<P> Irish was sufficiently strong in early 18th century Dublin to be the language of a coterie of poets and scribes led by Seán and Tadhg Ó Neachtain, both poets of note . Scribal activity in Irish persisted in Dublin right through the 18th century . An outstanding example was Muiris Ó Gormáin (Maurice Gorman), a prolific producer of manuscripts who advertised his services (in English) in Faulkner's Dublin Journal . </P> <P> In other urban centres the descendants of medieval Anglo - Norman settlers, the so - called Old English, were Irish - speaking or bilingual by the 16th century . The English administrator and traveller Fynes Moryson, writing in the last years of the 16th century, said that "the English Irish and the very citizens (excepting those of Dublin where the lord deputy resides) though they could speak English as well as we, yet commonly speak Irish among themselves, and were hardly induced by our familiar conversation to speak English with us". The demise of native cultural institutions in the seventeenth century saw the social prestige of Irish diminish, and the gradual Anglicisation of the middle classes followed . </P> <P> The census of 1851 showed that the towns and cities of Munster still had significant Irish - speaking populations . In 1819 James McQuige, a veteran Methodist lay preacher in Irish, wrote: "In some of the largest southern towns, Cork, Kinsale and even the Protestant town of Bandon, provisions are sold in the markets, and cried in the streets, in Irish". Irish speakers constituted over 40% of the population of Cork even in 1851 . </P> <P> The 19th century saw a reduction in the number of Dublin's Irish speakers, in keeping with the trend elsewhere . This continued until the end of the century, when the Gaelic revival saw the creation of a strong Irish--speaking network, typically united by various branches of the Conradh na Gaeilge, and accompanied by renewed literary activity . By the 1930s Dublin had a lively literary life in Irish . </P>

Where would one be most likely to hear a celtic language being spoken