This chapter explores the situation of the Irish language and its speakers as a minority within the Irish and Northern Irish states and in the global Irish diaspora. The term An Ghaeltacht, which is both plural, in the sense of separate, territorially defined “Irish-speaking districts” and singular, as the Irish-speaking population as a whole, is exemplary of both the limitations to, and potential for, a non-territorially based community of Irish-speakers. As a geographically focused term, the Gaeltacht has tended to be seen as a remnant, as a site of tradition, or else, practically, as a type of administrative district, geographically bounded, defined by fiat from “above” where certain types of planning are carried out.5 When the focus shifts to the Gaeltacht as a community, however, our attention shifts to a more open-ended system of networks, where language use is seen as an aspect of social relations rather than as a mere reflex of location.