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In the early 19th century Alexander, tenth Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852) embarked on a programme of clearances that had a devastating effect on the island's population. These "improvements" typically led to the land being rented out to as many as twenty-seven families being converted into a single farm. In some cases, alternative land was promised in Canada for each adult emigrant male. In April 1829, for example, 86 islanders boarded the brig Caledonia for the two-month journey, half their fares being paid for by the Duke. However, on arrival in Quebec only 41 hectares (100 acres) was made available to the to the heads of extended families. Whole villages were removed and the Gaelic culture of the island devastated. The writer James Hogg wrote: "Ah! Wae's me. I hear the Duke of Hamilton's crofters are a' gaun away, man and mother's son, frae the Isle o' Arran. Pity on us!". A memorial to this early form of ethnic cleansing has been constructed on the shore at Lamlash, paid for by a Canadian descendant of the emigrants.

Gaelic was still spoken widely on Arran at the beginning of the 20th century. The 1901 Census reported 25-49% Gaelic speakers on the eastern side of the island and 50-74% on the western side of the island. By 1921 the percentage for the whole island had dropped to less than 25%. From then onwards, the number of speakers fell into the vague 0-24.9% bracket. However, Nils Holmer quotes the Féillire (a Gaelic almanack) reporting 4,532 inhabitants on the island in 1931 with 605 Gaelic speakers, showing that Gaelic had declined to about 13% of the population. It continued to decline until the last native speakers of Arran Gaelic died in the 1990s. The 1.6% Gaelic speakers in the 1991 Census and the 1.5% in the 2001 Census represent Gaelic speakers from other areas settling on the island.

Arran Gaelic is reasonably well documented. Holmer carried out fieldwork on the island in 1938, reporting Gaelic being spoken by "a fair number of old inhabitants". He interviewed 53 informants from various locations and his description of the dialect, The Gaelic of Arran, was published in 1957 and runs to 211 pages of phonological, grammatical and lexical information. The Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland, which collected Gaelic dialect data in Scotland between 1950 and 1963 also interviewed 5 native speakers of Arran Gaelic.

The Arran dialect falls firmly into the southern group of Gaelic dialects referred to as the "peripheral" dialects in Celtic studies.