Hiberno-English

Hiberno-English, also called Irish English, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland. It is the primary language of both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, standing alongside Irish as an official language in the south and alongside Ulster Scots in the north. The dialect grew out of two waves of English settlement, the Anglo-Norman arrivals of the late twelfth century and a second wave during the Elizabethan period, making Irish English one of the oldest forms of English spoken outside Great Britain. Despite English becoming the dominant language by the mid-nineteenth century, the Irish language left a deep mark on its vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar, even though fewer than one percent of the population now speaks Irish natively. Regional forms include Ulster and Northern Irish accents, western and southern accents, and Dublin varieties, alongside a newer supraregional standard accent.