A study was conducted in Ireland of the mechanisms of linguistic change and the effects of a politics of linguistic irredentism on the language behavior of the population. The objectives of the study were: (1) to discover the nature and the importance of people's attitudes toward the Irish language and its restoration, and (2) to ascertain the degree of public support for political measures aimed at restoring the language. Because the success of language-related politics depends on public behavior as much as public opinion, it was necessary to discover factors favoring the learning and usage of the language, as well as factors mediating between public opinion and learning the language on one hand and knowledge and use of it on the other. Preliminary research was done in order to derive the data for the opinion poll in the main portion of the study that would be based on real opinions and not opinions the people were supposed to have. The results of the study were analyzed under four headings: linguistic competence, utilization of the language, language attitudes and the inter-relationship among these three factors. The conclusions considered valid for all linguistic minorities were that political independence alone does not insure linguistic survival, and that intensive compaigns promoting the language can intensify positive attitudes by they will not necessarily modify language behavior. (AMH)