page_title: Gaeltacht
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gaeltacht / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Gaeltacht areas as of 1956.
context_page_description: Gaeltacht is an Irish-language word for any primarily Irish-speaking region.
  In Ireland, the term Gaeltacht refers individually to any, or collectively to all, of the districts where the government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home.
  The Gaeltacht districts were first officially recognised during the 1920s in the early years of the Irish Free State, following the Gaelic Revival, as part of a government policy aimed at restoring the Irish language.
  It is now recognised that the Gaeltacht is threatened by serious language decline. Research published in 2015 showed that of the 155 electoral divisions in the Gaeltacht, only 21 are communities where Irish is spoken on a daily basis by two-thirds or more of the population. Two-thirds is regarded by some academics as a tipping point for language survival.
context_section_description: In 1926 the official Gaeltacht was designated as a result of the report of the first Gaeltacht Commission Coimisiún na Gaeltachta. The exact boundaries were not defined. The quota at the time for classification as Gaeltacht was 25%+ of the population to be Irish-speaking, although in many cases Gaeltacht status was accorded to areas that were linguistically weaker than this. The Irish Free State recognised that there were predominately Irish-speaking or semi-Irish-speaking districts in 15 of its 26 counties.
  In the 1950s another Gaeltacht Commission concluded that the Gaeltacht boundaries were ill-defined. It recommended that Gaeltacht status be based solely on the strength of language use in an area. In the 1950s, Gaeltacht districts were initially defined precisely and excluded many areas in which the number of Irish speakers had declined. Gaeltacht areas were recognised in seven of the state's 26 counties (nominally Donegal, Galway, Mayo, Kerry, and Waterford).
  The Gaeltacht boundaries have not officially been altered since then, apart from minor changes:
  The inclusion of An Clochán (Cloghane) and Cé Bhréanainn (Brandon) in County Kerry in 1974;
  The inclusion of a part of West Muskerry in County Cork (although the Irish-speaking population had decreased markedly from what it had been before the 1950s); and
  The inclusion of Baile Ghib (Gibstown) and Ráth Chairn (Rathcarran) in Meath in 1967.
caption: An Ghaeltacht 1956
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