asked the Taoiseach the approximate number of people in the Twenty-Six and the Six Counties, respectively, who could carry on a conversation in the Irish language, giving these figures as a percentage of the total population in each case.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Language Statistics.
4.
The latest available information on the number of Irish speakers in the State is that derived from the 1946 Census of Population. At that time the number of persons aged three years or over returned as able to speak Irish only or both Irish and English was 588,725, which represented 21.2 per cent. of the total population aged three years or over. No information on the number of Irish speakers in the Six Counties is available for any recent period. These particulars were last obtained at the 1911 Census of Population.