The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1904-04-23
YEATS TELLS Of: Or. =. =. =. r. -.
IRISH REVIVAL.
From the Washington Star:

This statement and this idea was used
last evening as the basis of a most in
teresting lecture delivered in Mcmahon
Hall. Catholic University, by Mr..
William Butler Yeats of Dublin, and
one of the foremost men in the new
Celtic world. Mr.. Yeats, although but
thirty-six years old. is looked upon by
ireland as ore &c her stauchest patriots
and one of her most convincing and
persistent opponents of patriotism. He
came to America at the request of the
Irish National Society for the purpose
OF telling 1rishmen in America of the
progress Of the national movement and
the recreation Of the Ireland ante-fa-
mine days through poetry and drama
written in the Irish tongue. His talk
was of absorbing interest because Of the
unique idea of accomplishing national
independence, not by force of arms nor
radical politics, but by the gradual
weaving of Irishmen from English Gus
toms and the English tongue. The folk
lore of the early part of the nineteenth
speaker, and every fine tie old Gaelic
songs are sung the power of England
is weakened.
Mr.. Yeats is the son Of Mr.. J. B.
Yeats, for many years a celebrated
artist of Dublin and LONDON. The son
studied art for while, but deserted
the brush for poetry, and has written
several volumns of poems which are
ember of Irish patriotism. His most ef-
fective work, however. has been done
in the founding of the Irish Independ-
ent Theatre. in Dublin, where the true
Irish folk lore is portrayed, and by
means Of which Mr.. Yeats and his CO.
workers hope to recreate the land Of
Erin. He will return to Ireland March 2.
"a ipf~ 1.~
Shahan of the Catholic University.
"To begin with, said Mr.. Yeats,'I can
tell you something which I know will
be welcome to ali irish ears on this side
OF the Atlantic. Not withstanding our
respective geographical positions,
America is mush nearer to Ireland than
is England. I have gone into the count
ry districts and found the peasants
reading American newspapers and COM
menting in their own simple manner of
American affairs. I know that these
peasants have never seen an English
newspaper. and some of them have not
even read Dublin paper. Their friends
and relatives go to America and send
back these souvenirs, which are mighty
factors in Irish sentiment. Before that
dreadful famine of half century ago
there existed the Ireland of wit; the
Ireland Of humor; and to day there are
make themselves believe those old con-
dltions still exist. It is not so. Our
politics are different, but the greatest
deterioration is to be noted in our
literature.
Following the famine came the in
vasion of English industries. We i'm
agined we ought to wear English cloth
es, abide by English fashions and speak
the English tongue. The power of i'm
agination in material things is greater
than most men are willing to give it
credit for. With the adoption Of En-
glish clothes came the adoption of En-
glish thought and the English alpha
bet. Old Irish customs and those who
spoke! the Gaelic tongue became. OBJ
tjects Of ridicule. We sent to England:
for shoddy clothes instead of wearing
better material of home manufacture.
We sent to Munich for the worst STAIN
got everything. our religion, our
thought, the essence of our very life,
from England. The worm has turned,
and the reaction, begun about ten years
ago, is now in the full bloom Of pros
perity. I may not live to see the Ill
innate success, but success is 1nevita-
BILE. That our theology has been affect
ed is evidenced by story I heard just
before I left for America. A lit
up to her mother, crying:
Mother I must be taught Irish. be-
cause everybody in heaven speaks
Irish. and if I can't speak it T can't get
in.'
Through the establishment of our
theater our Gealic drama and our
Gaelic folklore, we have compelled a.
sentiment looking toward a complete
recreation of the land Of Erin. Old men
and old tales are honored again, and
the hills and the valleys are echoing
once more with the sweet music of the
Gaelic tongue. This battle on intellect
ual issue is the life of the people, The
literary revival movement is support
ed by that proudest aristocracy of the
earth, the aristocracy of artists, the
only aristocracy which has never op-
posed the people. and against which the
people have never risen. The folk lore
poems of DR.. Douglass Hyde have at
tanned a wide popularity in the the
country towns and among the common
classes. The country Ireland, which is
most Irish, is winnig over the urban
Ireland, which is least Irish, and the
time is coming when the English
tongue will have been expurgated
Long silent mills are humnirg again.
We have our own stained glass fac
tories and manufac ture a product me-
dlaeVal ana TradlC1Onal III character and
better than anything that ever came
from Munich. We are accomplishing
this, not by display of arms, but by UNI
dermining Irish dependence upon En-
gland through the Gaelic drama and
the simple tuneful verses which
describe Irish life
II am one Of those few men that look
to printed books for no great things.
The common people will never get cul-
ture out of printed books. They must
be reached by poetry and song that can
be rehearsed at work and at play;
something the plowman can sing as he
follows his plow, or that the housewife
can sing as she sews or drives her
spinning wheel. Lyal Johnson, a man
Of great intellect, whose poetry and
prose rank with the most learned liter
allure in the world, is, after all, only a
printed book poet. His poems cannot
be sung by the common people, and
consequently they cannot effect the cul-
ture.
"Lyal Johnson is a noble Irish pa
triot, but he will never rank with DR..
Hyde, because the latter poet talks TO
the common people in simple Irish folk