The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1894-10-20


that his eager hand could reach, for it
seemed to him,in his own quaint words,
"a cause Of pity and grief, for the glory
Of God and the honor OF Erin, how mnch
the race OF Gael, the son OF Mall. had
gone under cloud OF darkness
THE CRoMwELLIAN INVASION.
The centuries pass. The soil OF Ire
land is con6scated anew after the Crom-
wel'ian wars, and confiscated all over
again after the Williamite wars. The
last relics Of the old Celtic civilization
seem to shrink into the very earth before
the laws and dripping sword of England.
And still in Keating's cave in Aherlow
Glen and O'Flaherty's cabin in Come
mara and Lynch's cell in Louvain the
undying spark is kept alive, and the
treasonous manuscripts of the Gael are
cherished for happier days. Not happier,
but more unhappy days arrive. A con-
fury of humiliation, compared to which
the Drogheis massacre was glory end
the lost battle Of the Boyne inspiring
the century Of the diabolical penal laws
of Ann and the first Georges -brooas
over the Celtic race. The Gaelic SCHOOL
master becomes legal determination.
Che school house, as well g the Mass
house, covers in lonely gle.1 under the
rains and storms. Stilhzwill not the i'm
periehable spirit Of Gaelic song and
scholarship consels to give up the ghost.
In the very dead of night of the elgh-
teenth Century burst out the songs OF
Carolan, amazing as the notes of night
ingaleI "a mid-winter, and then were
hearA "The Blackbirds" and the Drimin
Dom Dheelish and the "Dawnlng Of the
Day" of The Munster bards--,hat mys-
FERROUS band OF minstrels who started up
here. there and everywhere, for no other
reason than that the overcharged Irish
heart had either to sing or die-a Charlie
vile farmer, schoo1master ia Clare, 6
blind musician in Tlpperary-men ylhoee
names even were unknown to the people
who still find in their songs the heavenly
nutriment of tkp. ir sweetest emoti ms and
of their most passionate hours.
ANGLO. IRISH SCHOLARS.
Then came the period when patriots
and scholars, sprung from the ruling
blood ard speaking the Saxon speech,
began to realize dimly the charms of
national archaeology and OF the venerable
Gaelic literature that had been SO long
hunted on the hills and ridiculed in the
sohools-the period when the great Ed
mund Burke was the means Of securing
for Trinity CeAss,egy ii tbs manuscript Of the
priceless Brehon law code after it's cen
tury Of wahderings, neglect and decay in
the CABINS Of Tipperary: when O'Flaher-
tvs Ogygia was purchased for twenty
guineas, and the great compilation of
the Leabar Breac for e3 13s. 3d.; the
period Of the pathetic scene in the his.
tory of an apparently lost tongue, when
the Senchus Nor, recovered as by d
miracle from the prescriptions and ne
glect of ages, was found to be written in
dialect which wac no longer Ineligible
to the most learned Irish scholar chen
alive. Finally there came the discovery
of the great French and German philolo-
gists that the Gaelic language afforded
as inestimable key to the history OF
pre- Roman Europe as the baths OF Cara
Gala and the golden house of the Caesars
do to the character of the imperial city
itself. At the same time there arose in
our own country that plelad of conscien-
tious, accurate and interchangeable Irish
scholars, the Petries and 0'Donovans
and O'Curry's, who deciphered and un"
earthed and made light in the dark
places, confounded the scotfers and con-
vinced every scientific thinker in Europe
for all time that the rotting manuscripts
to which Irish enthusiasm had clung
throughout centuries OF une3ampled
horror were not the mere abracadabra OF
the fanaticai worshipers Of barbarous
patois, but we're the authentic title deeds
Of q social system, a history and litera-
ture more venerable and more fascinat-
ing than any European race, except the
r. mans and the Greeks can produce
FUTURE OF THE GAELIC TONGUE.
Poor human nature WILL have to be
convinced that knowledge of the Irish
language, in place of being thing to
blush for and disown, mark Of inferior
ity to be concealed like the faint dark
circle around the fnger-nails OF the
octoroon, ought to be the first object Of
an Irish Nationalist's young ambition, q
lew sense, delicious exercise of the
faculties, the key that unlocks to him
the old places and the old hunting
grounds Of his dreams, the music which
comes ringing down the ages from the
the lips of the saints who chanted in the
old abbeys, of the warriors whose lusty
shouts rang over the old battle. fields
and OF the lovers who whispered by the
haunted Irish springs. Approached
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