This article is in partnership with Day Translations.

The Census figures released by the Central Statistics Office in Ireland can give a good representation of how different groups make up the Irish population and what languages they speak.

The Census started in Ireland in 1821, continued until 1921, then there was a gap due to political reasons until 1926, from which regular reports resumed. The Census takes place every five years and records are kept private for 100 years, after which time they become publicly available.

What Languages Are Spoken in Ireland?

While English is the most common language spoken in Ireland, many families also speak Gaelic, which is taught at school and is sometimes used in government communications, public transport announcements as well as in some Irish media channels.

Then, there are a number of foreign languages that people speak at home.

Languages Other than English or Irish Spoken at Home

Since the 2011 census a new question was introduced to help establish how many foreign languages are spoken in Irish homes.

This question is essential to establish how diverse is Ireland in terms of languages spoken.

Out of a population of around 5 million people, about 750,000 people speak a language that is neither English or Irish (Gaelic), as reported in the 2022 Census.

Polish (more than 120,000 people), Ukrainian, Hindi, Croatian and Portuguese are widely spoken in Irish homes where different ethnic backgrounds coexist.

What about foreign languages that Irish people learn at school?

Language Proficiency in Ireland

Looking at the EU population as a whole, 84% of young people aged 25-34 have good working knowledge of a foreign language. Those who speak one foreign language have high levels of education and are in employment. 68% of Irish young people aged between 18 and 24 can speak a foreign language.

Across different EU countries, the places with the highest number of people who speak three languages are in Northern and Central Europe, such as Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Belgium, Luxemburg and Slovenia. Some of these countries have more than one official language, which means that their citizens are expected to have a good working knowledge of two or three languages.

The Irish Times reported that Irish young people tend to be less proficient in foreign languages compared to their European counterparts. This is mostly linked with internal issues at schools and lack of adequate funding, particularly for exchange programmes, but also with the large number of options that students can choose from, leaving foreign languages at the bottom of the list, simply because English is widely spoken in the majority of European countries. So far popular subjects include science and technology, as they give students better employment opportunities.

A number of budget cuts in the education system due to economic recession was to blame for the inadequate funding of foreign language teaching.

Irish people aged between 18 and 24 assessed their own knowledge of at least one foreign language as basic.

Fewer students are sitting foreign language exams, with average 5% drops (from 10% drop in French to 3% drop in German). However there is a slight uptake in Spanish language exams. This is a stark result if we consider that since 2017 there has been a push to grow the number of Irish students that take up foreign languages, as part of a strategic effort to get the population to speak at least one foreign language fluently.

Moving forward, from 2025 onwards primary schools in Ireland will offer the teaching of foreign languages which include Polish, Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese.