Census data shows Cork has more Irish speakers than Kerry  

A higher proportion of Cork people said they were Irish speakers than in neighbouring Kerry, it has been revealed in a detailed analysis of Census 2022. 

According to the Central Statistics Office release, 44.8% of Cork people responded positively to the Census 2022 question asking about how many in the household could speak Irish. 

The proportion of Kerry people declaring themselves to be Irish speakers was 44% while Galway had the highest proportion of self declared Irish speakers in the country with 50.3%, followed closely by Clare with 47.1%.

According to a town by town analysis, the Cork Gaeltacht community of Béal Átha’n Ghaorthaidh had the highest proportion of Irish speakers in the country with 90%.

A total of 1,873,997 people declared themselves to be Irish speakers across the State, an increase of 6% on the Census 2016 figure. 

However the number of people who said they never used the language has also increased, up 55,000 to almost 473,000 which represents a jump of 13%.

A further 553,965 said they only spoke Irish within the education system, 115,065 spoke it weekly and 71,968 used the language on a daily basis, down 2% since 2016.

The population of the Cork Gaeltacht, which includes the Múscraí community in mid Cork and Oileán Cléire/Cape Clear off the coast of Baltimore, has increased from 3,932 in 2016 to 4,110 in 2022 and the number of people who say they are Irish speakers has increased from 2,872 to 2,942 in the same period. 

At the same time, however, the proportion of daily Irish speakers has declined from 30.4% in 2016 to 28.8% in 2022.

The figures from Census 2022 show that there’s been a decline in the proportion of daily Irish speakers in all of the State’s Gaeltacht apart from Kerry where there was a marginal increase from 34.9% in 2016 to 35.1% in 2022.