104-546: Ogham ( / ˈ ɒ ɡ əm / OG -əm , Modern Irish : [ˈoː(ə)mˠ] ; Middle Irish : ogum, ogom , later ogam [ˈɔɣəmˠ] ) is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions , 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later the Old Irish language ( scholastic ogham , 6th to 9th centuries). There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain,
208-540: 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
312-611: A 6th-century king of Dyfed (originally located in Clynderwen ), is the only ogham stone inscription that bears the name of an identifiable individual. The language of the inscriptions is predominantly Primitive Irish ; the few inscriptions in Scotland, such as the Lunnasting stone , record fragments of what is probably the Pictish language . The more ancient examples are standing stones , where
416-697: 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
520-560: 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
624-551: A bishop for the Irish, while he labours to keep the Roman island Catholic, he has also made the barbarian island Christian." Palladius landed at Arklow . Auxilius , Secundinus , and Iserninus are missioners identified with St. Patrick, but more recent research associates them not with Patrick but with Palladius. Irish writers who chronicled the life of St Patrick state that St Palladius preached in Ireland before St Patrick, although he
728-582: A cloth marked out with a pattern, such as Finn's Window , and interpreting the patterns. The meanings assigned in these modern methods are usually based on the tree ogham, with each letter associated with a tree or plant, and meanings derived from these associations. While some use folklore for the meanings, Robert Graves ' book The White Goddess continues to be a major influence on these methods and beliefs. Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish : Gaeilge ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / GAY -lik ),
832-472: 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,
936-541: 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
1040-460: 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
1144-574: 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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#17330929999561248-554: 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
1352-611: 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
1456-488: 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 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
1560-455: A warning to Lug , meaning: "your wife will be carried away seven times to the otherworld unless the birch protects her". For this reason, the letter b is said to be named after the birch, and In Lebor Ogaim goes on to tell the tradition that all letters were named after trees, a claim also referred to by the Auraicept as an alternative to the naming after Fenius' disciples. Strictly speaking,
1664-537: 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
1768-498: Is emancholl which means 'twin of hazel' Monumental ogham inscriptions are found in Ireland and Wales , with a few additional specimens found in southwest England ( Devon and Cornwall ), the Isle of Man , and Scotland , including Shetland and a single example from Silchester and another from Coventry in England. They were mainly employed as territorial markers and memorials (grave stones). The stone commemorating Vortiporius ,
1872-584: 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 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
1976-564: Is a letter for the labiovelar q (ᚊ ceirt ), a phoneme lost in Old Irish. The base alphabet is, therefore, as it were, designed for Proto-Q-Celtic. Of the five forfeda or supplementary letters, only the first, ébad , regularly appears in inscriptions, but mostly with the value K (McManus, § 5.3, 1991), in the word koi (ᚕᚑᚔ "here"). The others, except for emancholl , have at most only one certain 'orthodox' (see below) inscription each. Due to their limited practical use, later ogamists turned
2080-448: 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
2184-574: Is also evidence that ogham may have been used as a system of finger or hand signals. In later centuries when ogham ceased to be used as a practical alphabet, it retained its place in the learning of Gaelic scholars and poets as the basis of grammar and the rules of poetry. Indeed, until modern times the Latin alphabet in Gaelic continued to be taught using letter names borrowed from the Beith-Luis-Nin , along with
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#17330929999562288-471: Is aware that not all names are known tree names: "Now all these are wood names such as are found in the Ogham Book of Woods, and are not derived from men", admitting that "some of these trees are not known today". The Auraicept gives a short phrase or kenning for each letter, known as a Bríatharogam , that traditionally accompanied each letter name, and a further gloss explaining their meanings and identifying
2392-511: 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
2496-518: Is from the Irish og-úaim 'point-seam', referring to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon. It is generally thought that the earliest inscriptions in Ogham date to about the 4th century AD, but James Carney believed its origin is rather within the 1st century BC. Although the use of "classical" ogham in stone inscriptions seems to have flourished in the 5th and 6th centuries around the Irish Sea , from
