A Chairde,
Here is a link to an article entitled "Irish Language Use in the Community and Family Domains in Two Gaeltacht Areas: A Comparative Analysis" by Rachele Antonini.
It compares the Galway and Donegal situations and what I got from it was that Galway seems to be in somewhat better shape than the county to the north.

http://www.dur.ac.uk/dwp.linguistics/resources/DWPVOL8/DWP8Antonini.pdf

It's unfortunate that Mr Ó Siadhail had to select the idiosyncratic Cois Fhairrge dialect rather than the speech of Carna-Carraroe-Casla, as that variety seems to be more viable. I have the impression that Irish is not in good shape in the area from Spiddal to Casla. Am I mistaken?

Wherever the impact of the economic situation has hit it has been to the detriment of the language and culture & customs.
It is no surprise that the Three English speaking countries of the Northern Hemisphere bar Canada(1/2 French) i.e US, Britain,Ireland are also the worst nations in the developed world for bringing up children.We(The US,Ireland, UK ) have put Mana and money before all and that includes minority languages( All those languages spoken by the Native Americans,etc)