The Irish Language: Why Ireland Became English-Speaking

About this episode

This episode explores how Ireland transitioned from Irish to English as the dominant language, examining various historical factors.

How did Ireland become an English-speaking country? Was it colonialism, the Great Hunger, the education system or emigration that drove the shift from Irish to English? In this episode, I am joined by Dr Nicholas Wolf to explore one of the biggest questions in Irish history: how Irish, once the dominant language of the island, lost ground over the centuries.  Nicholas explains how this is a multifaceted story, beginning in the wars of the seventeenth century but continuing through the Great Famine of the 1840s and beyond. While he explores the impact conquest, plantation and emigration, Nicholas also explains why English became so necessary in everyday life in Ireland. About Nicholas Wolf Nicholas Wolf is a historian and librarian at New York University, where he is co-head of NYU Library’s Data Services department and associate director of research and publishing initiatives at Glucksman Ireland House. He is the author of  An Irish-Speaking Island  (2014), a social and cultural history of Ireland’s Irish-language community in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that was awarded the Michael J. Durkan Prize for Books on Language and Culture and the Donald Murphy…

People in this episode

Host: Fin Dwyer

Guest: Dr Nicholas Wolf

Topics covered

• Irish language
• colonialism
• Great Hunger
• education system
• emigration
• cultural history

Keywords

• Irish language
• English-speaking
• colonialism
• Great Famine
• emigration
• cultural history
• education system

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: New York University, Glucksman Ireland House, Gardiner Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Newberry Library, Newman College

Books & works: An Irish-Speaking Island

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