page_title: County Meath
section_title: Irish language
hierarchical_section_title: County Meath / Demographics / Irish language
caption_attribution_description: English: Baile Ghib and Rathcairn in Meath
context_page_description: County Meath is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Mid-East Region. It is named after the historic Kingdom of Meath. Meath County Council is the local authority for the county. At the 2016 census, the population of the county was 195,044. The county town of Meath is Navan. Other towns in the county include Trim, Kells, Laytown, Ashbourne, Dunboyne, and Slane.
  It is one of only two counties outside the west of Ireland to have an official Gaeltacht and the only county in Leinster to have an official Gaeltacht.
context_section_description: Meath contains Leinster's only Gaeltacht areas, at Ráth Chairn, close to Athboy, and Baile Ghib, located northwest of Navan. With just 1,771 native Irish speakers between them, spread over a total area of 44km2, they are the two smallest Gaeltachts in Ireland. 
  Unlike the Gaeltachts of the west of Ireland, the Meath Gaeltachts are the result of a government gaelicisation scheme to reintroduce the Irish language to the east of the country. In total, 5 Irish-speaking settlements were set up in Meath between 1935 and 1939 - Ráth Chairn, Baile Ghib, Kilbride, Clongill and Allenstown. They were established on fertile land which had been allowed to fall into disrepair by absentee landlords and was consequently repossessed by the Irish Land Commission. In total, 122 Irish-speaking families moved to the county. They were primarily from Connemara, but some families were also from Kerry. 
  Over the years, Kilbride was subsumed into Ráth Chairn, and Clongill was subsumed into Baile Ghib. The fifth and final Gaeltacht to be set up - Allenstown - failed after a generation, as several Irish-speaking families moved away and day-to-day use of the Irish language failed to take hold amongst the children of those who remained. The two surviving settlements were officially recognised as Gaeltacht areas in 1967.
  According to the 2016 Census, the percentage of Irish speakers in the county stood at 38.6 percent. Of that, there were 2,533 Irish-language speakers, or Gaeilgeoirí (people who speak Irish in their day-to-day lives) in County Meath. In addition, there are 1,304 pupils attending the seven Gaelscoileanna outside the Gaeltacht areas. The Greater Dublin area has the highest number of Irish-medium schools in Ireland.
caption: Gaeltacht Areas (Green) within County Meath.
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