 Two main languages are spoken in Ireland : Irish and English . Both languages have widely contributed to literature . Irish , now a minority but official language of the Republic of Ireland , was the vernacular of the Irish people for over two thousand years and was probably introduced by some sort of proto @-@ Gaelic migration during the Iron Age , possibly earlier . It began to be written down after Christianisation in the 5th century and spread to Scotland and the Isle of Man where it evolved into the Scottish Gaelic and <unk> languages respectively . 
