Article 8 of the Constitution makes the following affirmation:
1. The Irish language as the national language is the first
official language. 2. The English language is recognised as a
second official language. Irish is a Celtic language and, as
such, is a member of the Indo-European family of languages.
Within the Celtic group, it belongs to the Goidelic branch of
insular Celtic. Irish has evolved from a form of Celtic which
was introduced into Ireland at some period during the great
Celtic migrations of antiquity between the end of the second
millennium and the fourth century BC. Old Irish, Ireland's
vernacular when the historical period begins in the sixth
century of our era, is the earliest variant of the Celtic
languages, and indeed the earliest of European vernaculars north
of the Alps, in which extensive writings are extant. The Norse
settlements (AD 800 onwards) and the Anglo-Norman colonisation
(AD 1169 onwards) introduced periods of new language diversity
into Ireland, but Irish remained dominant an