Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- I Introduction -- 1. The Irish language today -- 2. Who speaks Irish? -- II The sound system of Irish -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Phonology -- 3. Phonological studies -- III The dialects of Irish -- 1. Background -- 2. Collecting data on Irish dialects -- 3. Features of dialects -- 4. The prosody of Irish -- 5. Dialect reconstruction -- 6. Further variation -- 7. Conclusions -- IV Appendixes -- 1. History of Irish -- 2. The orthography of Irish -- 3. The transcription of Irish -- 4. Samples of Spoken Irish -- Glossary -- References -- Subject index -- Language index -- Sound files referred to in book -- List of maps