http://books.google.com/books?id=EnEFNOcYIrUC&pg=PA92&dq=Rotha+m%C3%B3r+an+tsaoi l#PPA71,M1 Hi,
this book suggests that more powerful than Anglo schooling, was the continual cycling of people looking for work between Irish and English speaking regions, going to England and Scotland for example, learning English and coming back bi-lingual.
Overtime, this led to a pervasive bi-lingualism. The homegrown factors of Famine, the anglo-irish state, the school system, and the Church may have then helped push it over the edge.
If this is true, it shows how multi-factorial the causes were in the ultimate end, loss of Irish.
