The Irish standard., 1905-11-18
Il is Also q Crime in Ireland to Write One s
Name in the Irish Language Upon the
Back of His Own Cart.
DR.. Hyde, President Of the Gaelic League,
Which is Non-P Political, Will Not
Talk Politics When Here.

1t was not without compelling cause
that County Kerry-our islands south
western cornerstone-was long ago
named the Kingdom, says Seamas Nc
Manus in Catholic Banner and Times.
Even in these republican days it can
produce it's king. For years past re-
turned Irish American has been both
lord high admiral of the Kerry lays
and king also. He refused to pay rent
fees or taxes to the British govern
ment so he built his own househoat
and in it lives with his family, and
cruises around the coasts, defying the
landlord and the tax collector. Lately,
great attention was attracted to him
by the publication of a sketch in the
Dublin papers and photos of himself
and his houseboat. He was, amongst
other things, member of the New
York police force.
Kerry was wonderful place always.
In the penal days, when paternal
government gave you five pounds for
the head of wolf, or the head Of
schoolmaster, Or the head of priest,
indifferently, the mountains of Kerry
harbored more and better schoolmas-
tiers than were to be found in any
other tract of the same extent in Ire
land. Then it was, though education
was banned by law, the poorest boys in
Kerry often had a knowledge of the
classics that would make boys of Har-
ward presently green with envy. Some
one in the Irish papers was recently
reminding us Of the time when one
Kerry man sold his COW to another
Kerry man in Greek l have heard an
intelligent old man, in the heart of
our Donegal mountains, tell how his
grandfather used to speak to him of
time when at a select dinner party
amongst these mountains-the priest,
the schoolmaster, and the more ccm-
Portable class of mountaineers being
present-the conversation was carried
on in Latin.
The cultivation of the classics died
out with the head schoolmaster of our
Donegal mountains. The cultivation of
our own Irish language has now, of
course, taken it's place. Evidently
the government intends that the re-
vival Of the Gaelic shall get a quick
and great impetus, for already they are
Indirectly beginning to ban it. 1t
NAV sound startling to Americans, and
even to Irish-Americans, to know that
today there are, here in Ireland, men
suffering in Jail for using their own
language; and other men having their
goods seized and sold in penalty for
the same crime. 1t is now crime,
fixed first by the ordinary courts and
later by the high courts, to set down
your name in the Irish language on
your cart. The first man to go to Jail
for this was Mac Seonin of Roscom-
mon, who was taken to Sligo Jail. AL
derman Cole, of Dublin, was the first
man to have his goods distrained and
sold by auction for the same mortal
effense.
This will seem hardly believable to
Americans, but if they lived some time
in Ireland they would be prepared to
believe anything. If such penaliizng
of the language of the country &C.
Cured in Poland or in Finland the
great British public would blaze with
indignation; the London Times would
thunder against the tyrant Gar, and
every newspaper in the empire would
re-echo the thunder. The American
press too would dislocate itself in the
endeavor to give utterance to scare
heads for relief of it's surcharged feel
ings. Yet we have it going on in Ire
land, and so accustomed are we to
British law, as in Ireland interpreted,
that the announcement in the press of
the failing of Mac Seonin gets much the
same space as Another Accident on
the Quays."
The Gaelic revival is not the only
thing that is presently supplying much
needed dodgers for the big. empty jails
Of Ireland. The anti-recruiting cam