A Community Right to Housing

The Gaeltacht regions, situated mainly along Ireland’s west coast, have long been regarded as the heartlands of Irish-speaking communities. Despite having protected legal status, the regions are experiencing a steep and continuing decline in Irish speakers. Multiple factors contribute to this erosion, including increasing rental prices, lack of social housing and the spread of holiday homes. These phenomena harm the Gaeltacht ’s viability, as without housing, the social connections within these communities are disrupted. Using a combination of doctrinal and empirical legal methods, this paper investigates the legal link between housing and language, and assesses if and how international cultural heritage law, international human rights law and Irish domestic law acknowledge the link between the right to housing and language protections, and to examine the extent to which they provide right to housing protections to linguistic minority communities

Fundamental rights · Harm · Human rights · International human rights law · Irish · Right to property · Situated · Irish and British Studies · Minority Rights and Languages · Political Systems and Governance