Gaelic dialects?

Question

How many different gaelic dialects are there? Which is the most popular?

Answer 1

The number of dialects varies, depending on what you call a dialect. Generally, Gaelic is broken down into three surviving languages, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, and Manx Gaelic.

In Irish Gaelic, Connacht, Munster, and Ulster are the three largest distinct dialects.

In Scotland, there is Highland Gaelic (which is the one spoken now) and there used to be Lowland Gaelic as well. There once were also Galwegian dialect, though some classify that as part of Lowland Gaelic. Some people break the modern Scottish Gaelic into further dialects, such as Arran Gaelic (spoken on the Isle of Arran), but some just lump them all into one.

Manx Gaelic is spoken on the Isle of Man and doesn't really have any dialects.

Some people also classify the Gaelic spoken by some people in parts of the Americas (primarily Eastern Canada, New York, and Chicago) as separate dialects too. Much of the difference is written though, particularly among the Irish Gaelic speakers, due to immigrants coming here before the language reforms in Ireland. In some cases, there are spoken differences, but they are generally pretty minor. I had to get used to post language reform Gaeilge, even though it is not what I initially learned, simply because that is what most people use and it's either learn that or gradually lose the ability to speak/read language altogether.

Answer 2

I couldn't say about Scottish Gaelic, but in Irish there are 3 distinctive dialects, Munster, Ulster and Connacht.
Every oneof them is the most popular for the native speakers of it, and, like everywhere on this planet, they find the other ones funny.

The Ulster dialect is growing the most rapidly at the moment, since the increasing interest in the 6 counties (Northern Ireland).
I'm not too sure, but I think the biggest gaeltacht is the Connemara one, that would be the Connaught dialect.

The reason why there is no Leinster dialect is that there were no native spekers left in that province, so Dubliners who speak Irish will use the dialect they learnt in the summer camps, which can be funny, as their accent in English is very distinctively their own.