Good ideas. It’s something i’d love to take on if I had the time and energy, too big a project for me though. There already are a number of discussion forums in Irish as it is, though certainly a new one would be no harm.
I’d always thought of creating a central hub site for Irish learners, a place where you could have tons of Irish lessons, links to tons of other sites plus forum etc. Huge task though!!

Ideas for dedicated forums in gaeilge
One purely for discussing gaelic games
One for parents, discussing general issues (where to take them for day’s out, good shops/websites for buying clothes, books, toys etc). This would bring Gaelige speakers of a certian age (20-40) together throughout ireland. Language issues will inevitable be discussed.
Both existed in Welsh (but for rugby rather than GG) and were popular, but neither administraors relaised work infolved and are down at the moments.

I don’t know if such thing exists as a gaeilge music scene (I’m thinking alt/rock/pop/rap rather than folk or trad). A good example in Welsh is http://www.curiad.org which poeple submitt gigs, which are displayed on a calendr and a google maps mashup called ‘gigfap’ (gig map). it also includes bands and venue profiles and news, all available via RSS feeds. Owner might be willing to share code if asked.

I have difficulty enough with Irish so Scottish Gaelic poses serious problems for me but they are quite similar as MD said.

Maca
I’d agree that a Blaganna Gaeilge site would be well worth having.

I’d say mixing blogs is probably best. Have you seen http://www.tirnamblog.com? I don’t know how similar both langugaes are.

I’ve started to look into what would be needed to set one up. I also like the mix of Irish & English blogs on Irishblogs but someone people may like one central place for all Irish language blogs. Having one would still be better than not having one IMO.

Don’t think there’s a specific site for Irish Blogs

http://kinja.com/user/gaeilge
http://www.irishblogs.ie/categories/gaeilge/

Just Gaeilge sections as shown above

It would be class if there was one. But there’s not much people interested in blogging in Irish, or speaking it for that matter.

We had a census a while back and over 1.5M claimed to be competent in Irish although how many of those are fully fluent in the language is unknown. What’s certain is that 1.5M are NOT speaking it on a regular basis, if they were Irish would be in quite a healthy state.

From wikipedia:
“out of the Republic’s more than 4.3 million citizens there are approximately 1.6 million people claiming a self-reported competence in Irish … Of these, 350,000 reported using Irish every day, 155,000 weekly, 585,000 less often, 460,000 never, and 30,000 didn’t state how often. Of the 350,000 who were reported to use Irish every day, the majority are schoolchildren who use it during their classes in Irish”

“do you think the same is true in Ireland?”

It’s hard to know. Personally I don’t like such figures thrown about because it is misleading. I’d love if there were 1.5m fluent speakers but there aren’t.
I’d prefer we focus on the real positives, such as the growth of Gaelscoileanna.

“I’ve noticed a few Gaeilge posts on Irishblogs.com, is there a seperate site that only includes Gaeilge blogs?”

Not that I know of. Hmm, might just have to set one up…

Mo dhuine
Here’s a link to the commnet by Mici(not his real name!) which appears in a thread discussing changing Dingle (back?) to An Daingean. Mici has a blog which he’s writting about his time in Gaillimh (but if you don’t understand Welsh, it’s mainly about the lock-ins he’s having at his current bar job!).

Maes-e is quite a popular forum, the busiest independent website in Welsh. It’s creator Nic Dafis has really been encouraging others to blog in Welsh and now there’s a busy Welsh language blogging scene at http://www.blogiadur.com. I’ve noticed a few Gaeilge posts on Irishblogs.com, is there a seperate site that only includes Gaeilge blogs? Not that it’s a bad thing that both languages are together. The creator of Blogiadur.com has set up Blogcymru.com for English language blogs from Wales, while some Irish guys (behind Irishblogs.com) have set up Welshblogs.com which mixes the two.