 The Irish language has a vast treasure of written texts from many centuries , and is divided by linguists into Old Irish from the 6th to 10th century , Middle Irish from the 10th to 13th century , Early Modern Irish until the 17th century , and the Modern Irish spoken today . It remained the dominant language of Ireland for most of those periods , having influences from Latin , Old Norse , French and English . It declined under British rule but remained the majority tongue until the early 19th century , and since then has been a minority language , although revival efforts are continuing in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland . 
