Seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish Language Week) is an international Irish language festival and one of the biggest celebrations of our native language and culture that takes place each year in Ireland and in many other countries. 

This year’s festival is running from 1 – 17 March 2014.

The festival gives an opportunity to everyone to enjoy Irish, whether you are a fluent speaker, learner or have a cúpla focal, with a calendar of entertaining and fun events for every type of interest and every age group.

Voluntary and community groups, local authorities, schools, libraries, and music, sports, arts and culture organisations organise events for Seachtain na Gaeilge in their local area.

Irish is for everyone, Seachtain na Gaeilge is for everyone – Croí na Teanga, It’s You!

For more information, including a full events listing, visit the Seachtain na Gaeilge website.

It can be quite a daunting task to learn the Irish language if you live outside Ireland, simply because there is still a real lack of resources available throughout the world.  However, I would like to recommend you check out what the folks at The Irish Gift offer in terms of learning the language.  I'm continue to be impressed with their approach of teaching the language via Skype and Google hangout.  Check out their website by clicking their logo below.

Some facts about the Irish language from the Seachtain na Gaeilge website:

Irish is one of the oldest and most historical written languages in the world. The earliest evidence of this is on Ogham stones from the 5^th century. Now Irish can now be found in more than 4,500 books, on the television, on the radio, in the newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet.

What type of language is Irish?

Irish is a Celtic language which comes from Old Irish. The Celtic languages are believed to have come from Common Celtic, which came from Indo-European itself.

When did Irish come to Ireland?

We cannot be certain when Irish first came to Ireland, but many scholars believe that it was here over 2,500 years ago. There were other languages spoken here before Irish but, by 500AD, Irish was spoken all over Ireland and was spreading through Scotland, the west coast of Britain and the Isle of Man.

When did the writing of Irish start?

The oldest remains of  written Irish that we have are inscriptions on Ogham stones from the 5th and 6th centuries. Irish was first written in the Roman alphabet before the beginning of the 7th century which makes Irish the oldest written vernacular language north of the Alps.

Did other languages influence Irish?

Between 900 and 1200AD, some loanwords came from the Scandinavian language, words like ‘pingin’ (penny), and ’margadh’ (market); and later from the French of the Normans, for example ‘cúirt’ (court), and ‘garsún’ (boy). Gradually, the Anglo-Normans began to speak Irish and by the start of the 16^th century, most of the people of Ireland were Irish speakers again.

When did the decline of Irish start?

Although the majority of the people between 1200 and 1600AD had Irish, it was never an administrative language and English was necessary for administrative and legal affairs. Irish received several blows during the 16^th and 17^th century with plantations, the Williamite War and the enacting of the penal laws. The status of Irish as a major language was lost even though Irish continued as the language of the greater part of the rural population;  and a lot of people started to take up English, especially during and after the Great Famine.

When did the Irish revival movement start?

Among other development, The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language was established in 1876 which gained recognition for Irish in the education system. In 1893 Conradh na Gaeilge (The Gaelic League) was set up, from which a mass movement of support for the spoken language grew. There have been a lot of developments in the 120 years since and the highlights can be seen in the Historical Timeline section.

What about Irish today?

According to the 2011 census in the 26 counties:

• 1,774,437 people can speak Irish – 41% of the population
• 77,185 people speak Irish daily (outside of the education system) – 1.8% of the population
• 110,642 speak Irish weekly
• 613,236 speak Irish less regularly
• one in every four never speaks Irish
• That’s 18.7% of the population speak Irish daily, weekly or less regularly

According to the 2001 census in the 6 counties:

• 167,490 people have some knowledge of Irish – 10.4% of the population
• 75,125 people speak, read, write and understand Irish  –  4% of the population

As well as this, interest is growing in the language abroad as well, with Irish classes and events taking place the length and breadth of the globe!