The 1851 census was the first to include a question on how many people spoke Irish. It revealed that English had become the language of most Irish people. The number of Irish speakers was recorded as 1,524,286 - about 23% of the population - with 319,602 (5%) speaking only Irish. However, in parts of Donegal, more than half the population were Irish speakers. By 1891, the Irish-speaking population had fallen to 14.5% (319,602), with only 38,121 speaking Irish alone.

English was the official language of government and the law, and it was also the language of economic dominance and formal education. Speaking of the islanders of Donegal, one Education Board official, P J Keenan, wrote in 1857:

He himself favoured bi-lingual instruction, with English being taught through the medium of Irish, but this has never happened. Only after 1878 was limited use of Irish permitted in the national state schools. From 1882, the Gaelic Journal began to publish in and promote the use of Irish.

A Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language was founded in 1876, and intellectuals such as Douglas Hyde, ironically from an Anglo-Irish Protestant background, argued that it was 'a national duty ... for all those who speak Irish to speak it to their children also, and to take care that the growing generation shall know it as well as themselves'.

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