2600-562: Is most easily established, being widely used in neighbouring Roman Britannia , while runes in the 4th century were not very widespread even in continental Europe . In Ireland and Wales, the language of the monumental stone inscriptions is termed Primitive Irish . The transition to Old Irish , the language of the earliest sources in the Latin alphabet, takes place in about the 6th century. Since ogham inscriptions consist almost exclusively of personal names and marks possibly indicating land ownership, linguistic information that may be gleaned from
2704-638: Is most strongly associated with Leinster , particularly with Clonard, County Meath . According to Muirchu , Palladius arrived among the Scots in North Britain after he left Ireland. Scottish church tradition holds that he presided over a Christian community there for about 20 years. A cluster of dedications in the Mearns in Scotland , in the village of Auchenblae , are believed to mark his last resting place. As late as
2808-553: Is no evidence for Macalister's theory, and it has been discounted by later scholars. There are in fact other explanations for the name Beith-luis-nin . One explanation is that the word nin , which means forked branch , was used to mean letters in general. Beith-luis-nin could therefore mean simply beith-luis letters. Another suggestion is that beith-luis-nin is a contraction of the first five letters, ie, beith-LVS-nin . The ogham alphabet originally consisted of twenty letters, divided into four groups ( Irish : aicme ) according
2912-567: 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
3016-554: Is possibly mentioned in Tochmarc Étaíne , a tale in the Irish Mythological Cycle , wherein the druid Dalan takes four wands of yew, and writes ogham letters upon them. Then he uses the tools for what some interpret as a form of divination . However, as the tale doesn't explain how the sticks are handled or interpreted, this theory is open to interpretation. A divination method invented by neopagans involves casting sticks upon
3120-412: 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
3224-456: Is that ogham was invented by the first Christian communities in early Ireland, out of a desire for a unique alphabet to write short messages and inscriptions in Irish. The sounds of Primitive Irish may have been difficult to transcribe into the Latin alphabet, motivating the invention of a separate alphabet. A possible such origin, as suggested by McManus (1991:41), is the early Irish Christian community known from around AD 400 at latest, attested by
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3328-659: 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
3432-522: The Beithe-luis-nuin (the ogham) as a perfected writing system for his languages. The names he gave to the letters were those of his 25 best scholars. Alternatively, the Ogam Tract credits Ogma with the script's invention. Ogma was skilled in speech and poetry, and created the system for the learned, to confound rustics and fools. The first message written in ogam was seven b' s on a birch, sent as
3536-555: The Elder Futhark and even the Greek alphabet have their supporters. Runic origin would elegantly explain the presence of "H" and "Z" letters unused in Irish, as well as the presence of vocalic and consonantal variants "U" vs. "W", unknown to Latin writing and lost in Greek (cf. digamma ). The Latin alphabet is the primary contender mainly because its influence at the required period (4th century)
3640-477: The Old Irish period (say, 10th century), but it postdates the Primitive Irish period, or at least the time when the letters were originally named. Its origin is probably due to the letters themselves being called feda "trees", or nin "forking branches" due to their shape. Since a few of the letters were, in fact, named after trees, the interpretation arose that they were called feda because of that. Some of
3744-619: 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 ")
3848-472: The 11th-century Lebor Gabála Érenn , the 14th-century Auraicept na n-Éces , and other Medieval Irish folklore , ogham was first invented soon after the fall of the Tower of Babel , along with the Gaelic language , by the legendary Scythian king, Fenius Farsa . According to the Auraicept, Fenius journeyed from Scythia together with Goídel mac Ethéoir, Íar mac Nema and a retinue of 72 scholars. They came to
3952-544: The 16th century. A modern ogham inscription is found on a gravestone dating to 1802 in Ahenny, County Tipperary . In Scotland, a number of inscriptions using the ogham writing system are known, but their language is still the subject of debate. It has been argued by Richard Cox in The Language of Ogham Inscriptions in Scotland (1999) that the language of these is Old Norse, but others remain unconvinced by this analysis, and regard
4056-611: 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
4160-769: 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
4264-403: 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
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4368-563: 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
4472-463: 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
4576-536: 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
4680-464: The Irish were themselves invading western Britain, the desire to keep communications secret from Romans or Romanised Britons would still have provided an incentive. With bilingual ogham and Latin inscriptions in Wales, however, one would suppose that the ogham could easily be decoded by at least an educated few in the post-Roman world. The second main school of thought, put forward by scholars such as McManus,
4784-684: The Medieval association of each letter with a different tree. Ogham was added to the Unicode Standard in September 1999 with the release of version 3.0. The spelling of the names given is a standardisation dating to 1997, used in Unicode Standard and in Irish Standard 434:1999. The Unicode block for ogham is U+1680–U+169F. Modern New Age and Neopagan approaches to ogham largely derive from
