what language do irish people speak?
English Language
entailment
 The Irish language has a vast treasure of written texts from many centuries , and is divided by linguists into Old Irish from the 6th to 10th century , Middle Irish from the 10th to 13th century , Early Modern Irish until the 17th century , and the Modern Irish spoken today . It remained the dominant language of Ireland for most of those periods , having influences from Latin , Old Norse , French and English . It declined under British rule but remained the majority tongue until the early 19th century , and since then has been a minority language , although revival efforts are continuing in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland . 

entailment
 Two main languages are spoken in Ireland : Irish and English . Both languages have widely contributed to literature . Irish , now a minority but official language of the Republic of Ireland , was the vernacular of the Irish people for over two thousand years and was probably introduced by some sort of proto @-@ Gaelic migration during the Iron Age , possibly earlier . It began to be written down after Christianisation in the 5th century and spread to Scotland and the Isle of Man where it evolved into the Scottish Gaelic and Manx languages respectively . 

entailment
 Less than 10 % of the population of the Republic of Ireland today speak Irish regularly outside of the education system and 38 % of those over 15 years are classified as " Irish speakers " . In Northern Ireland , English is the de facto official language , but official recognition is afforded to Irish , including specific protective measures under Part III of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . A lesser status ( including recognition under Part II of the Charter ) is given to Ulster Scots dialects , which are spoken by roughly 2 % of Northern Ireland residents , and also spoken by some in the Republic of Ireland . Since the 1960s with the increase in immigration , many more languages have been introduced , particularly deriving from Asia and Eastern Europe . 

entailment
 The Irish language shares a number of phonological characteristics with its nearest linguistic relatives , Scottish Gaelic and Manx , as well as with Hiberno @-@ English , the language with which it is most closely in contact . 

entailment
 In Ireland , various forms of English have been spoken since the Norman invasions of the 11th century . In County Wexford , in the area surrounding Dublin , two highly conservative dialects known as Forth and Bargy and Fingallian developed as offshoots from Early Middle English , and were spoken until the 19th century . Modern Hiberno @-@ English however has its roots in English colonisation in the 17th century . Today Irish English is divided into Ulster English , a dialect with strong influence from Scots , and southern Hiberno @-@ English . Like Scots and Northern English , the Irish accents preserve the rhoticity which has been lost in most dialects influenced by RP . 
