since the 1920s and proficiency in Irish was until the mid-1980s required for all government jobs. It may be noted, however, that certain Irish words (especially those germane to political and civic life) in the Republic and are rarely, if ever, translated into English. These include the names of legislative bodies (such as Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann), government positions such as Taoiseach and Tánaiste, of the elected representative(s) in the Dáil (Teachta Dála), and political parties (such as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael). Ireland's police force, the Garda Síochána, are referred to as "the Gardaí", or "the Guards" for short. Irish appears on government forms, euro-currency, and postage stamps, in traditional music and in media promoting folk culture. Irish placenames are still common for houses, streets, villages, and geographic features, especially the thousands of townlands. But with these important exceptions, and despite the presence of Irish loan words in Hiberno-English, Ireland is today largely an English-speaking country. Fluent or native Irish speakers are a minority in the most of the country, with Irish remaining as a vernacular mainly in the relatively small Gaeltacht regions, and most Irish speakers also have fluent English. Northern Ireland At the time of partition, English had become the first language of the vast majority in Northern Ireland. It had small elderly Irish-speaking populations in the Sperrin Mountains as well as in the northern Glens of Antrim and Rathlin Island. There were also pockets of Irish speakers in the southernmost part of County Armagh. All of these Irish speakers were bilingual and chose to speak English to their children, and thus these areas of Northern Ireland are now entirely English-speaking. However, in the 2000s a Gaeltacht Quarter was established in Belfast to drive inward investment as a response to a notable level of public interest in learning Irish and the expansion of Irish-medium education (predominantly attended by children whose home language is English) since the 1970s. In recent decades, some Nationalists in Northern Ireland have used it as a means of promoting an Irish identity. However, the amount of interest from Unionists remains low, particularly since the 1960s. About 165,000 people in Northern Ireland have some knowledge of Irish. Ability varies; 64,847 people stated they could understand, speak, read and write Irish in the 2011 UK census, the majority of whom have learnt it as a second language. Otherwise, except for place names and folk