4888-661: The Moon goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument is extremely complex, but in essence, he argues that the Hebrews, Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in the Aegean, called ' the people of the sea ' by the Egyptians, who spread out around Europe in the 2nd millennium BC, taking their religious beliefs with them. He posits that at some early stage these teachings were encoded in alphabet form by poets to pass on their worship of
4992-437: The Primitive Irish of the early centuries AD. The supposed links with the form of the Greek alphabet that Macalister proposed can also be disproved. A fourth hypothesis, proposed by the scholars Rudolf Thurneysen and Joseph Vendryes , is that the forms of the letters derive from a numerical tally-mark counting system of the time, based around the numbers five and twenty, which was then adapted into an alphabet. According to
5096-427: The Primitive Irish period is mostly restricted to phonological developments. There are two main schools of thought among scholars as to the motivation for the creation of ogham. Scholars such as Carney and MacNeill have suggested that ogham was first created as a cryptic alphabet, designed by the Irish to hide their meaning from writers of the Latin alphabet. In this school of thought, it is asserted that "the alphabet
5200-597: 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 ,
5304-587: The actual St Patrick died much later about 492/493. Patrick's mission was largely confined to Ulster and Connacht , while Palladius seems to have been active in Leinster , particularly in the area around Clonard . The Vita tripartita states that he died at Cell Fine (thought to be modern-day Killeen Cormac , County Kildare ), where he left his books, writing tablet and relics of Peter and Paul . Alban Butler, citing Hector Boethius and Camden, says that he died at Fordun, fifteen miles south of Aberdeen , around
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#17330929999565408-731: 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
5512-599: The bulk of which are in southern Munster . The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire , Wales. The vast majority of the inscriptions consist of personal names. According to the High Medieval Bríatharogam , the letters are named after various trees. For this reason, Ogham is sometimes known as the Celtic tree alphabet . The etymology of the word ogam or ogham remains unclear. One possible origin
5616-713: 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 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
5720-468: 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
5824-576: The evidence from early Irish sagas and legends indicate that ogham was used for short messages on wood or metal, either to relay messages or to denote ownership of the object inscribed. Some of these messages seem to have been cryptic in nature and some were also for magical purposes. In addition, there is evidence from sources such as In Lebor Ogaim , or the Ogham Tract , that ogham may have been used to keep records or lists, such as genealogies and numerical tallies of property and business transactions. There
5928-490: The existence of some of these stones. A third hypothesis, put forward by the noted ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister was influential at one time, but finds little favour with scholars today. He believed – because ogham consists of four groups of five letters with a sequence of strokes from one to five – that ogham was first invented as a secret system of finger signals in Cisalpine Gaul around 600 BC by Gaulish druids, and
6032-411: The fact that the inscriptions are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript sources, instead of being continuations of the original monument tradition. Unlike orthodox ogham, some medieval inscriptions feature all five Forfeda . Scholastic inscriptions are written on stemlines cut into the face of the stone, instead of along its edge. Ogham was also occasionally used for notes in manuscripts down to
6136-545: 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
6240-695: The goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) in a secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, via the druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets of early Ireland and Wales. Graves, therefore, looked at the Tree Alphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the tree folklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of the letters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic". Although his theories have been discredited and discarded by modern scholars (including Macalister himself, with whom Graves corresponded), they were taken up with enthusiasm by some adherents of
6344-646: 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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#17330929999566448-410: 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
6552-425: 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 ,
6656-439: The manuscript tradition, but probably "F" from "SW"), and gétal (velar nasal "NG" in the manuscript tradition, but etymologically probably "GW"). It appears that the Ogham alphabet was modelled on another script, and some even consider it a mere cipher of its template script (Düwel 1968: points out similarity with ciphers of Germanic runes ). The largest number of scholars favour the Latin alphabet as this template, although
6760-399: 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
