Ways to Preserve the Gaeltacht Language

             .
             PROBLEMS:.
             MAIN CAUSES FOR THE DECLINE OF SPOKEN IRISH.
             The state is the main force anglicising the gaeltacht .
             There are at least three ways in which the 26-county state has actively undermined the Gaeltacht: .
             Providing services only in English.
             Using English as the working language force for state jobs.
             Providing grants and infrastructure to encourage the movement of English- speakers into Irish-speaking areas .
             The state has anglicised the Gaeltacht by providing services only in English:.
             When Irish was made an official language, the civil service resisted making it the language of administration, arguing that this could only be done when the entire population had been through the school system and learnt Irish.
             The jobs that the state helped to create in the Gaeltacht during the 1970s greatly increased the economic pressures to speak English. This forced Irish speakers into environments where they had to use English to communicate with customers, suppliers, co-workers and managers. One example to illustrate this is that The Sunday Times (Sunday 16 May 1999) conducted a telephone survey of five offices of state agencies serving the Gaeltacht. It found that only one of the five could even give their opening hours in Irish.
             The Irish state itself therefore became the main force for destroying the Irish language.
             The state has anglicised the gaeltacht by using English as its working language:.
             Lack of jobs in the Gaeltacht caused huge emigration from the Gaeltacht throughout the 20th century. Whether one wanted to stay in Ireland or to emigrate, English was essential for any job. .
             The remaining Gaeltachaí do not contain a single large town. They are small rural communities, dependent on English-speaking towns for employment, shopping, entertainment, health care, education, etc. All these things draw Irish-speakers into English-speaking environments. In addition, young people are continuing to leave the Gaeltacht, for higher education, careers and excitement; and the overall population is only stable because of the in-migration and return migration which is so damaging to the language.