IRISH-SPEAKING IN THE PRE-FAMINE PERIOD: A STUDY BASED
ON THE 1911 CENSUS DATA FOR PEOPLE BORN BEFORE 1851
AND STILL ALIVE IN 1911

http://classic-web.archive.org/web/2005 ... 103C05.pdf

_________________
__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

I wonder would he have got a completely different picture if he had used the 1901 census Data.

As I mentioned somewhere here before on this forum, My grandmother was born in a place called Scraghy in Donegal in the 1920's
In 1901 the population of the area was 143, of whom 54 declared themselves Irish speakers (some quite young) about 38%?
In 1911 the population was 135 people, of whom 10 declared themselves as Irish speakers ,About 7.4% of the population
But I can see 31 people still living in 1911 who declared themselves Irish speakers who left it blank.
Maybe they stopped speaking so didnt fill it in, but youd wonder how many did the same in 1901 ?

My granny recalls people with very bad pidgin English in the 1930's in the same area, so some people must still have been speaking Irish most the time.

_________________
Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

Well that's the rub and always has been; the collapse appears to have been so swift (appears anyways) and you have the confounding problems of self reporting and that a lot of the specific townland data has been lost (perhaps in the Four Courts shelling and the rebel's supposed burning of records) so it's not easy to say with certainty how the two languages were spread with respect to one another

_________________
__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___