The Gaeltacht and the Irish Language

The Gaeltacht is the set of districts, nearly all of them on the Atlantic coast, where Irish is still an everyday community language rather than a school subject. The largest are in Connemara and northwest Donegal, with smaller ones in Mayo, Kerry, west Cork, Waterford and a single inland pocket in Meath. Road signs in these areas are given in Irish only, which catches drivers out more than anything else does. Every summer teenagers from the rest of the country arrive for residential courses and stay with local families, and that is where most Irish people's real contact with the language happens. Radio and television in Irish are made here, and the accent shifts sharply between Donegal, Connemara and Kerry.

What you actually see

• Irish-only road signs - place names given in one language, with no translation.
• The summer colleges - residential courses that fill the villages in July and August.
• Three dialects - Ulster, Connacht and Munster Irish, mutually intelligible with effort.
• Local broadcasting - Irish-language radio and television produced in these districts.

When to go

May to September for the weather and for the summer courses, which fill villages with students and put music and dancing into the local halls. Outside those months the districts are quiet and many small services close for the winter. Sunday Mass in Irish is one of the easier ways for a visitor to hear the language simply being used.

Honest expectations

A Gaeltacht boundary on a map does not mean everyone you meet speaks Irish. The number of daily speakers is small and has been falling for a long time, and English is what you will mostly hear in shops. Some villages depend heavily on the summer student trade and feel empty the rest of the year. There is nothing to visit as such.

Nearby

Connemara, the Dingle Peninsula and the Donegal coast all lie inside Gaeltacht districts.