Irish is a minority language spoken in Ireland, predominantly in ‘Gaeltacht’ areas along the South and West coasts. The three main dialects are Donegal/Ulster, Connacht and Munster. Irish is characterized by velarised (broad) and palatalised (narrow) consonants, consonant clusters, vowels, diphthongs and uses a Roman written script. Most children acquiring Irish do so in a bilingual context with English as the majority language. There are only two studies of children’s acquisition of Irish, both with small numbers of participants. They mainly describe the acquisition of consonants and note the presence of phonological processes. There have been no studies on Irish speaking children with speech sound disorder. Although Irish speakers have statutory rights to receive speech-language pathology (SLP) services  in Irish, clinicians are not trained to work in the language and there are no standardised assessment or intervention materials, apart from those translated from English.

Key words:
Irish, Donegal/ Ulster, Connacht, Munster, multilingual, communication, speech, language, children’s development, interdisciplinary, international communities, assessment, intervention

Book chapter:
O’Toole, C., O’Malley, M. and Ní Chonghaile, Í. (2025). Irish speech development. In S. McLeod (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of speech development in languages of the world. Oxford University Press.

Language overview presentation:

• O’Toole, C., O’Malley, M. and Ní Chonghaile, Í. (2023). Irish: Multilingual children’s speech development. Charles Sturt University, Australia. https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/languages
• Video: Irish [English version] – Children’s Speech Development
• PowerPoint: Irish [English version] – Children’s Speech Development (pdf)

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 17: Partnerships to Achieve the Goals