A language without a city

Almost anybody growing up in Ireland will have heard the famous Pádraig Pearse quote “Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.” (English: “A country without a language is a country without a soul”). This quote is bandied about by anybody with two words of Irish as a justification for retaining Irish as a compulsory subject in Irish schools.
It is indeed a powerful sentiment but it is entirely linked to the romantic view of the nation so prevalent at the end of the nineteenth century. There are many countries which have English as their sole language but I would not dismiss them all as being soulless. Equally there are countless countries in the world from Switzerland to India to South Africa which have multiple languages and I don’t necessarily think that they have more soul than the rest. Basically a country has more than just its language with which to express its soul.
Nevertheless, I am somebody who retains a very strong attachment to the old tongue, though my ability to speak it has deteriorated to the point that it would be easier for me to hold a decent conversation in Polish. As I see it, the fundamental issue with Irish and several other minority languages is that they lack an urban area where the language is dominant.
It is a fact of life that the youth will drift from the country to the city as they move on to study or work. Urban areas have more to offer in terms of popular culture and night life. Country areas may be popular once people settle down but many people who leave the country never go back.
For a minority language that trend is devastating. If I am a native Irish speaker and I move to Dublin the chances are I will end up meeting an English speaker to settle down with. Even if the English speaker is supportive of Irish the dynamics of life in Ireland will mean that their children will probably not be raised as Irish speakers. This same trend of gradual decline is seen in other countries even where minority languages are relatively protected by the state such as with the Swedish speaking minority in Finland or the Frisian speakers in the north of the Netherlands.
What all of these weaker languages have in common is the lack of a city. If there is a city where the language was dominant then you can live your whole life essentially through the minority language. You cannot just speak Swedish in Åbo/Turku and you cannot survive with Frisian alone in Leeuwaarden. In those cities you can choose Finnish or Dutch respectively and never have to learn the minority language. In Galway, supposedly the most Irish speaking city in Ireland, I have never heard Irish spoken (I did hear it regularly in Belfast actually but sin scéal eile.).
My thesis is simple. Irish needs an urban area where it is dominant if it is ever to be revived to a sustainable level. I also know that neither the Irish government nor the Irish people have the will necessary to take the steps that would enable this. Therefore I sadly leave you with an updated version of the quote with which I began - “Teanga gan cathair, teanga gan todhchaí.” (English: “A language without a city is a language without a future.”).