This study uses interviews with speakers of Irish and Manx Gaelic to assay both their overt and more hidden beliefs about the utility and legitimacy of traditional and revival speech. It asserts that ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ speakers do not live similar sociolinguistic realities in which they are sociolinguistically enisled from one another, but that modern speakers challenge the prestige of both traditional and innovative varieties in a multifaceted manner.