In minority language contexts, the aim of language policy and planning initiatives is frequently to enhance their survival prospects by increasing individuals' knowledge and use of such languages in a variety of social contexts. The success of such policies depends on a variety of factors. These include the ability of policy to encourage maintenance of the language amongst existing speakers (the so-called `native' speakers of the language) and its revival amongst individuals in the community who no longer speak it and who have become `native' speakers of another language, typically, the dominant language. However, the task of policy makers and language planners is often made more difficult by sociolinguistic, socio-economic, socio-geographical and ideological differences between `native' speakers and `non-native' newcomers to the language. Rather than forming a unified speech community, `native' and `non-native' speakers of the minority language very often see themselves as being socially and linguistically incompatible. The purpose of this article is to examine the native-non-native dichotomy in two minority language contexts: Irish in the Republic of Ireland and Galician in the Autonomous Community of Galicia.