6864-437: The mission of Palladius by Pope Celestine I in AD 431. A variation is the idea that this alphabet was first invented, for whatever reason, in 4th-century Irish settlements in west Wales after contact and intermarriage with Romanised Britons with knowledge of the Latin alphabet. In fact, several ogham stones in Wales are bilingual, containing both Irish and British Latin , testifying to the international contacts that led to
6968-417: The name idad is probably an artificial form of iubhar "yew", as the kennings support that meaning, and concedes that ailm may possibly mean "pine tree," as it appears to be used to mean that in an 8th-century poem. Thus out of twenty letter names, only eight at most are the names of trees. The other names have a variety of meanings. Of the forfeda , four are glossed by the Auraicept: The fifth letter
7072-497: 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
7176-411: The neopagan movement. In addition, Graves followed the BLNFS order of ogham letters put forward by Macalister (see above), with the result taken up by many New Age and Neopagan writers as the 'correct' order of the letters, despite its rejection by scholars. The main use of ogham by adherents of Neo-druidism and other forms of Neopaganism is for the purpose of divination. Divination with ogham symbols
7280-409: 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
7384-445: The noblest families of France and several of them held high rank about this time in the Church of Gaul. The Gallo-Roman poet Rutilius Claudius Namatianus , in his poem De reditu suo , recounting his voyage from Rome to Gaul in 417, mentions a young relative of his called Palladius, who had been sent from Gaul to Rome to study law. He refers to Palladius's father, Exuperantius, as bringing peace, law and freedom to Armorica. Exuperantius
7488-508: The now-discredited theories of Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess . In this work, Graves took his inspiration from the theories of the ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister (see above) and elaborated on them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham alphabet encoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle East in Stone Age times, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship of
7592-639: 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
7696-518: The number of known inscriptions in the contemporary Elder Futhark ), of which the highest concentration by far is found in the southwestern Irish province of Munster . Over one-third of the total are found in County Kerry alone, most densely in the former kingdom of the Corcu Duibne . Later inscriptions are known as " scholastic ", and are post 6th century in date. The term 'scholastic' derives from
7800-522: The other letter names had fallen out of use as independent words, and were thus free to be claimed as "Old Gaelic" tree names, while others (such as ruis , úath or gort ) were more or less forcefully reinterpreted as epithets of trees by the medieval glossators. McManus (1991, §3.15) discusses possible etymologies of all the letter names, and as well as the five mentioned above, he adds one other definite tree name: onn "ash" (the Auraicept wrongly has "furze"). McManus (1988, p. 164) also believes that
7904-498: 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
8008-452: The phonological evidence it is clear that the alphabet predates the 5th century. Indeed, the alphabet has letters representing "archaic" phonemes which were clearly part of the system, but which were no longer spoken by the 5th century and never appear in inscriptions, suggesting an extended period of ogham writing on wood or other perishable material prior to the preserved monumental inscriptions. They are: úath ("H") and straif ("Z" in
8112-634: The plain of Shinar to study the confused languages at Nimrod 's tower (the Tower of Babel ). Finding that they had already been dispersed, Fenius sent his scholars to study them, staying at the tower, coordinating the effort. After ten years, the investigations were complete, and Fenius created in Bérla tóbaide "the selected language", taking the best of each of the confused tongues, which he called Goídelc , Goidelic , after Goídel mac Ethéoir. He also created extensions of Goídelc , called Bérla Féne , after himself, Íarmberla , after Íar mac Nema, and others, and
8216-539: 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
8320-540: The reign of James V , royal funds were disbursed for the fabrication of a new reliquary for the church there, and an annual "Paldy Fair" was held at least until the time of the Reformation . His date of death is unknown; however, the Annals of Ulster contain the following references: Thus, it is possible that later writers confused Palladius and Patrick . If the earlier dates of 457/461 indeed refer to him, then it seems that
8424-487: 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 )
8528-629: The request of the British bishops to help combat Pelagianism . In 431, Prosper's Chronicon records: "Palladius, having been ordained by Pope Celestine, is sent as first bishop to the Scotti believing in Christ ", according to the Chronicon of Prosper of Aquitaine . This implies there was already a community of Christians in Ireland, who may have requested a bishop be appointed. Prosper later wrote in his Contra collatorem (c. 433) that Celestine, "having ordained
8632-432: 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
8736-683: 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
8840-449: The script was carved into the edge ( droim or faobhar ) of the stone, which formed the stemline against which individual characters are cut. The text of these "Orthodox Ogham" inscriptions is read beginning from the bottom left-hand side of a stone, continuing upward along the edge, across the top and down the right-hand side (in the case of long inscriptions). Roughly 380 inscriptions are known in total (a number, incidentally, very close to
