Irish

Irish (Standard Irish: Gaeilge) is a Goidelic language of the Celtic language family, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family. Irish originated in Ireland and was historically and still is spoken by Irish people throughout Ireland. Although English is the more common first language elsewhere in Ireland, Irish is spoken as a first language in substantial areas of counties Galway, Kerry, Cork and Donegal, smaller areas of Waterford, Mayo and Meath, and in parts of Belfast (especially West Belfast) and a few other locations. It is also spoken by a much larger group of habitual but non-traditional speakers across the country, mostly in urban areas where the majority are second language speakers.
Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people for most of their recorded history, and they took it with them to other regions, notably Scotland and the Isle Of Man, where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx respectively. It has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe.
Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and is an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland. It is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland.
== Links to Peel ==
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Irish language music which Peel played tended to be from the folk genre, especially artists such as the Chieftains and Na Fili. Those artists got airplay on his shows in the early/mid 70's, where many of the songs were either sung or titled in Irish or both.
One of Peel's favourites in the 70's, Tír na nÓg, had their name in the Irish language, which is translated as Land of the young. However, all their songs were sung in English and none of the members spoke Irish fluently, despite being from Ireland.
By the time the 80's arrived and beyond, Irish language music was largely replaced by fellow Celtic Welsh language artists on Peel's shows, whose variety of genres from punk to electronic was more appealing to him than Irish language music that was stuck mainly in the folk genre. The only exception was in 1989 where Peel played an all Irish language song called Im' Long Me Measaim, sang by Cathal Coughlan.
== Sessions ==
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This is a list of session artists whose song titles were significantly in Irish
* Chieftains: (5 sessions, 1970-1975)
* Na Fili: (3 sessions, 1973-1976)
== See Also ==
* Welsh
* French
* German
* Glossary
== External Links ==
* Wikipedia
Category:Subjects