Study
Language
Roughly one-third of the county lies in the Gaeltacht, where Irish is the lingua franca and road signs challenge the reader to perform linguistic gymnastics to get the right pronunciation. Donegal Irish has a markedly different pronunciation from that spoken elsewhere, and even native speakers from southern Ireland can have difficulty understanding the local vernacular. Rest assured, however, that virtually everyone speaks English and will do so without hesitation. It would behove you, though, to familiarise yourself with the Irish place names; although we use English transliterations, their Irish names are included in brackets.
