evidence: Exacerbated by the horrendous and wilful negligence by the British government, the Great Famine devastated Ireland, causing the death and emigration of so many people that the population of Ireland dropped by a quarter. This century also saw the introduction of schools in which students were forbidden from speaking Irish, and a general stigma created around the language by the British and the Catholic church. All these factors combined caused the Irish language to be largely replaced with English. [...] Despite attempts at reviving the language by an independent Ireland, the Irish language became increasingly rare as a native language throughout the 1900s. The number of people who speak Irish as a second language has increased, however. [...] Irish revival efforts have seen an increase in the number of young people speaking Irish, and there are hundreds of Irish languages schools in Ireland.