Hiberno-Normans, or Norman Irish, refer to Irish families descended from Norman settlers who arrived during the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, mainly from England and Wales. During the High Middle Ages and Late Middle Ages, the Hiberno-Normans constituted a feudal aristocracy and merchant oligarchy, known as the Lordship of Ireland. The Hiberno-Normans were also closely associated with the Gregorian Reform of the Catholic Church in Ireland and were responsible for the emergence of Hiberno-English.
The Pale in 1488
Monument marking the site of the capture and execution of the Earl of Desmond James FitzMaurice FitzGerald in Glanageenty forest, County Kerry.
Kilkenny Castle, seat of the General Assembly of the Irish Confederacy (1642-1652), an independent government composed of Gaelic and Old English Catholic aristocrats
Maurice FitzGerald, Lord of Maynooth, Naas, and Llansteffan, progenitor of the Irish FitzGerald dynasty
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