Ogham is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language, and later the Old Irish language. There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain, the bulk of which are in southern Munster. The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
An inscription found in 1975 in Ratass Church, Tralee, County Kerry
Carving of Ogham letters into a stone pillar – illustration by Stephen Reid (1873 – 1948), in: Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race by T. W. Rolleston (1857 – 1920), published 1911, p. 288
Fol. 170r of the Book of Ballymote (1390), the Auraicept na n-Éces explaining the ogham script
Mug with Ogham letters: the four series (aicmi) of the 20 original letters and the five most important supplementary letters (forfeda)
Irish, also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language group, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century.
Today, Irish is still commonly spoken as a first language in areas of Ireland collectively known as the Gaeltacht, in which only 2% of Ireland's population lived in 2022.
The distribution of the Irish language in 1871
Bilingual sign in Grafton Street, Dublin
Bilingual road signs in Creggs, County Galway
Dublin airport sign in both English and Irish languages
