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:
“The Irish are the only men who know how to cry for the dirty polluted blood of all the world.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)