During the nineteenth century, Irish-speaking communities declined almost to the point of extinction. But in 1922 the new Irish state launched a broad strategy to re-establish Irish as a national language. This book looks at that policy and its impact over the last seventy years. Pádraig Ó Riagáin focuses not only on the evolving structure of bilingualism in Ireland but also on the process of bilingual reproduction. His analysis is based on a series of language surveys conducted between 1973 and 1993.