Irish Language
Much of the county is seen as being a bastion of Gaelic culture and the Irish language, the county holding the second-largest Gaeltacht area in the country with a population of 24,744 16% of the county's population lives in the Gaeltacht. There are about 25,000 Irish speakers in County Donegal. According to the 2011 Census, 17,132 say they can speak Irish in the County Donegal Gaeltacht. There are 1,005 attending the 5 Gaelscoileanna and 2 Gaelcholáistí in the rest of the county. According to the 2006 Census, there are also 7,218 people who identify as being daily Irish speakers outside the Gaeltacht in the rest of the county.
Gweedore is the largest Irish-speaking parish with over 4,000 inhabitants. All schools in the region use Irish as the language of instruction. One of the N.U.I.G.'s constituent colleges, Acadamh na hOllscolaíochta Gaeilge, is based in Gweedore. The version of the Irish language spoken in County Donegal is Ulster Irish.
Read more about this topic: County Donegal
Famous quotes containing the words irish and/or language:
“O Paddy dear, an’ did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?
The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground!
No more Saint Patrick’s Day we’ll keep, his colour can’t be seen,
For there’s a cruel law agin the wearin’ o’ the Green!”
—Unknown. The Wearing of the Green (l. 37–40)
“It would seem as if the very language of our parlors would lose all its nerve and degenerate into palaver wholly, our lives pass at such remoteness from its symbols, and its metaphors and tropes are necessarily so far fetched.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)