The state has anglicised the gaeltacht by using English as its working language

Lack of jobs in the Gaeltacht caused huge emigration from the Gaeltacht throughout the 20th century. Hindley identifies economic reasons as the main cause of language shift within the shrinking Gaeltacht. Whether one wanted to stay in Ireland or to emigrate, English was essential for any job. Therefore parents who themselves spoke Irish tried to raise their children as English-speakers.

When the Irish Free State was established, roughly two thirds of all jobs were in agriculture. Before industrialisation got underway, public-sector employment accounted for the huge majority of the more desirable non-agricultural jobs. Only since the economic boom of the 1990s has state sector employment become less desirable than private sector employment.

Shaping The Future mentions in passing that in 1986 there were 300,000 jobs in state and semi-state bodies (when the total population was only 3.25 millions!). If state employment had been language-neutral, then the proportion of jobs where Irish was the working language would have been the same as the proportion of Irish-speakers in the population. Shaping The Future (p XViii) said that the proportion who used Irish as their main language was around 5% at any one time, but that the number who did so at some time in their life was around 15% (Hindley of course disputes these figures, but for the purpose of job allocation I think we should accept people's self-categorisation). If 15% of state jobs had used Irish as their working language, that would have been 45,000 jobs. That would have supported an Irish-speaking city considerably larger than Galway, which Hindley says is a major anglicising force on the Conemara Gaeltacht.

The constitution specifically gives government the power to require any activity to be carried out in Irish. Despite the requirement (up until 1973) to have qualifications in Irish to gain state employment, it is difficult to find a single state job where the working language was Irish.

Shaping The Future p99 quotes the CLAR report as saying "Even in the designated Irish sections of Departments, Irish was rarely, if ever, spoken in the course of the work" & mentions as one of the reasons "the high rate of career movement of personnel in and out of sections". Hindley points out (pxxiii) that under Bord na Gaeilge's Action Plan for Irish 1983-86,

Public bodies were required to report annually on progress with Irish in their own offices and work... The nadir of these is probably the fourth item of 'implementation' reported by the Geological Survey Office in 1986 "A table was set aside in the tea room each Wednesday for those who wish to speak Irish".

Hindley gives the reference for this as Bord na Gaeilge 1986:72.