Spotlight programme alleged that the Official IRA was still active and involved in widespread racketeering and armed robberies. In 1990 the OIRA and Provisional IRA came to the brink of a feud twice, following clashes in which members of the two organisations were injured. Allegedly, mediators attempting to defuse
4815-536: 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
4922-537: The Markets area of Belfast, led by Joe McCann , held off an incursion into the area by over 600 British troops. In December 1971, the Official IRA killed Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) Senator John Barnhill at his home in Strabane . This was the first murder of a politician in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland since the assassination of Free State Minister for Justice Kevin O'Higgins in 1927. In February 1972,
5029-444: The Newry area in the late 1990s. In 1997 violence erupted between the ORM and the IRA; two ORM members and two Sinn Féin supporters were injured in separate gun attacks. There have been allegations of criminality against former senior Official IRA figure Seán Garland , who was accused in 2005 by the United States of helping to produce and circulate counterfeit US dollars allegedly printed in North Korea . In October 2009, after
5136-406: The OIRA O/C, Billy McMillen . However, from the mid-1970s onwards, the Official republican movement became increasingly focused on achieving its aims through left-wing constitutional politics. This did not stop sporadic paramilitary activity from the OIRA, who on 8 September 1979 killed Hugh O'Halloran in a punishment beating in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast. O' Halloran was beaten to death with
5243-399: The OIRA by Canadian citizen John Patrick Murphy. While the Officials tried to gather help from supporters in America, there was little to no evidence of such a thing happening. According to Malcolm Sutton's Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland , part of the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN), the OIRA was responsible for at least 50 killings during the Troubles. According to
5350-451: The OIRA had a more restricted level of activity than the Provisionals. Unlike the Provisionals, it did not establish de facto control over large Catholic areas of Belfast and Derry and its use of force was more defensive. However it retained a strong presence in certain localities, notably the Lower Falls Road , Andersonstown , Turf Lodge and the Markets areas of Belfast, along with a strong presence in Derry (particularly Free Derry in
5457-418: The OIRA weren't interfered with in working-class Nationalist areas of Belfast to keep the Provisional IRA in check. These eventually proved a considerable political embarrassment to the Workers' Party, and in 1992 the leadership proposed amendments to the party constitution which would, inter alia, effectively allow it to purge members suspected of involvement in the Official IRA. This proposal failed to obtain
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#17330935035025564-409: The Official IRA continued some attacks on British forces up until at least 1976, killing seven British soldiers in what it termed "retaliatory attacks". In addition, the OIRA's weapons were used intermittently in the ongoing feud with the Provisionals. This flared up into violence on several occasions, notably in October 1975. 11 republicans on either side were killed in the feud and a nine-year-old girl
5671-413: The Operation of a Shipment of Weapons to the Irish Friends". Two machine guns, 70 automatic rifles , 10 Walther pistols and 41,600 cartridges were sent. The pistols were lubricated with West German oil and the packaging was taken from several countries around the world by KGB agents so that the weapons could not be traced back to the Soviet Union. The weapons were brought to Ireland using the ship known as
5778-438: The Provisionals and " stickies " by nationalists in Belfast (apparently in reference to members who would glue Easter lilies to their uniforms), and they were sometimes nicknamed the " Red IRA " by others. It waged a limited campaign against the British Army , mainly involving shooting and bombing attacks on troops in urban working-class neighbourhoods. Most notably, it was involved in the 1970 Falls Curfew and carried out
5885-461: The Provisionals would rapidly become the dominant faction, both as a result of intensive recruitment in response to the sectarian violence and because some Official IRA units (such as the Strabane company) later defected to them. There was a similar ideological split in Sinn Féin after a contentious 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis . The leadership of Sinn Féin passed a motion to recognise the Parliaments in London, Dublin and Stormont but failed to attain
5992-424: 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 ,
6099-519: The authorities in both the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland . He was among twenty-five to thirty men who met at O'Neill's pub, Pearse Street, to try to re-establish the IRA in Dublin. He organised the first national meeting of IRA activists after World War II , in Dublin in 1946. This gathering was raided by the Garda Síochána . Goulding along with John Joe McGirl and ten others were subsequently sentenced to twelve months in prison. Upon his release in 1947, Goulding organised IRA training camps in
6206-577: 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
6313-405: The dismal failure of the IRA's Border Campaign in the years 1956–62. They were heavily influenced by popular front ideology and drew close to communist thinking. A key intermediary body was the Communist Party of Great Britain 's organisation for Irish exiles, the Connolly Association . The Marxist analysis was that the conflict in Northern Ireland was a " bourgeois nationalist" one between
6420-414: 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
6527-430: 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
