To be fair to us dumb Americans, though, I once stumped a clerk in a chain bookstore in Ireland by pointing out that the Irish-language signs in the bookstore's fiction section said "fiscean", instead of ficsean. She had no idea what I was talking about (and, no, she wasn't a Polish or Lithuanian immigrant), and for all I know the signs are still wrong.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

???
What "memo"?
What "powers that be"?
What teacher drummed it into what heads that the word Gaelic is somehow "wrong" and should never be used in the context of language?

The official academic stance is that Irish Gaelic should be referred to simply as "Irish" and that "Gaelic" on its own refers to Scottish Gaelic, despite the various forms of confusion this invariably causes.

This is reflected in book titles such as Learning Irish, Colloquial Irish, etc. As noted above, Hodder and Stoughton's Teach Yourself Gaelic book teaches Scottish Gaelic. Their Teach Yourself Irish book teaches Irish Gaelic. Many innocent learners have been caught out by this illogical convention.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

In Ireland everyone (to a first approximation) calls it "Irish", in exactly the same way as they call the other language "English". The discussion here appears occasionally to overlook this rather basic fact.

If some publisher uses "Gaelic" to mean Scottish Gaelic and this is confusing to potential learners, the obvious remedy is for that particular publisher to change this practice so as to stop antagonising its customers.

"Scottish" is probably not now an option in that regard although TF O'Rahilly who uses this term in "Irish Dialects Past and Present" notes that it is the "correct name historically", with the following footnote: "Down to the 16th century the English spoken in Scotland "was invariably called 'Ingliss' by the writers who employed it; and they reserved the name of “Scottish” to designate Gaelic or Erse, the tongue of the original “Scots,” who gave their name to the country" (Skeat). In the 17th and 18th centuries Scottish Gaelic was known in English as 'Irish' or 'Erse'."

That's right. Most people in Ireland now say "Irish" rather Gaelic or Irish Gaelic.

Most people in the U.S. (and probably in other countries, too) still refer to the language as Gaelic, like their ancestors before them, regardless of the current official position.

The bottom line is that Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, and Irish are all correct. I personally prefer to say "Irish Gaelic" for the sake of clarity.

That doesn't make it any less confusing to other English speakers in general.

As I mentioned above, people need to use the term that fits the context and the recipient audience or readership.

We haven't overlooked what the Irish themselves call the language. On the contrary, I think everyone here recognises that there is a problem that arises due to differences in usage inside and outside Ireland that needs to be taken into consideration when addressing non-Irish people to help bridge the gap in understanding.

That is what language is about. Finding the best approximation of a given idea that leaves the fewest gaps in a given context. There is rarely a perfect solution for all contexts.

Another thing I sometimes find when trying to refer to the language only as "Irish" is that I sometimes have to add the word "language" to distinguish the adjective from the same adjective for nationality, i.e., "Irish language newspaper" versus "Irish newspaper", the latter being ambiguous.

(Crossed (and agreed) with WFM)

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

While I agree that Irish Gaelic is just as apt as any other name for the language; there is no official academic stance, the use fluctuates between Irish, Irish Gaelic and Gaelic (when the author has established which form of Gaelic he or she is writing about). The use of "Irish" by learning resources is a reflection of what the Irish people mostly call it themselves. The use of the word "Irish" hasn't come about due to academic literature, academic use of the word "Irish" has come about due to what the Irish people call it. The word used also fluctuates depending on who the audience is:

We know that most Americans, if they've ever heard of the language at all, will know it as "Gaelic" or if they're lucky as "Irish Gaelic", so when speaking to them we often call it the same to avoid ambiguity. This may or may not be the case with the Irish people being interviewed by the American documentary crew.

Crossed with Weefalorieman and Breandán

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

I agree totally. however, in Ireland the ambiguity doesn't really arise, take the newspaper example: The "Irish newspaper" here is just referred to as "the paper/ the newspaper" . Whereas, "foinse" or the likes would be called an "Irish newspaper". Which is the reason why Irish people have really no problem when it comes to ambiguity and has only fostered the continuation of the word "Irish".

But the use of the word "Irish" is not new, its not as if when Irish people adopted English they referred to "Gaoluinn" as Gaelic and over time this usage stopped and they began to call it "Irish". They didn't, on the contrary, "Gaeilge" was known as Erse (see: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Erse) by many and it was even used to refer to Scottish Gaelic. You can see why that usage died out in Scotland, as calling their own language as Erse (Irish), even though it is, doesn't seem like the best choice.

The ambiguity of usage between Scots and Scottish Gaelic is just as bad: I recently saw a poster in a bar in Cork about the different words for beer around the world. The Irish example was correct, but the Scottish Gaelic version was in Scots .

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

A "chicken or egg" discussion about whether people say "Irish" because of academic convention, or if academic convention says "Irish" because of popular usage, is not really relevant to what I was trying to get at.

The only point I've been trying to make is that Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, and Irish are all fine ways to refer to the Irish language. I think it's better to be more accepting of different ways of talking, rather than obnoxiously attempting to "correct" other people who happen to speak a little differently than they do (not that anyone on this forum has done that!). That's all I've been trying to say.

I agree with you totally and I haven't said anything contrary to that.

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice