Ah ye. That's the way we're collectively headed I suppose. English is the language of trade in the "west" and also the language of technology. My view of the language being on life support is likely uncomfortable and inflammatory to a lot of folks in Ireland and abroad who speak it. If you look at the census data from 2011 you will see that while the majority of the Republic of Ireland report to have some knowledge of Irish, only a small minority report to using Irish daily. I think it tells you a lot about the attitudes - people like to think they know Irish when they don't really. Only a few thousand people filled in their census for using Irish. The Bank of Ireland offers Irish as a language for their ATM's, and report less than 1% usage of this feature. I know I used it out of curiosity a few times, but I didn't understand it - I used my memory of the English version UI to actually get cash out.
It is a sensitive topic in Ireland. The Irish language is wrapped up in Irish identity. During British occupation the language was made illegal. This obviously had a terrible effect of the language. Coupled with the economic incentive of speaking English and you get the destruction of the native language pretty quick. A lot of effort has been put in to preserve the Irish language since the establishment of the Irish state, with varying degrees of effort and success.
Opinions that express any negativity towards Irish or it's demise are often taken as an attack and can cause a defensive reaction in native speakers. I expect that my words here would be hurtful to many though I feel like I'm laying out the state of the language in the country in a real way, at least for millennial folks, and my gripe is mostly that the curriculum in compulsory Irish education failed me. I didn't speak Irish in Irish classes - I wrote it, and made a half-arsed attempt to learn the rules, but was never in a situation where we would be having a chat in Irish. For my Irish oral exam on the Leaving Cert, I took grinds outside of school where I prepared a few paragraphs of fluff about my life and interests and some vague notions about current affairs and simply learned it rote. When the examiner asked me a question I just paused for a moment, then continued on my rant. I passed the exam. I can probably order a cup of tea in Irish and say that it's raining outside, apart from that my Irish is non-existant.
There's a lot of baggage, things are looking kind of bleak for it's future if you peal back a layer of politeness about it, and the government heads like to stick their fingers in their ears and shout "THIS IS FINE!" to any narrative that says otherwise.
For example, the minister for the Gaeltacht (or maybe the previous one?) did not speak Irish so had to learn it (sometimes they said things that were unintentionally hilarious to Irish speakers!). They also would not accept the realities faced by the language, they only ever painting a positive picture - as if that would somehow make things better. A politician or two called this out regularly with the facts, but were always met with a sort of "I don't know what you are talking about, it's all doing fine, great even!" - so no real action could be ever be taken. Eww, politics. My heart goes out to anyone who is wrestling to make changes within this political system, it's gravity setting is way too high.I would say that there is a cohort of people who speak Irish with strong nationalist identity or patriotism, and feel hard done by having to speak English in their own country to their own people in order to be understood. I'm not a native speaker, though I clearly have an interest in the language I am quite embarrassed by not being able to speak it. People are very quick to remark if you are incorrect, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can feel like a gate-keeping thing. For example, native Irish speakers can easily detect if someone has learned to speak Irish in school - because the person who learned it in education will have learned a sort of "standardised" Irish (even though they study three different dialects), they will not have common slang, and will often resort to direct translations of English phrases into Irish, that don't really make sense in Irish (Béarlachas). So you see, I find it quite intimidating to speak to a native speaker; I feel like a cringeworthy yuppie who's crashing a party trying to be cool, earnestly saying all the slang words wrong.