Daily use of Irish is down in Mayo in latest census
The latest census show that the number of people in Mayo using Irish on a daily basis has fallen.
The number of people who can speak Irish in Mayo has increased but the number of people using the language daily has fallen, according to figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The number of people speaking Irish daily within the education system in Mayo fell slightly, from 16,058 in the 2016 Census to 15,009 in the latest Census in 2022. Outside the education system, some 1,544 people spoke Irish daily, a decrease from the figure of 1,781 recorded in 2016.
A total of 3,631 people in Mayo speak Irish every week outside the education system, a slight decrease from the 3,673 people who did so in 2016.
The number of people aged three and over who could speak Irish in Mayo increased by just over 1,200 to 56,346 in the latest census, or 44.3% of the county’s population aged three and over. It is a slightly smaller percentage of the Mayo population who can speak Irish compared to the 2016 Census, where 44.7% could speak the language.
In Mayo, 5,206 people, or 9%, who could speak Irish spoke it very well while 18,344, or 33%, could speak it well. Some 31,051 people did not speak it well, around 55%. In Ireland overall, 10% of Irish speakers could speak the language very well with 32% speaking it well and 55% not speaking it well.
Figures specific to Gaeltacht areas were also collected as part of the census. The population of the Gaeltacht in Mayo increased from almost 10,400 to 10,515. This 1% increase of 129 people was the lowest rate of increase in all Gaeltacht areas. There were 10,196 people aged three and over, and of these, 5,956 could speak Irish.
The number of people who could speak Irish in the Mayo Gaeltacht fell by 3% between the censuses in 2016 and 2022. The number of people speaking Irish daily within and outside the education system in the Gaeltacht increased slightly from 155 to 172. Some 555 people in the Mayo Gaeltacht spoke Irish daily outside the education system only which was down from 740 in 2016. The number of people who spoke Irish weekly outside the education system fell to 670 from 714.
There were 1,232 people in the Mayo Gaeltacht who spoke Irish very well while 2,286 spoke it well and 2,299 did not speak it well.
