Back to the lobsters
The hypothetical fishermen might need to have a bit of English to sell their lobsters on the mainland.
Although the amount of English they'd need for trade would be minimal.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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Very true! The story takes place present day (well, summer of 2011 anyway) and almost everyone on the island is now completely literate in English. I finally found online that schools were opened on the other Maine outer Islands as early as the late nineteenth century, so I'm thinking most of the people on the Island present day would have been schooled in English (they speak mainly Irish otherwise, but it's a spoken language only). This seems the most plausible to me-- and it's a good thing because I certainly don't have the background to write a story where many of the characters speak a language that I'm just starting to learn. I am using some Irish here and there (with translations), but I've kept that fairly minimal-- not only due to my lack of knowledge but also the fact that the main character's biological family is from the Island but she was raised by a family in Portland and therefore knows no Irish when she goes to the island.

I'm still trying to think out whether her 95-year-old great-grandfather would still be able to speak English.