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#17330935035026634-510: The following year, had some success in the Republic of Ireland, but little in Northern Ireland. Throughout the 1980s, allegations that the Official IRA remained in existence and was engaged in criminal activity appeared in the Irish press. In June 1982 the feud with the INLA flared again after OIRA member James Flynn , the alleged assassin of Seamus Costello, was shot dead by the INLA in Dublin. In December 1985 five men, including Anthony McDonagh, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud
6741-419: The ground blamed the Provisionals for starting the firing and then leaving them alone to face the British. The bad feeling left by this and other incidents led to a feud between the two IRAs in 1970, with several shootings carried out by either side. The two IRA factions arranged a truce between them after the OIRA killing of Provisional activist, and Belfast brigade D-Company commander, Charlie Hughes (a cousin of
6848-498: 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
6955-410: 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
7062-425: 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 ,
7169-485: The leadership of Tomás Mac Giolla , was to contest elections first as Official Sinn Féín, then Sinn Féin The Workers' Party , and aligned itself with the Official IRA, as the Marxist faction had come to be known. The party retained the historic Sinn Féin headquarters of Gardiner Street, thus giving legitimacy to its claim, in the eyes of some, to be the legitimate successor of that party. It was briefly known popularly as Sinn Féin Gardiner Place. The Officials were known as
7276-405: The legitimate attempts of the people to defend themselves against the B-Specials and the sectarian Orange (Protestant) murder gangs." He remained Chief of Staff of what became known as the Official IRA until 1972. Although the Official IRA, like the Provisional IRA, carried out an armed campaign, Goulding argued that such action ultimately divided the Irish working class. After public revulsion at
7383-399: 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
7490-497: 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
7597-409: 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
7704-639: 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
7811-570: 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 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
7918-525: The organisation also made an attempt on the life of UUP politician John Taylor . On Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972), an OIRA man in Derry is believed by the Saville Inquiry to have fired a shot with a revolver at British troops, after they had shot dead 13 civil rights demonstrators – the only republican shots fired on the day and contrary to his orders. The anger caused by Bloody Sunday among Irish people
8025-498: 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
8132-576: The other's legitimacy. Unlike the "Provisionals", the "Officials" did not think that Ireland could be unified until the Protestant majority and Catholic minority of Northern Ireland were at peace. The Officials were Marxist-Leninists and worked to form a united front with other Irish communist groups, named the Irish National Liberation Front (NLF). The Officials were called the NLF by
8239-539: 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
8346-553: The prerequisite two-thirds majority necessary to change Sinn Féin's constitutional opposition to partitionist assemblies. Those defeated in the motion walked out. This resulted in a split into two groups with the Sinn Féin name. Those supportive of Seán Mac Stiofáin 's "Provisional Army Council", were referred to in the media as Provisional Sinn Féin, or Sinn Féin Kevin Street, and contested elections as Sinn Féin. The other group, under
8453-487: 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 )
8560-472: The reluctance of Cathal Goulding and the OIRA leadership, their volunteers on the ground were inevitably drawn into the violence. The Official IRA's first major confrontation with the British Army came in the Falls Curfew of July 1970, when over 3,000 British soldiers raided the Lower Falls area for arms, leading to three days of gun battles. The Official IRA lost a large amount of weaponry, and their members on
8667-463: The required two-thirds support at the party conference that year, and as a result the leadership, including six of the party's seven members of Dáil Éireann , left to establish a new party, later named Democratic Left . In 1995, some former Official IRA members in the Newry area launched a "re-founded" Official Republican Movement (ORM). This group was believed to have engaged in attacks on drug dealers in
8774-483: 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
8881-683: 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
8988-528: The shooting death of William Best, a Catholic from Derry who was a British soldier, and the bombing of the Aldershot barracks , the Official IRA announced a ceasefire in 1972. Goulding was prominent in the various stages of Official Sinn Féin's development into the Workers' Party . Along with his partner, Moira Woods, he was involved in the Anti-Amendment Campaign in opposition to the introduction of
9095-662: The situation said the OIRA were at fault in both incidents. British security forces were aware of the continued existence of the OIRA; in 1991 a senior RUC source was quoted on a BBC Spotlight programme as saying that the Worker's Party couldn't survive without funding from OIRA criminal activity and the protection the OIRA gave the party against the Provisional IRA. Despite this the Northern Ireland Office continued to receive Workers Party delegations. Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) politician Brian Feeney alleged that
9202-414: The southern working class. This would allow "class politics" to develop, eventually resulting in a challenge to the hegemony of both what they termed " British imperialism " and the respective unionist and Irish nationalist establishments north and south of the Irish border. Goulding and those close to him argued that, in the context of sectarian division in Northern Ireland, a military campaign against
