2 of the country's 3 most prominent Irish speaking towns are in Kildare

Despite Kildare's more urban location than many of the perceived traditional Irish language speaking areas across Ireland, two towns in the county are among the top three when it comes to the number of people who can speak fluent Irish. Behind Letterkenny, Maynooth and Leixlip are two of the most heavily populated towns with linguists in our native tongue. The figures, published by the Central Statistics Office, show that 2.3 per cent of people living in Maynooth can speak Irish while 2 per cent in Leixlip are fluent. The figures only detail towns with a population of over 10,000, meaning it is only major urban towns that are considered for the study. The presence of gaelscoils in each of the towns is a major contributory factor in the high presence of the Irish language. According to the report, there are still 1,761,240 people in Ireland who can speak Irish, while the most prominent Irish-speaking town is the Gaeltacht area of Min Larách in Donegal, where 73.3 per cent of the population are fluent.