This book offers an overview of Irish English, both of its history and its presentday forms. English has existed in Ireland for over 800 years and so is the oldest form of the language outside the island of Britain. It has furthermore developed internally in many ways, for instance, through the early establishment of urban varieties, particularly in the cities of the east coast, most notably in Dublin. The language has also been under the continuing influence of Irish, which was the first language of the majority of the population until the beginning of the nineteenth century. This makes Irish English a language-shift variety and so offers a scenario for the development of English which it shares with countries as far apart as Scotland and South Africa.

The question of language contact is considered in detail in the present book (see section 4.2). Recently, there has been much linguistic discussion of the relative weight to be accorded to contact or to the retention of inherited features of British English and the treatment here is intended to reflect prevailing concerns and standpoints in variety studies.

The development of English in Ireland has seen several periods characterised by waves of settlement. Perhaps the most significant of these for present-day Irish English was the large-scale settlement of the north of the country from the west of Scotland and the Lowlands in the seventeenth century, yielding Ulster Scots, a unique variety of English which has increased in topicality in recent years.