ABSTRACT
The future of the language is so clearly in the balance that it is appropriate to outline the factors and issues mentioned as influential by Gaeltacht informants, adding others which the author over thirty years of study considers important and which are often so fundamental that they are commonly overlooked in a review of day-to-day problems or deliberately glanced over because of their sensitivity. Aids to survival will be considered first, to emphasize that they do exist and are noteworthy, though liable to be forgotten if preceded by or mixed in with the much longer list of hostile forces.
