Wiki says:
“Irish (Standard Irish: Gaeilge), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family.Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the population’s first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century. Irish is still spoken as a first language in a small number of areas of certain counties such as Cork, Donegal, Galway, and Kerry, as well as smaller areas of counties Mayo, Meath, and Waterford. It is also spoken by a larger group of habitual but non-traditional speakers, mostly in urban areas where the majority are second-language speakers. Daily users in the Republic of Ireland outside the education system number around 73,000 (1.5%), and the total number of persons (aged 3 and over) who claimed they could speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, representing 39.8% of respondents.”
Number of Irish Speakers (from the CSO web site): 39.8% – The percentage of the population who could speak Irish in 2016 (1,761,420 persons). “The total number of persons (aged 3 and over) who could speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, representing 39.8 per cent of the population. This is a decrease of 13,017 on the 2011 figure of 1,774,437. More females than males identified themselves as being able to speak Irish with 968,777 female speakers (55%) compared with 792,643 males (45%), a pattern repeated from previous censuses (excluding not stated).”
