English in Ireland and Irish in English. Hiberno-English as exemplar of World English

The history of the English language in Ireland is long and complex; one which, until recently at least, was tied up with the history of Anglo-Norman, English and then British domination. English has been spoken in Ireland for at least five hundred years and those varieties that are now native to Ireland are judged to be largely endocentric , that is, as Hickey (1993:87) states, “We call it [English as spoken in Ireland] a standard form of English because its native users look to no other form to imitate or copy, it is politically, socially or culturally ‘inferior’ to no other variety and it has its own dynamic, generating its own vocabulary, grammar and idiomatic expressions”. Today Ireland, and principally that part comprising the Republic of Ireland (which covers all but six of the nine counties that make up the ancient province of Ulster), constitutes linguistically one of the central hubs of the English language worldwide, both through the fame of Irish literary figures and through the Irish Diaspora, it having had influence on many other varieties of English around the globe. It has achieved this status within the English-speaking world without renouncing its deeper Celtic roots, as shown by the continued of use both in private and public life of Irish or Gaelic / Gaeilge (and we will follow current practice and use the former term as the latter often has connotations of a language with historical not contemporary relevance). Like most areas of the world, Ireland is not and has never been truly monolingual. Even before the Anglo-Norman invasions, the Celts did not have the island to themselves. The Vikings established the first towns, namely Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford . Successive centuries saw waves of Anglo-Normans, English, Scots and diverse groups of Protestant refugees, such as the Huguenots, from continental Europe. Today, in proportion to its population, the Republic of Ireland is the largest importer of immigrants in the EU. Migrant workers make up 8% of the workforce. This unprecedented influx of immigrants from elsewhere in the EU and beyond is leading to the establishment of speech communities where many different languages are used; according to the Department of Education and Science, among languages spoken on a “significant scale” in Ireland are Chinese, Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Vietnamese, Yoruba, Albanian, Moldovan, Arabic and Russian, with a total of over 60 languages being spoken as L1 by various students from over 120 countries attending Irish schools