About - Irish language map

A note from me

Dia duit!

I’m Alessio Coci, and I made this site. It started with something I couldn’t stop noticing: in Ireland, everything is in two languages. Road signs, forms, announcements, all in English and Irish. And yet I hardly ever hear anyone speak Irish. So where did the Irish language go?

The census has asked people about Irish since 1851, so the answer was already out there, county by county. It just needed drawing.

What I found is that it didn’t simply disappear. It moved: from the Atlantic coast to the whole of the Republic, and from the home to the classroom. Today about 4 in 10 people say they can speak it, but fewer than 2 in 100 speak it daily outside school. The signs are bilingual; everyday life mostly isn’t.

If you spot a mistake, or you have a story about Irish in your own county, I’d love to hear it.

Alessio · acoci.dev

What is here

The story. Scroll from 1851 to today: where Irish was strong, how it fell, and how it spread out again.
Your county. Guess its 1851 figure, then see its whole history against the Republic’s average.
Every census on one map. The colours keep the same meaning in every year, so a shade is always the same share of people.

Thank you

Phelim Birch, who compiled the Northern Ireland figures for his degree project and generously shared them.
The Central Statistics Office, for the Republic’s figures (data.cso.ie).
Ordnance Survey Ireland and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, for the county boundaries.

How the figures were put together, and how far to trust them, is on the methodology page.