Over a period of several hundred years the English coloniser managed to almost wipe out the Irish language as the native tongue of the indigenous people and to impose its own language, English, as the new spoken tongue of the country. It is no accident that the English language came to the fore amongst the Irish natives. Imposing English as the first language of Ireland was a pre-meditated project of the English invaders to attempt to condition the people they wished to oppress. The colonisers understood that the Irish language and culture posed a threat to their colonial project. The separate identity of the Irish people comprised that which made them different: their language and culture.