A Language as Old as Time - St. Patricks Week at University College Cork

The Irish language, always a subject for debate in the mother country, is cherished by a huge proportion of Irish people at home and abroad as the defining part of our culture. In recent years, the growth of schools throughout Ireland teaching exclusively through Irish, has given the language a new lease of life, and now, it is probably on a firmer footing than ever before. But thinking about St Patrick's Day, our national day, causes us to remember how the twists and turns of history have shaped this ancient nation. We asked Dr Ciarán Dawson of UCC's Ionad na Gaeilge Labhartha (the centre for spoken Irish) if the language spoken when St Patrick arrived in Ireland bore any resemblance to what we know today.