A Gaeltacht is a district of Ireland, either individually or collectively, where the Irish government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home.
The Gaeltacht districts were first officially recognised during the 1920s in the early years of the Irish Free State, following the Gaelic revival, as part of a government policy aimed at restoring the Irish language.
An Ghaeltacht 1926; areas of the island of Ireland which would have qualified for Gaeltacht status according to the first Coimisiún na Gaeltachta
An Ghaeltacht 1956
Traffic sign, meaning "Give Way" or "Yield", in Ring, County Waterford
An Ghaeltacht 2007, zones within Category A
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