Gaelicisation, or Gaelicization, is the act or process of making something Gaelic, or gaining characteristics of the Gaels. The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group, traditionally viewed as having spread from Ireland to Scotland and the Isle of Man.
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"Gaelic", as a linguistic term, refers to the Gaelic languages but can also refer to the transmission of any other Gaelic cultural feature such as social norms and customs, music and sport.
Early history
Examples of Gaelicisation in history include the Picts, Hiberno-Normans, Scoto-Normans and Norse-Gaels.
Modern era
Today, Gaelicisation, or more often re-Gaelicisation, of placenames, surnames and given names is often a deliberate effort to help promote the languages and to counteract centuries of Anglicisation.
Isle of Man
The Manx language, which is very similar to Irish, has undergone a major revival very recently, despite the language being so rarely used that it was even mislabelled as extinct by a United Nations report as recently as 2009. The decline of the language was primarily as a result of stigmatisation and high levels of emigration to England.
There are now primary schools teaching in the medium of Manx Gaelic, after efforts mainly modelled on the Irish system. The efforts have been widely praised, with further developments such as using technology to teach the language being put into place.
Ireland
Estimates of numbers of native speakers of the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland in 2000 ranged from 20,000 to 80,000. According to the 2006 census for the Republic, 85,000 people used Irish daily outside of school and 1.2 million used Irish at least occasionally. In the 2011 Census, these numbers increased to 94,000 and 1.3 million, respectively. Active Irish speakers probably comprise 5 to 10 per cent of Ireland's population.
In recent decades there has been a significant increase in the number of urban Irish speakers, particularly in Dublin. The dispersed but large, educated and middle-class urban Gaeilgoir community enjoys a lively cultural life and is buoyed by the growth of Irish medium education.
In some official Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking during the 1920s) areas, Irish remains a vernacular language alongside English.
There are several thousand Irish speakers in Northern Ireland; however, the Gaelicisation process is significantly slower and less supported than elsewhere on the island.
Scotland
In Scotland, Scottish Gaelic is widely spoken in the Scottish Lowlands, with about half of Gaelic speakers living outside the traditional Gàidhealtachd, largely due to migration and the expansion of Gaelic medium education in the Lowlands. In the 21st century, phrases such as Alba gu bràth and the incorrect Saor Alba have been appropriated as catchphrases and rallying cries for Scottish identity and the Scottish independence movement.