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The independent Irish state from 1922 ( The Irish Free State 1922-37; Éire from 1937, also known since 1949 as the Republic of Ireland) launched a major push to promote the Irish language, with some of its leaders hoping that the state would become predominantly Irish-speaking within a generation. In fact, many of these initiatives, notably compulsory Irish at school and the requirement that one must know Irish to be employed in the civil service, proved counter-productive with generations of school-children alienated by what was often heavily-handed attempts at indoctrination, that created a cultural backlash. Demands that children learn seventeenth century Irish poetry, or study the life of Peig Sayers (a Gaelic speaker from the Blasket Islands) whose accounts of her life, as recounted in Irish language books, though fascinating, was taught in a poor manner, left a cultural legacy of negative reactions among generations, all too many of whom deliberately refused to use the language once they left school.
The emergence of a new, more pragmatic and technocratic leadership in the beginning of the sixties, with Seán Lemass as Taoiseach, marked the shift in the attitude of Ireland's dominant élites towards the language. Whereas the first three presidents of Ireland ( Douglas Hyde/Dubhghlas de hÍde, Sean T. O'Kelly/Seán T. Ó Ceallaigh and Eamon de Valera) and the fifth ( Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh) were all so fluent in Irish that it became the working language in their official residence, later presidents struggled with any degree of fluency, its use declining to such an extent that it is only used now (if at all) in occasional speeches. Similarly, where earlier generations of Irish government leaders were highly fluent, recent prime ministers ( Albert Reynolds/Ailbhe Mag Raghnaill, John Bruton, Bertie Ahern) had little fluency, they struggling to pronounce passages of their speeches in Irish to their Ard-Fheiseanna (party conference(s), pronounced 'Ord Esh-ana') .
It is, though, disputed to what extent such professed language revivalists as de Valera genuinely tried to Gaelicise political life. Ernest Blythe did little, in his day as Minister of Finance, to assist Irish language projects beyond the vested interests of already established organisations. Even in the first Dáil Éireann, few speeches were delivered as Gaeilge (in Irish), with the exception of formal proceedings. None of the recent taoisigh (plural of 'Taoiseach', meaning 'prime minister') have been fluent in Irish, of the recent Presidents only Mary McAleese (Máire Mhac Ghiolla Íosa) and Mary Robinson/Máire Mhic Róíbín are fluent, though the latter studied the language to improve her fluency while in office. Presidents of Ireland do take their inauguration 'Declaration of Office' in the language, but that too is optional).
Even modern parliamentary legislation, through supposed to be issued in both Irish and English, is frequently only available in English. Much of publicly displayed Irish is ungrammatical, thus irritating both language activists and enemies of the language and contributing to the public image of the revival as phony and bogus.
Many public bodies have Irish language or bilingual names, but some have downgraded the language. For example, Eircom (formerly Telecom Eireann) effectively dropped Irish from its telephone directories in 1999. An Post, the Republic's postal service, continues to have place names in the language on its postmarks, as well as recognising addresses.
In an effort to address the half-committed attitude of Irish language use by the State, the Official Languages Act was passed in 2003. This act ensures that every publication made by a governmental body must be published in both official languages, Irish and English. In addition, the office of Official Languages Commissioner has been set up to act as an ombudsman with regard to equal treatment in both languages.
Picture of a typical Irish road sign in Mullingar, County Westmeath, with placenames in English and Irish.
In 2002, at the launch of what was to be a new traffic management system for Dublin, it was revealed that the vast majority of signs would be in English only. The justification offered was that, in making the English lettering large enough to be easily read by motorists from a distance, there was no space to include Irish. The use of the single Irish words left, 'An Lár' (meaning city centre) was criticised on the basis that no-one would know what it meant, even though it was a term used widely for decades on street signs. Even the once common method in Ireland of beginning and ending letters (beginning 'A Chara' (meaning friend) and ending 'Is Mise le Meas') is becoming rarer.
On balance, the overly enthusiastic promotion of Irish by the political and cultural elite from the 1920s did more harm than good to the language's longterm prospects. Instead of winning over people to the concept that they could speak Irish, they attempted to follow a process of saying they must speak Irish. That created a backlash that made many people more determined than ever not to. The language went into long-term decline, with Gaeltacht areas (exclusively Irish speaking areas) shrinking as the results of each national census returns were analysed. Today, most people even in what are officially Gaeltacht areas, no longer speak the language. In a last ditch effort to stop the complete collapse of Irish-speaking in Connemara in Galway, new planning controls have been introduced to ensure that only Irish speakers will be given permission to build homes in Irish speaking areas. But even this may be too little, too late, as many of those areas have a majority of English-speakers, with most Irish speakers being bilingual, using English as their everyday language except among themselves.
Attempts have been made to offer some support for the language through the media, notably the launch of Raidió na Gaeltachta (Gaeltacht radio) and Teilifís na Gaeilge (Irish language television, called initially 'TnaG', now completely renamed TG4); both have had limited success. TG4 has offered Irish-speaking young people a forum for youth culture as Gaeilge (in Irish) through rock and pop shows, travel shows, dating games, and even a controversial award-winning soap opera in Irish called Ros na Rún (featuring, among other characters, an Irish-speaking gay couple and their child). Most of TG4's viewership, however, tends to come from showing European soccer matches and films in English.
In 1938, the founder of the Conradh na Gaeilge, Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland. The record of his delivering his inauguration 'Declaration of Office' in his native Roscommon Irish remains almost the only surviving remnant of anyone speaking in that dialect, which in effect died out with him. Over sixty years later, the majority of the Gaeltacht and Irish-speaking areas in existence as he took that oath, no longer exist.
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