Jimlad and Ruth Archer: it's true there was quite an effort at revival, but there already was 'survival'. I was a child in the fifties and sixties. My grandmother attended 'The Mod' every year during that time, that I remember; she was a Gaelic speaker and loved the event. Sunday afternoons at our home were considered a bit unbearable by us kids, because 'The Galligackits' were on the radio for an hour, old fellas singing and speaking Gaelic, which my Dad loved to listen to, and then we had to go to church! And there were plenty fiddlers around before Fr. Rankin 'revived' 'em.

Up the road were a few families who didn't speak English, or not much of it. I was the same age as one boy who didn't start school until he was seven (1958), and he spoke no English at all. My Grandmother, who was a teacher, took him into her class and taught him until he could manage the English. Three of my grandparents were Gaelic speakers.

Glendale, when I was a visitor there around 1980 or 81, appeared to be inhabited by more American Celtic scholars (very pleasant ones, to be sure) than local people, but that impression was no doubt fueled by hanging about with musicians.