The Irish standard., 1904-02-13
THE IRISH LANGUAGE.
The Beauties of the Gaelic EIoquently
Set Forth.

interesting lecture on "The Irish Lam
guage us the National Language of
Ireland,' in the Town Hail. Mas. I'M
der the auspices of the Mas branch
of the Gaelic League. Among other
things the reverend lecturer said that
when we considered the circumscribeu
area in which Irish is vernacular
speech, and the light hold it has on
the public bodies of the country, and
how sadly it is neglected by the state
and by state institutions, it required
some courage, some confidence in our
cause, to claim for that language the
distinction of being the national Ian.
guage Of Ireland. Nevertheless, it
was a claim whose justice it was i'm
possible to deny. The Irish language
was the only language that repre-
sented human thought as it had grown
and developed in the mind of the Irish
race; it was the only language that
could express in full the passionate
ycarnng for what is true and beauti-
full, the ardent enthusiastic spirit, the
live wit, the melting pathos, the keen
satire that characterize our old world
people; it was the only language in
which their native fervof could have
full play in which full justice could
be done to their Imagination and ar
tiStic instincts; it was the only lam
glllSe that deserved to be styled the
national language of Ireland. A ma
tlonal language was n language that
had nodded the thought and expressed
the aspirations of Il nation for a long
period of time. The simplest words i'm
such Il language that the infant
learned at its mothers knee had an in
tluence in moulding its character that
all the learning of the schools could
not give. If it disappeared it's place
could not he supplied even by the most
renowned language in the world. If
Irish were to he wiped out tomorrow
rs Il living speech, English could not
supply its place as our national Ian
Suage. We should have no national
language in any important sense of
the word. Up to the opening years of
the eighteenth century English had
made little Roadway i'm Ireland: there
was practically no literature i'm Eng
fish either written by Irshmen or
circulating in any considerable portion
of the island. The Irish language and
Irish literature were everywhere.
During the eighteenth century the
English colony in Ireland and the ma
tive Irish who were brought up to
English cultivated the Englisl, lam
glElgc to sucll good purpose that they
outshone their English rivals during
the same period in the exccIlency of
their literary productions. Men like
Goldsmith. Parncll, Swift, Burke and
Sheridan had shed lasting glory both
on the country of their birth and on
English letters Nevertheless, writ
rrs such as these. with all their OK
cellcnrics. did not express the heart
and mind of the historic Irish race.
Their works had undoubtedly an Irish
flavor. but their souls did not drink in
Irish traditional lore; they had in IL
manner cut themselves adrift from the
historic current of Irish life. The
masses of the people toiled on in sav-
cry. in hardship and in poverty, lead
ing their own traditional lives, and
giving vent to their emotions in their
old-world language. The true express
sion of Irish feeling during those
years of pain and sorrow was to be
found, not in the pages of Swift or
parncll, of Burke or Sheridan, but in
the burning lines of ORahilly, Nc
Donncll and Eoghan Ruaidh. Their
poetry, and such poetry us theirs, and
that poetry alone. was the true Irish
literature of that period; the language
in which they gave vent to their emo
tons, and that language alone, was
at that time the national language of
Ireland. From the dawn of the nine
teenth century onward the Irish Ian
gunge was starved out, and its place
taken by the English. English monop-
olized the schools and all the public
Offices, and it took hold of the press
and the pulpit, and forced it's way in
to the homcsteads in the most distant
and inaccessible regions. One might
have thought that English literature
would thrive and prosper with the
growth and extension of the English
language. But no. From the early
years Of the nineteenth century on
wntd the quality of English literature
in England steadily declined. and was
declining to this hour. Anglo-lrish
literature of the same period, in so far
as ii was an imitation literature, de-
clincd 10 less; in so far as it drew its
inspiration from Irish tradition it at
tanned Il certain mcdiocrity; but, on
the whole, the literature written in
English by lrishmen during the nine
tcenth century did not reach a high
level and never succeeded in capturing
the imagination or cnlisting the SYM
patly of the bulk of the people. At
the present moment the prospect Of
creating literature in English was
no brighter. The English language
A.,sA~