Irish Gaelic Dialectology

This essay examines evidence for the speaking of Irish as an historic community language into the twentieth century in the neighbouring townlands of Agha, Ballysallagh, Carrigeen, Feathallagh, Johnswell, Knockshanbally, Ossoryhill and Tullowbrin in the Rathcoole electoral division, barony of Gowran, Co. Kilkenny, the district sometimes referred to as the Johnswell hills. These are the more upland townlands of the district and reach a height of 300 metres above sea level. This was not an area which carried notable Irish-language associations: as far back as 1802 William Tighe remarked in his 'Statistical Observations' that ‘Irish is more prevalent around Kilkenny and near Munster, than near the county of Carlow’.
The essay employs as sources field work conducted in the district by scholars and linguists; newspaper sources – two letters written in connection with the subject by contemporary observers (one in the late nineteenth century, the other in the early twentieth) and a newspaper article; census figures and, perhaps surprisingly, relevant fiction from the late twentieth century. The process of language decline and death is  interpreted with reference to the work in sociolinguistics of a number of scholars, in particular to the pre-eminent work of Nancy Dorian on the decline of vernacular Scottish Gaelic. Given the developing subaltern social status of speakers of Irish from the eighteenth century onwards, the evidence adduced is necessarily spasmodic and occluded. The term ‘Irish-speaking district’ is considered to be more accurate than the term ‘Gaeltacht’: the latter originally meant ‘the speakers of Irish’ and only took on its present meaning following the establishment of the Gaelic League in 1893; in any event no district in County Kilkenny met the relatively indulgent threshold for ‘Breac-Ghaeltacht’ status determined by the Gaeltacht Commission of 1926, although areas of Cavan, Clare, Leitrim, Limerick, Louth, Roscommon, Sligo and Tipperary were so designated.