Irish

Irish (Gaeilge), a Goidelic language spoken in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia, Canada, and the United States^{[citation needed]}, is constitutionally recognised as the first official language of Ireland. On 13 June 2005, EU foreign ministers unanimously decided to make Irish an official language of the European Union. The new arrangements will come into effect on 1 January 2007.

According to census figures released by the Central Statistics Office in 2004, out of the Republic's more than 4.3 million citizens there are approximately 1.6 million Irish speakers. These figures are, however, open to debate. Of these, 350,000 reported using Irish every day, 155,000 weekly, 585,000 less often, 460,000 never, and 30,000 didn't state how often. 70,000 people has been quoted as the number of people in the Gaeltacht who use the language as their first and daily language ^[1].