For most of recorded Irish history , Irish was the dominant language of the Irish people , who took it with them to other regions , such as Scotland and the Isle of Man , where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx.
It was also, for a period, spoken widely across Canada , with an estimated ,—, daily Canadian speakers of Irish in With a writing system , Ogham , dating back to at least the 4th century AD, which was gradually replaced by Latin script since the 5th century AD, Irish has one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Western Europe.
On the island, the language has three major dialects: Connacht , Munster and Ulster Irish. All three have distinctions in their speech and orthography. The traditional Irish alphabet , a variant of the Latin alphabet with 18 letters , has been succeeded by the standard Latin alphabet albeit with 7—8 letters used primarily in loanwords.
Irish has constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland , and is also an official language of Northern Ireland and among the official languages of the European Union.
The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island. Gaedhilge was originally the genitive of Gaedhealg , the form used in Classical Gaelic. Goidelic , used to refer to the language family, is derived from the Old Irish term.
