Old Parish - An Sean Phobal in Irish, An tSean Phobail in the genitive - is one of the few places in Ireland where the bilingual road signs were deliberately reduced. Both forms appeared on local signs until 2005, when the anglicised "Old Parish" lost its official status. Today the signs say An Sean Phobal only. The parish is part of Gaeltacht na nDéise, the Waterford Gaeltacht, where Gaoluinn na nDéise - the Waterford variant of the Munster Irish dialect - is still a daily language. According to the 2016 census, 14% of the population spoke Irish on a daily basis outside the education system. The official maps say one thing in one language; the people say it another way that has not been bent by translation.

An Sean Phobal covers about 35 square kilometres - the second largest parish in Waterford by area - with roughly eight kilometres of coastline along Muggort's Bay. About 350 people live within its boundaries. It runs west to east from Ardmore and Grange to the neighbouring Gaeltacht parish of An Rinn, and north to south from beyond the N25 Cork-Waterford road down to the sea. The closest larger settlements are Dungarvan, nine kilometres north, and Youghal in County Cork, sixteen kilometres southwest. The landscape is mostly small green fields, drystone walls, and stretches of bog and rough grazing. The parish has no town centre to speak of; the community gathers around its primary school, its church, and the community hall at Halla Cholmáin.

Every level of education in An Sean Phobal is delivered through Irish. There is one pre-school, Lios na Síog, and one primary school, Scoil Náisiúnta Baile Mhic Airt - a co-educational Gaeltacht national school under the patronage of the Catholic Bishop of Waterford and Lismore. Children pass through the system speaking and writing in a language that elsewhere in Ireland has shrunk to school subject status. The fact that this works at all is itself a small triumph: state policy, parental commitment, and a critical mass of native speakers all have to align. When any one of them weakens, the Gaeltacht shrinks. The Waterford Gaeltacht is one of the smallest in the country, and An Sean Phobal is one of its two principal parishes.

In Baile Mhic Airt Lower stand a ruined castle and a famine mass stone. Little is known about the castle's earliest history. Local tradition says it was built by a Lord Barron as a hunting lodge. The Buildings of Ireland Survey records the surviving structure as an early-19th-century gate screen incorporating a central gateway with flanking lodges, probably built as part of plans to develop Glenanna Cottage grounds. The famine mass stone is more poignantly direct: a slab where the local priest celebrated Mass during the Penal Laws and again during the Famine years, when the parish was hollowing out as families left for Liverpool, New York, Boston, and - eventually - Chicago. The stone is small. The history it represents is not.

Cultural life in An Sean Phobal still happens in Irish. The drama group Aisteoirí An tSean Phobail produces plays each year in the local hall. The community development committee Coiste Forbartha an tSean Phobail won recognition in the 2006 An Baile Beo competition. The parish's GAA club, CLG An tSean Phobail - nicknamed the Shocks, club colours red and white - competes in Gaelic football and reached its peak in 1949 when it won the Waterford Junior Football Championship. For hurling the area is associated with the neighbouring Rinn Ó gCuanach club. In 2013 the Shocks helped host Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta, the annual Gaelic football competition between clubs from every Irish-speaking Gaeltacht in the country, by providing their playing pitch at Páirc Cholmáin. The route of the Seán Kelly Heritage 100K cycling event also runs through the parish - a different language, the same hills.