I cannot be bothered to continue commenting on this as there seems to be a real disconnect between what I can see clearly written in this letter and how others are reading it.

It is crystal clear to me that the LW is saying that in her lifetime (and she is pregnant which means she is fairly young) speaking Gaelic was illegal by English law in Ireland. Not discouraged, illegal. She says that more than once. That is factually incorrect. And kind of bizarre in that the English have done so much wrong in Ireland over the last 200 years that there was no need for her to invent stuff!