<P> The government refused to implement the 1926 recommendations of the Gaeltacht Commission, which included restoring Irish as the language of administration in such areas . As the role of the state grew, it therefore exerted tremendous pressure on Irish speakers to use English . This was only partly offset by measures which were supposed to support the Irish language . For instance, the state was by far the largest employer . A qualification in Irish was required to apply for state jobs . However, this did not require a high level of fluency, and few public employees were ever required to use Irish in the course of their work . On the other hand, state employees had to have perfect command of English and had to use it constantly . Because most public employees had a poor command of Irish, it was impossible to deal with them in Irish . If an Irish speaker wanted to apply for a grant, obtain electricity, or complain about being over-taxed, they would typically have had to do so in English . As late as 1986, a Bord na Gaeilge report noted "...the administrative agencies of the state have been among the strongest forces for Anglicisation in Gaeltacht areas". </P> <P> The new state also attempted to promote Irish through the school system . Some politicians claimed that the state would become predominantly Irish - speaking within a generation . In 1928, Irish was made a compulsory subject for the Intermediate Certificate exams, and for the Leaving Certificate in 1934 . However, it is generally agreed that the compulsory policy was clumsily implemented . The principal ideologue was Professor Timothy Corcoran of University College Dublin, who "did not trouble to acquire the language himself". From the mid-1940s onward the policy of teaching all subjects to English - speaking children through Irish was abandoned . In the following decades, support for the language was progressively reduced . </P> <P> It is disputed to what extent such professed language revivalists as de Valera genuinely tried to Gaelicise political life . Even in the first Dáil Éireann, few speeches were delivered in Irish, with the exception of formal proceedings . In the 1950s, An Caighdeán Oifigiúil (the Official Standard) was introduced to simplify spellings and allow easier communication by different dialect speakers . By 1965 speakers in the Dáil regretted that those taught Irish in the traditional Irish script (the Cló Gaedhealach) over the previous decades were not helped by the recent change to the Latin script, the Cló Romhánach . An ad - hoc "Language Freedom Movement" that was opposed to the compulsory teaching of Irish was started in 1966, but it had largely faded away within a decade . </P> <P> Overall, the percentage of people speaking Irish as a first language has decreased since independence, while the number of second - language speakers has increased . </P>

How did the gaelic language come to ireland