[4][5] The first linguistic records in Ireland are Primitive Irish inscriptions written in the Ogham alphabet.

Languages spoken in Iron Age Ireland before then are now irretrievable, although there are some claims of traces in Irish toponymy.

It did not initially take hold as a widely spoken language, as the Norman elite spoke Anglo-Norman.

Following the Tudor conquest of Ireland and the 1610–15 Ulster Plantation, particularly in the old Pale, Elizabethan English became the language of court, justice, administration, business, trade and of the landed gentry.

Irish was accepted as a vernacular language, but then as now, fluency in English was an essential element for those who wanted social mobility and personal advancement.

Since the 1850s, English medium education was promoted by both the UK administration and the Roman Catholic Church.

The 2002 census found that 103,000 British citizens were living in the Republic of Ireland, along with 11,300 from the US and 8,900 from Nigeria, all of whom would speak other dialects of English.

Communities that speak Irish as their first language, generally in sporadic regions on the island's west coast, are collectively called the Gaeltacht.

The total number of people who answered 'yes' to being able to speak Irish to some extent in April 2016 was 1,761,420, 39.8 percent of respondents.

There are also several newspapers, such as Tuairisc.ie, Meon Eile, Seachtain (a weekly supplement in the Irish Independent), and several magazines including Comhar, Feasta, and An Timire.

All of the 40 or so radio stations in the Republic have to have some weekly Irish-language programming to obtain their broadcasting license.

[17] None of these languages were spoken by a majority of the population, but are of historical interest, giving loan words to Irish and Hiberno-English.

From Norman derived "Law French", a few words of which continue to be used today for certain legal purposes in both jurisdictions on the island.

[citation needed] Yola was a language which evolved from Middle English, surviving in County Wexford up to the 19th century.

He quoted from a report by An Bord Curaclaim agus Scrúduithe (The Curriculum and Examinations Board) Report of the Board of Studies for Languages, Dublin 1987: "It must be stressed … that the needs of Irish as L1 at post-primary level have been totally ignored, as at present there is no recognition in terms of curriculum and syllabus of any linguistic differences between learners of Irish as L1 and L2.".

In the GCSE and A Level qualification, Irish is the 3rd most chosen modern language in Northern Ireland, and in the top ten in the UK.