ies. In general it may be stated that the south
of Ireland is more conservative than the north. In Munster there is a
tendency to shift the word-stress from the initial syllable to a heavy
derivative syllable, e.g. -an. This does not take place in Connaught,
whilst in Ulster the tendency is to shorten the vowel. Again in
monosyllables ending in ll, nn, m, and under certain other conditions
a short vowel becomes a diphthong in the south, in Connaught it is
merely lengthened, but in Ulster the original length is retained, e.g.
Ulster _ball_, "member, limb," Connaught _ball_, Munster _baull_.
Final dh, gh in Munster are sounded as g. In certain cases the north
prefers the vocalic mutation where the west and south have the nasal,
thus notably in the dative singular after preposition and article,
e.g. Munster-Connaught _do'n bhfear_, "to the man," Ulster _do'n
fhear_. In the south synthetic verb-forms are employed to a much
larger extent than in the north.

In the early part of the 19th century Irish was still the speech of
more than half the inhabitants of Ireland. A German traveller reckoned
that out of a total population of seven millions in 1835 four millions
spoke Irish as their mother-tongue. The famine of 1846-1847 was felt
most in those districts that were purely Irish, and these were the
parts that were and still are chiefly affected by the tide of
emigration. Add to this the fact that the influence of O'Connell and
his satellites, and above all that of the Roman Catholic clergy, was
against the language. In spite of the efforts of the Gaelic League
(founded 1893), which have met with considerable success, the language
is rapidly dying of internal decay. The speakers of Irish are chiefly
confined to the following counties, where over 20% of the population
speak Gaelic:--Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo,
Donegal. The following figures will illustrate the decay of the
language since the famine:--

Year. Monoglots. Bilinguists.

1851 319,602 1,204,684
1861 163,275 942,261
1871 103,562 714,313
1881 64,167 885,765
1891 38,192 642,053
1901 20,953 620,189

According to the 1901 census report the speakers of Irish were
distributed as follows:--Leinster, 26,436; Munster, 276,268;
Connaught, 245,580; Ulster, 92,858. The Gaelic