Gaeltacht - Meath Gaeltacht

Meath Gaeltacht

The Meath Gaeltacht (Irish: Gaeltacht na Mí) is the smallest Gaeltacht area and consists of two adjacent villages of Ráth Cairn and Baile Ghib. Navan, 8 km (5 mi) from Baile Ghib, is the main urban centre within the region, with a population of more than 20,000. The Meath Gaeltacht has a population of 1,771 and represents 2% of the total Gaeltacht population. The Meath Gaeltacht encompasses a geographical area of 44 km2 (17 sq mi). This represents 1% of the total Gaeltacht land area.

The traditional view of the Gaeltacht of "Royal Meath" is that it has a slightly different history from that of the country's other Irish speaking regions. The two Gaeltachtaí of Baile Ghib and Ráth Cairn are resettled communities, where the Irish government of the 1930s redistributed the vast estates of absentee landlords as small farm holdings to poor farmers from the Gaeltacht areas of Connemara, Mayo and Kerry.

In fact, the first community comprised impoverished families from west Galway that first arrived in April 1935, who had no known ancestral links to County Meath, and were described as "colonists". Forty-nine families were moved to Ráth Cairn, and each was given 9 hectares (22 acres) to farm. In 1937, Baile Ghib (formerly Gibbstown) and Baile Ailin (formerly Allenstown) were established, but the latter settlement failed. In the early years, a large percentage of the population returned to Galway, or emigrated, but finally Ráth Cairn and Baile Ghib were awarded Gaeltacht status in 1967. The original aim of spreading the Irish language into the local community had little effect, and the colonists had had to learn English to farm effectively.