Recently I was thinking...

Of all the current gaeltachtaí, An Rinn must be the most unique. It's the only remaining gaeltacht in east Munster. It's also the most easterly organic gaeltacht in the country (Ráth Chairn excluded due to it being settled by Irish speakers...mostly from Conamara.)

Census figures are an imperfect illustration of the state of a language, but even if they were...they would only go so far since the stats for An Rinn have fluctuated widely over the past couple of years.

What's clear is that the number of native speakers of this particular dialect there is now in the mere hundreds.

For example, in 2002 the population age 3+ for the Electoral Division (ED) was 1026. Of these, 442 individuals were recorded as being daily speakers of Irish. That's 43%.

In the 2006 census, although the official population only rose to 1152, the number of Irish speakers rose to 925. In other words, the percentage of the population who put themselves down as Irish speakers rose from 43% to 80% in just four years.

However, this was also the first time that those who selected Yes to the Irish speaking option could define their Irish language behaviour. Options included:


- DAILY within the education only
- DAILY also outside the education system
- DAILY outside education

Those who said they spoke it daily outside the education system was 382.

382/1152 = 33%

This is more in line with the SLG figures (grants for Irish speaking households...)

According to the tables over on anghaeltacht.net (via Foinse, 27% of eligible households received the full grant in 2006/27.
http://anghaeltacht.net/ctg/catagoirc.pdf


Has anyone spent on the forum spent time there? Are any efforts being made to "preserve" the speech of the lifelong native speakers in the area? I can see how doing such a thing might give the wrong impression...(let us record you before your dialect is dead...etc...) but it would be a shame if it was lost.

The efforts of people like Heinrich Wagner who recorded some of the last speakers in places like Louth and Clare in the 1940s and 50s...those are well known...but what about those still living in places like Rinn, Gaeltacht Mhúscraí in Cork, and Mayo....they seem likely to fade away next.

This is what I am exactly planning to do, when I will do my Gaeltacht travels I will make a record of how these people speak Irish, as far as I know there is some work on Mayo Irish.

There is also a book of ''The Irish of An Rinn'' and the one for Muskerry but we need more books to stop these dialects from dieing.

Wagner recorded native speakers from Teelin and see how they speak Irish, and it is very different to the Irish of Gweedore.

Maybe to stop Ring Irish, Cork Irish, and Mayo Irish from dieing maybe get couple of stories like Taisce Focal and get someone who is willing to help to do recordings, and do a recording of a dictionary.

But how mich work would one have to do to save a dialect from dieing?

I wonder if Irish is still to be heard in An Rinn, someone told me that it is a Fíor-Ghaeltacht.

It's not a fíor-ghaeltacht. Not in 2008.

The stats above show that it's certainly spoken by a decent proportion of the community.

Just a day or two ago there was a show on TG4 about a shipwreck or some such thing in the area. The sinking of the Naomh Garbhán, perhaps?

I wonder how many traditional native speakers are left in Ring...

I will be doing an all Gaeltacht trip after college, which Gaeltachtaí have you been to Danny and which was the best one, for Irish being heard?

It seems that you been around a lot a chara! :-)

FYI, the only counties with substantial fíor-ghaeltachtaí are Galway and Donegal. The more strict/purist might say that south Conamara (and the Aran Islands) are the only substantial gaeltachtaí left because they aren't really seperated from one another by mostly english speaking areas. They run together from roughly just west of An Spidéal through to Ros Muc, Ceantar na nOileán, and a few other communities to Cill Chiaráin and Carna. About a dozen or so communities plus Oileáin Árann. Donegal doesn't have that anymore.

What's left of the true gaeltacht in the western Dingle peninsula (Corca Dhuibhne) is arguably too small at this point to be defined as such.

That's by 2008 standards. All these areas represent only a small chunk of the original "official gaeltacht" as defined in 1926. Those areas represent a significantly reduced area compared to 1851 and so on........

I've posted about my travels over on IGTF (actually, I've been meaning to post a few more tidbits there...I spent most of the summer in Dún Chaoin where Irish is still quite vibrant...but the population is tiny...)
http://www.irishgaelictranslator.com/translation/viewtopic.70656.html

I've spent quite a bit of time in the heart of the west Kerry gaeltacht and in Donegal...but still need to see more of south Conamara.

In the meantime..I can tell you that the best place for hearing Irish in my experience was the island of Inis Meáin. Again, the population is very small (around 175 or so...the islanders I stayed with said the official population is inflated a bit). I heard Irish in the shops (shopkeeper never uttered a word of English to me when I went in there...I used what little I had with him...) Some of the youngsters used Irish too which has been an all too rare experience, unfortunately.

So I would definitely recommend there if you want to spend time in a community where Irish still has the upper hand, so to speak/

Other places that I stayed in that come to mind are Baile na nGall (Ballydavid) on the Dingle Peninsula, Oileán Thoráí/Tory Island in Donegal and Na Doirí Beaga (within the parish of Gaoth Dobhair...)

I've only passed through the Cork gaeltacht (spent time on Oileán Chléire/Cape Clear Island last time though...heard Irish once in three days) so I'd like to go to Cúil Aodha, and Rinn and Ráth Chairn and Ceathrú Thaidh in Mayo. Basically the most vibrant communities in each of the remaining counties that contain gaeltachtaí.

Put as far as the fíor-ghaeltacht goes, I still haven't spent time in the heart of Conamara. Only An Spidéal and Ros a' Mhíl and for just a brief time.

maith an fear!

There are some other sources for the Irish of An Rinn, including the word-lists 'Díolaim Dhéiseach' by Diarmaid Ó hAirt (Royal Irish Academy 1988)and 'Sean-Chainnt na nDéise' by Rev. M. Sheehan, (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 1944). There have been a number of folklore collections, most notably Cainnt an tSean-Shaoghail by Arland Ussher (Oifig an tSolathair, undated).

Thanks for the info. I was wondering if it was all stuff from the 30s and 40s. Good to see there's some more recent material (relatively speaking) as the Irish of today and the Irish of 50 years ago are miles apart.

Antain's list is a good one and I would add a number of books that have been published or re-published in recent years, dealing with the Ring/Old Parish Gaeltacht [An Rinn/An Sean Phobal]:

AR BÓTHAR DOM - Nioclás Breatnach, Coláiste Na Rinne, Dún Garbhán, Co Phortláirge.

FIR MHÓRA AN tSEAN PHOBAIL - Eibhlín Bean Uí Chorraoin, [N. Mac Craith, eag.], Coláiste Na Rinne, Dún Garbhán, Co Phortláirge.

LEABHAR MHAIDHC DHÁITH - Martin Verling [eag.], An Sagart, An Daingean, Co Chiarraí.

And I can't overlook the annual journal of the Déise Gaeltacht, AN LINN BHUÍ, edited by Pádraig Ó Macháin and Aoibheann Nic Dhonnchadha.

Seanfhear