If one was walking around the southwestern part of Clare (Carrigaholt, Kilkee, Kilrush), today, what type of Irish would one most likely hear-- Standard Irish, something resembling what is spoken in the Dingle Peninsula, something resembling what is spoken in Connemara, a mixture of all of the above, or none of the above?

Thanks!

[Jaysus, that was a wordy question.]

Well, Clare Irish was discussed at https://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/ ... 1314747463
If you go to Co. Clare the language you will here around you will be.... wait for it ... drum roll... English. 'Tis English that is spoken there. Like anywhere else in the Galltacht, speakers of Irish will not be speaking the dialects that were once spoken there and have gone the way of Nineveh and Tyre. If at all, they will be speaking Standardised Irish.... As Co. Clare is an English-speaking county now, it is not an obvious place to go to learn Irish. You don't get people turning up there to learn Chinese, do you?

As djwebb has noted, the predominant language in Clare is English, however, this does not mean that Irish is not spoken in Clare. In fact, it is quite frequently spoken there if you know where to look, or to whom you should speak. The difficulty is that there is a certain societal expectation that everyone can speak English. This often results in people, even those who can speak Irish fluently, just using English in conversation together for the sake of convenience. This, combined with the fact that many people cannot speak Irish, means you're considerably less likely to hear Irish than English in Clare, or anywhere outside of Gaeltacht areas.

Unlike other counties in Munster - specifically Kerry, Cork and Waterford - there are no Gaeltacht areas in Clare. This not mean that there are no Irish speakers in the county, however, or even that there are no native Irish speakers there. People could have moved there from areas where Irish is still in daily use. In that case, they'd bring their own dialect with them. Without having access to statistics regarding the dialects used by Irish speakers in Clare (this information is not collected in Irish census data), it's impossible to say that one dialect is more likely to be heard than another. If I were to guess based on proximity alone, I would suspect that either Munster or Connemara Irish would be more likely to be heard in Clare than Donegal Irish. Nevertheless, it's worth noting that, as people can move around freely, speakers of all dialects may be heard in Clare from one time to another, in the same way as they might be heard anywhere else on the island.

What I suspect is more likely to tip the balance regarding the type of Irish one is most likely to hear in Clare is the fact that Irish is taught in schools throughout Ireland. There are gaelscoileanna in which Irish is the medium through which lessons are taught and learned. Even your standard primary and secondary schools will teach Irish to students as a second language. As such, the vast majority of Irish people are exposed to Irish for the most part through the school system, and standardised Irish is primarily what's taught in schools. For this reason, if you were to hear someone speaking Irish in Clare, I would expect it's most likely to be someone who picked Irish up in school than someone who learned it at home in a Gaeltacht area. If this is the case, my suspicion would be that the Irish you're most likely to hear in Clare would be standard Irish.

The one caveat here is that, I have found through my own schooling, certain dialectal aspects can slip into the school system depending on the teacher. Any Irish teacher in any school will either have learned Irish at home themselves, or will have spent time studying in at least one Gaeltacht area. They may even deliberately cultivate aspects of a particular dialect in their own speech as a matter of preference. The result is that dialectal variants used by a teacher can get passed on to students they teach. Much of what I learned, even as a relatively young student in an English-medium primary school not far from Cork city (well outside the Cork Gaeltacht area), was definitively Munster Irish. That's not to say a speaker from a Munster Gaeltacht would have recognised my Irish as native Munster Irish, however, I learned certain pronunciations and vocabulary which are not used in areas outside of Munster. I suspect that the Irish of most who learn it in Clare is similarly likely to be influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by Munster Irish rather than the Irish of Gaeltachtaí outside of Munster.

The actual Gaeltacht around Doolin finally ended about the year 2000, in that there were some native speakers in the 1990s. But that Gaeltacht area was officially unrecognised from about 1953. I'm not sure it is right to start deleting areas in the Gaeltacht from the official list, when there are some native speakers. E.g South Kerry or An Rínn may be weaker areas, or Category C areas, but as there are some native speakers there, shouldn't they remain on the Gaeltacht list? Removing them from the list just leads to a rapid decline....

It's way beyond my paygrade to start determining what should or shouldn't be a Gaeltacht.

What I will say is that I don't think the Clare Gaeltacht was ever accepted as representing some notional form of "Clare Irish". As I understand it, it existed as a result of the ferry connections between the Aran islands and Doolin bringing speakers of Connemara Irish to Clare. By all means, correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I believe that is the rationale for it being considered a neo-Gaeltacht rather than being listed alongside the other traditional Munster Gaeltachtaí.

In any case, whether or not there was a Gaeltacht there is irrelevant. If it is now defunct, it can have no bearing on the likelihood of hearing a particular dialect of Irish in Clare beyond what I have already suggested might creep into the school system. Even by the unqualified estimates of Coiste Forbartha na Gaeltachta Chontae an Chláir, there were only about 170 native daily speakers remaining over a decade ago, a number which has more likely dropped than risen. Even if it had doubled, though, I doubt that 340 speakers in West Clare would significantly influence overall likelihood of hearing their particular variety out in the streets more than events like Féile na hInse and An Fhéile Scoldrámaíochta which draw speakers from all over the country to Clare.

Thank you for the link to the discussion on Clare Irish. There are some interesting posts, there!

My daughter went back to Ireland about 15 years ago. She went through the Midlands and up the west coast. Throughout her whole trip, the only place she heard Irish (and quite a bit of it) was in Clare around Doolin. She must have been in the right place at the right time.

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Just starting my study with Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail.

Ade,

Thank you very much for you thoughtful replies! They're very helpful for my ponderings of how I might begin to pursue learning the language (as far as concerns about dialects).

One branch of my family originated in the Loop Head Peninsula area, which is why I'm curious about current dialects in the area or lack there of.

Thanks, again!

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Just starting my study with Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail.

Glad to hear my input was of some help. All the best with your intention to learn Irish.

Loop Head is about midway between the Aran Islands and the Dingle peninsula, both Gaeltacht areas. If you were interested in focusing your learning on a particular dialect based on proximity to your family's traditional homeplace, it'd be hard to go wrong with either.

That's what I've been thinking.

My experience is that County Clare has more people fluent in Irish than in most of the Galltacht, especially around Doolin, Lisdoonvarna and the whole Burren area. It's the only place I've seen where most tour guides can read the Irish on the signs. Again this is only an impression and I don't really know the cause of it. I was once told schools in the area made it mandatory to visit Corca Dhuibhne and some teachers were native back in the 70s and 80s.

The Irish people speak (it's not an actual Gaeltacht as remarked above) is mainly Munster influenced Learner Irish, i.e. people will say words with a pronunciation like Munster Irish, but their phonology is still mostly English.

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal