The Irish standard., 1888-03-17
SAVE The IRISH LANGUAGE.
Irelands DISTINCTIVE Nationality
Will Be Lost if the Irish Ian
guage is Not Preserved
A WRITER IN THE " NATIoN''
Deliyers Timely Warning to the Irish
People in General, and Especially to
the National Party.

-~v
People in General, and Especially to
the National Party.
In the letter from me, which you
were kind enough to insert in last
weeks issue, took the liberty, because
l considered it duty, to warn the Irish
people in general, and especially the
national party. Of threatening dan
ger of which they did not seem to be
carefully conscious, viz. the irrepara'
BILE loss of Ireland's greatest treasure,
to wit, her distinctive nationality.
They may obtain political freedom and,
in addition. material prosperity, but
these blessings would be sho1n of the
greater part of their advantages IT, in
acquiring them. she should lose her ma
tionality and her people were to become
mere West Britons. In such an event
uallty it is exceedingly doubtful wheth-
or she would retain the faith to which
she has clung tenaciously for the last
fourteen hundred years, and it is quite
certain that her faith would be weak
ened and her morality tarnished. i'll
stanced nayown experience of the change
that has come over the Irish people
even in my own time-a change not SO
easily perceptible by person living all
his life in Ireland, but which is plain
enough to one having the opportunity
of comparing Irish with foreign life.
1t is always disagreeable thing to
warn of an evil of which the person
warned is scarcely conscious, and the
adviser seldom gets any thanks for his
trouble. But true friend, actuated
by a sense Of duty and feeling OF at
fection, disregards the manner in which
his warning is received if he judges
that any good will come Of it. l should
be sorry to have supposed that my
words are in any sense intended as a
depreciation of the course of conduct
of our present national organization,
with which I myself am proud to be
connected. 1t may be said that Ma
tionalists have their hands full, that in
the struggle for the very existence of
the Irish nation against a relentless
despotism they have neither time nor
opportunity to think of anything be-
yond the settlement OF the land question
and the obtaining of a native parlia
ment. Now, 1 deny this totally.
There are continual opportunities, If
they were only seized, to keep before
the public mind the various subjects Of
Irish nationality to which [ alluded to
in my last letter, and which the men OF
'Forty-Eight' SO ardently worked for
There is no doubt that the landquestion
and a native parliament are for the
moment the most important questions,
for the depopulation of Ireland must be
check & and she must obtain the power
to make her own laws; but other ques-
tions which in future will eventually
become more important must not be
lost sight of, or they may be shelved
together till it be too late. What a
miserable outcome it would be if, when
we had obtained our own legislature,
when our farmers are settled as pro-
prietors on their holdings, and when
material comfort and independence
should begin to litfuse themselves over
the land, We should have lost our Ian
guage, our faith, our morality, our old
ideas, our tradjtions-everythin that
distinguishes Irlshmen as a separate
people, and thus t;nd ourselves sunk
into the condition of West Britonism.
Already we are on the way to that de-
based state after having resisted the
vicious tendency successfully for seven
centuries. Is it to be said chat even at
the time when we are in sight of the
beacon light of freedom we shall be
stranded on this mudbank? [ trust
God will preserve US from this extreme
and terrible misfortune greater even
than the loss Of bodily liberty while the
mind continues free.
Let me now state what 1 conceive to
be the causes of the danger which it is
my purpose to signalize to my fellow
countrymen. The first attack on our
nationality came from the robber N Norse
men. These barbarians, by destroying
churches and monasteries and burning
books and libraries, threw back Ireland
into standardization and weakened the
respect among the Irish chiefs for &C.
clesiastical immunities, aud amsng
the people for learning and peaceful
industry. Then came the Normans
under Henry II. of Infamous memory.
They came as the champions of adult
cry and rebellion, and they remained
as the representatives of brute force.
We know from history that the Catholic
clergy Of England Of that period were
not men Of conduct az irreproaach liable q