I live in N Ireland and I don't think it's fair to say that there are more Irish speakers in the north than in the south. I know it isn't the evidence from the census. What we do have in the north is a grassroots enthusiasm in some areas - such as Belfast, Ballycastle, Derry, Armagh - which is lacking when the state runs the show. But even in the republic of Ireland the Irish-medium radio and tv stations got their original impetus from language activists and the recent upsurge in Irish-medium schools outside the Gaeltacht areas was driven by parents, not government officials. And in the north, Irish speakers are glad that Irish is no longer banned from BBC N Ireland (on the contrary, there is a half hour Irish-medium programme on most evenings) and that the language got recognition under the Good Friday Agreement (and UK acceptance of EU accords on lesser used languages) with more funding available for Irish medium education and media, and legalisation of bi-lingual street signs. There is still a big sectarian divide in support for the [indigenous] language. DUP politician Gregory Campbell (a Gaelic surname) recently made an ignorant statement that he could only accept the language in the context of a "foreign language".

In the Republic, there are many non-native speakers who are very fluent and literate in Irish. Just about all native speakers are literate because there is Irish-medium education in Gaeltacht areas, at least at primary level. And all those people who didn't do so well in Irish at school know more than they think they do ... as I have found with my school French, the difference being that even mediocre French is useful when one travels. Some improvements are being made in the teaching of Irish, and a lot more could be done. Personally, I think the emphasis should be at primary school level and conversational ability. Specialist teachers might be preferable to having all primary teachers responsible for teaching Irish. I don't know whether Irish should be compulsory at secondary level ... at least there is a need for more practical language use and I don't think language learners should have to do a lot of literary criticism if they aren't interested in it. (This last comment is based mostly on my experience of "A" level Irish in the north and higher level courses in Scots Gaelic. I got more out of writing up minutes of meetings in Gaelic than out of discussing literary devices of short stories - when I 'simply' wanted to learn colloquial language from the stories.)

The debate in Scotland isn't about compulsory Gaelic teaching. But if not enough people have training in the language, it is difficult to provide legal and state services through the medium of Gaelic. Language activists in Ireland complain that in practice they can't get service through the medium of Irish, no matter what it says on paper. A familiar experience is writing a letter in Irish to a state body and getting a reply in English.

yes, providing such services will provide jobs for Gaelic speakers - what's wrong with that? It strengthens the commitment to the language among native speakers and gives a further incentive to others to learn the language? These aren't only jobs for the people with PhDs; the school I work in advertised for an Irish-speaking caretaker and bus driver.

It has been pointed out that Gaelic was never the language of all of Scotland. It was, however, the language of a large swathe of the country from Ayrshire to Sutherland and if I remember correctly, even parts of Perthshire. It is certainly important to the national heritage. But I do wonder if in Scotland the language movement wouldn't be best off concentrating on improving the status of Gaelic in the Highlands and Islands. Good for the local economy, less of an argument about privileging Gaelic above other lesser used languages, and addressing the major challenge of retaining Gaelic as a FIRST language. Admittedly, this doesn't seem to be a popular idea in language circles, as Glasgow and Edinburgh have enthusiastic groups of language learners and also numbers of native speakers who have emigrated from the Western Isles.

terribly complex subject and I'm just writing "off the top of my head", apologies for being long-winded