Irish government policy and political development of the Gaeltacht

Abstract

Abstract The paper deals initially with the historical background to the Irish revival effort, stressing in particular the over‐optimistic evaluation of the extent of the Gaeltacht (Irish‐speaking) communities by the Irish state, which came about largely due to the inspiration of the language restoration movement. It traces the broad development of official attitudes since the 1920s, both towards the Gaeltacht and towards the language effort itself, stressing the need to reform the Udaras na Gaeltachta (The Gaeltacht Authority) structures in a local government context and in view of the new integrated regional development approach of the E.E.C. It also deals with current issues which are seen as crucial to the language, including the development of Irish‐language television, the status of Irish within the E.E.C. and the need to restore the enumeration of Irish speakers in the U.K. census of 1991, as no questions on the language have been included in census returns from the Six Counties of Northern Ireland...