9309-558: The summer of 1969 had been characterised by violence on both sides, which culminated in the three-day " Battle of the Bogside " in Derry . The critical moment came in August 1969 when there was a major outbreak of intercommunal violence in Belfast and Derry , with eight deaths, six of them Catholics, and whole streets ablaze. On 14–15 August loyalists burned out several Catholic streets in Belfast in
9416-705: 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
9523-399: The well-known Provisional Brendan Hughes ). Soviet defector Vasili Mitrokhin alleged in the 1990s that the Goulding leadership sought, in 1969, a small quantity of arms (roughly 70 rifles, along with some hand guns and explosives) from the KGB . The request was approved and the weapons reportedly arrived in Ireland in 1972, although this has not been independently verified. On the whole,
9630-594: 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
9737-602: Was Sinn Féin's ending of its policy of abstentionism in the Republic of Ireland . This issue is a key one in republican ideology, as traditional republicans regarded the Irish state as illegitimate and maintained that their loyalty was due only to the Irish Republic declared in 1916 and in their view, represented by the IRA Army Council. During the 1960s, the republican movement under the leadership of Cathal Goulding radically re-assessed their ideology and tactics after
9844-523: 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
9951-531: Was an Irish republican paramilitary group whose goal was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and create a " workers' republic " encompassing all of Ireland . It emerged in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of the Troubles , when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) split into two factions. The other was the Provisional IRA . Each continued to call itself simply "the IRA" and rejected
10058-503: Was arrested for possession of a revolver and ammunition; in total he spent sixteen years in British and Irish jails. Goulding was instrumental in moving the IRA to the left in the 1960s. He argued against the policy of abstentionism and developed a Marxist analysis of Irish politics. He believed the British state deliberately divided the Irish working class on sectarian grounds, in order to exploit them and keep them from uniting and overthrowing their bourgeois oppressors. This analysis
10165-408: Was completed at the same time as that of the republican INLA and the loyalist UDA South East Antrim Brigade . The step was described by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a "central part of moving Northern Ireland from violence to peace". In 2015, it was reported that up to 5,000 Official IRA weapons may still be hidden in secret bunkers. The weapons were supplied to the OIRA in the 1980s by
10272-643: 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
10379-604: 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. Official IRA Inactive Defunct The Official Irish Republican Army or Official IRA (OIRA; Irish : Óglaigh na hÉireann )
10486-510: Was linked to the political party Official Sinn Féin, later renamed Sinn Féin The Workers Party and then the Workers' Party . The split in the Irish Republican Army , soon followed by a parallel split in Sinn Féin , was the result of the dissatisfaction of more traditional and militant republicans at the political direction taken by the leadership. The particular object of their discontent
10593-710: Was made by the IRA to free Goulding from Wakefield Prison, but this was aborted when alarms were sounded at the prison. During his time in Wakefield prison, he befriended EOKA members and Klaus Fuchs , a German-born spy who had passed information about the US nuclear programme to the Soviet Union . In so doing, Goulding became interested in the Russian Revolution . He was appointed IRA Quartermaster General in 1959, and in 1962 succeeded Ruairí Ó Brádaigh as IRA Chief of Staff . In February 1966, together with Seán Garland , Goulding
10700-408: Was not confined to the northern IRA units. In the south also, such figures as Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Sean MacStiofain opposed both the leadership's proposed recognition of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This increasing political divergence led to a formal split at the 1969 IRA Convention, held in December. when a group led by Ó Brádaigh and MacStiofán walked out. The split resulted from
10807-465: 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
10914-428: Was rejected by those who later went on to form the Provisional IRA after the 1969 IRA split. In August 1969 Goulding issued a statement that IRA men had been moved into Northern Ireland to defend Catholics that had been "terrorized by mobs backed by armed B-Specials." (The B-Specials were part of a reserve police force formed in 1920). Gouldings statement went on to warn that British forces must not be "used to suppress
11021-423: Was shot dead by the Provisionals when they tried to shoot her father. In 1974, radical elements within the organisation who objected to the ceasefire, led by Seamus Costello , established the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Another feud ensued in the first half of 1975, during which three INLA and five OIRA members were killed. The dead included prominent members of both organisations including Costello and
11128-678: 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
11235-538: Was such that the Official IRA announced that it would launch an "offensive" against British forces. However, the OIRA declared a ceasefire later in the same year. The ceasefire, on 30 May, followed a number of armed actions which had been politically damaging. The organisation bombed the Aldershot headquarters of the Parachute Regiment (the main perpetrators of Bloody Sunday), but killed only six civilians and
11342-521: Was survived by three sons and a daughter. He was cremated and his ashes scattered, at his directive, at the site known as "the Nine Stones" on the slopes of Mount Leinster . 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
11449-442: 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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