‘These are the people you need to talk to'

Ireland's Official Languages Act (OLA) was passed into law on 14th July 2003. This was the first, formally articulated, overarching language policy document in the country, eighty years after the declaration of Irish in the 1922 constitution as the national language, and the additional constitutional categorization in 1937 as ‘the first official language’ (Mac Giolla Chríost, 2005: 112). The OLA set in legislation, for the first time since the Irish state was created, the right of members of the public to avail of public services in both Irish Gaelic (Gaeilge) and English. It does not apply to commercial companies.