8944-617: The stones as being Pictish in origin. However, due to the lack of knowledge about the Picts, the inscriptions remain undeciphered, their language possibly being non- Indo-European . The Pictish inscriptions are scholastic, and are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript tradition brought into Scotland by Gaelic settlers . A rare example of a Christianised (cross-inscribed) Ogham stone can be seen in St. Mary's Collegiate Church Gowran , County Kilkenny . As well as its use for monumental inscriptions,
9048-521: The stroke angle and direction. The groups were Five additional letters were later introduced (mainly in the manuscript tradition), the so-called forfeda . A letter for p is conspicuously absent, since the phoneme was lost in Proto-Celtic , and the gap was not filled in Q-Celtic , and no sign was needed before loanwords from Latin containing p appeared in Irish ( e.g. , Patrick). Conversely, there
9152-663: The supplementary letters into a series of diphthongs , changing completely the values for pín and emancholl . This meant that the alphabet was once again without a letter for the 'P' sound, forcing the invention of the letter peithboc (soft 'B'), which appears in the manuscripts only. The letter names are interpreted as names of trees or shrubs in manuscript tradition, both in Auraicept na n-Éces ('The Scholars' Primer') and In Lebor Ogaim ('The Ogam Tract'). They were first discussed in modern times by Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1685), who took them at face value. The Auraicept itself
9256-413: The tree or plant linked to each letter. Only five of the twenty primary letters have tree names that the Auraicept considers comprehensible without further glosses, namely beith "birch", fearn "alder", saille "willow", duir "oak" and coll "hazel". All the other names have to be glossed or "translated". According to the leading modern ogham scholar, Damian McManus, the "Tree Alphabet" idea dates to
9360-705: 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
9464-483: The word ogham means letters , while the alphabet is called beith-luis-nin after the letter names of the first letters (in the same way that the modern word "alphabet" derives from the Greek letters alpha and beta ). The order of the first five letters, BLFSN, led the scholar Macalister to propose that a link between a form of the Greek alphabet used in Northern Italy in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. However, there
9568-594: 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
9672-477: Was a Deacon of Rome, as it is unlikely that a deacon of Auxerre would exercise the influence in Rome that many have assigned to Palladius; and that it is in accordance with St Prosper's usage to indicate the Roman deacon by the simple title "diaconus." Historian Kathleen Hughes regards it as more probable that he was a deacon of Germanus, and that Germanus sent him to Rome, to request a commission to travel to Britain at
9776-475: 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
9880-560: Was apparently praefectus praetorio Galliarum ("Praetorian prefect of the Gallic provinces") when he was killed in an army mutiny at Arles in 424. Prosper of Aquitaine in his Chronicon mentions a deacon called Palladius, who in 429 urged Pope Celestine I to send bishop Germanus of Auxerre to Britain to bring the Britons back to the Catholic faith. Butler and P.F. Moran say that Palladius
9984-464: Was created by Irish scholars or druids for political, military or religious reasons to provide a secret means of communication in opposition to the authorities of Roman Britain." The serious threat of invasion by the Roman Empire, which then ruled over neighbouring southern Britain, may have spurred the creation of the alphabet. Alternatively, in later centuries when the threat of invasion had receded and
10088-643: 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
10192-550: 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. Palladius (bishop of Ireland) Palladius ( fl. AD 408–431; died c. 457/461)
10296-432: Was inspired by a form of the Greek alphabet current in Northern Italy at the time. According to this idea, the alphabet was transmitted in oral form or on wood only, until it was finally put into a permanent form on stone inscriptions in early Christian Ireland. Later scholars are largely united in rejecting this hypothesis, however, primarily because a detailed study of the letters shows that they were created specifically for
10400-465: 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
10504-616: Was soon banished by the king of Leinster , and returned to North Britain. According to Muirchu (who lived two centuries later) in the Book of Armagh , "God hindered him...and neither did those fierce and cruel men receive his doctrine readily, nor did he himself wish to spend time in a strange land, but returned to him who sent him." Palladius was accompanied by four companions: Sylvester and Solinus, who remained after him in Ireland, and Augustinus and Benedictus, who followed him to Britain but returned to their own country after his death. Palladius
10608-627: 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
10712-550: Was the first bishop of the Christians of Ireland , preceding Saint Patrick . It is possible that some elements of their life stories were later conflated in Irish tradition. Palladius was a deacon and member of one of the prominent families in Gaul . Pope Celestine I consecrated him a bishop and sent him to Ireland "to the Scotti believing in Christ". The Palladii were reckoned among
10816-442: 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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