The Irish State established in 1923 with a native government at the helm, adopted the revival of Irish, as an important national objective. This was to be expected as the state was born out of a struggle for independence, the ideological basis for which was dependent to a large extent on asserting a separate national identity based on language. It was hoped that Irish would replace English, in the same way as English had replaced Irish in the previous century. This was to be accomplished by teaching Irish to all schoolchildren; by making Irish compulsory for all state examinations and for new entry to the Civil Service. It was intended to gaelicise the internal work of the administration, as soon as sufficient civil servants had a working ability in the language. It was hoped to revise the language shift in the Gaeltacht, so that new territories could be added to the existing Irish speaking areas.

Up to the 1960s the state more or less continued to insist on reviving Irish, even though the results of efforts in the previous 40 years were disappointing. While many people had been taught Irish, there was little opportunity to use it, outside of school. The Irish speaking areas continued to shrink, although at a slower rate. The burden of reviving Irish was causing resentment and whatever public enthusiasm for revival that may have existed during the 1920s and 30s had evaporated by the 1960s, leading to changes in policies, which fuelled a feeling of betrayal among Irish language enthusiasts as the state retreated from revival to a vague form of language promotion.

What went wrong with the revival? Was it ever feasible? Would the pursuit by the state of more realisable linguistic objectives have yielded better results? What are the chances of Irish surviving as a living language, or will it become another of the thousands of languages that will become extinct during this century?  These are some of the issues that will be looked at, in this review of the Irish revival project.

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