The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1913-11-15
Movement has Given Impetus to all Things
Irish by all Irish People
Cultivation of Literature and Language has
Increased National Spirit
Gaelic Revival has Extended to all Branches
of Irish Industry


Specially Written for The Irish Standard I
'Tis fading; o, it's fading! Like leaves
upo nthe trees!
In murmuring tones tits dying, like
the wall upon the breeze.
Tis swiftly disappearing, as footprints
on the shore,
Where the Barrow, and the Erne, and
Loeb Swilley's waters roar
Where the parting sunbeam kisses
Loch Corrib in the west,
And Ocean. like mother. clasps the
Shannon to her breast.
The language of old Erin, Of her his
tory and name,
OF her monarchs and her heroes, her
glory and her fame.
The sacred shrine where rested.
through sunshine and through
gloom,
The spirit of her martyrs as their
bodies in the tomb.
The time wrought shell, where mur-
INJURED, mid centuries of wrong,
The secret voice of Freedom in annal
and In song.
Is slowly, surely sinking into silent
death at last,
To live but in the memories of those
who love the Past ........
So sang with sweet but melancholy
foreboding the poet priest of , Con-
naMgnt III REGARD to ( the ancient
language Of ireland some twenty
years before the dawn of, the Gaelic
League. The whole nation was pros.
trate after centuries of oppression
while the famine years seemed to
have extinguished the last spark OF
hope in the breasts of the people, and
to have rendered impossible another
reawakening of national aspirations
and resurrection of national life. In
the third quarter Of the nineteenth
century twofold wave or current be-
gan to flow in 1reland-both tending
and promising fair to bring about the
extinction of the nation. A wave OF
emigration OF Ireland's sons and
daughters, the repositories OF native
treasures, the language and traditions.
the hopes and hates and resolves of
a nation, flowed freely across the
Atlantic to people this land with some
OF it's bravest and best citizens. Now
might the hostile London Times
jubilantly await the realization of its
expressed prophecy that Catholic
/; Celt would be as scarce on the banks
of the Shannon as red Indian on
! the shores of Manhattan. Ireland
was being drained Of her fe-blood
because the ills and the wrongs Of q
thousand long years of foreign mis-
government and persecution were
bearing fruit in the depletion Of the
means OF sustenance. But this would
not have been so calamitous from the
national viewpoint did not another
wave flow westward across the Irish
Sea-a wave of Anglicesation which
began to find it's way into the viens
and arteries of Ireland and to poison
the native blood already impoverished
and unable to resist the infection az
in days of yore. Little wonder. then
that Father Mullen gave voice tc
those sentiments of despair in the
seventies of the last century. and In
sad sweet words of piteous poetic ap'
peal bewailed the rapidly vanishing
native tongue whose death seemed tc
. him inevitable and imminent. Had nc
lived but a few decades more htf
patriotic heart would rejoice at the
marvellous transformation effected by
, the Gaelic League. A brief apprecia
ton of the Gaelic movement-lts
motive, aim and achievements Is the
purpose of the presnt contribution.
Need Of Gaelic Revival.
The Gaelic movement was inaug
urated in 1893 when a few language
enthusiasts-vain visionaries, "prac
tical" patriots would name them-me
. in secluded room in Dublin, and re
solved to organize league whose Oh
ject would be to revive the Irisf
language and re-enthrone it again II
its royal and proper place, in the
hearts and lips Of the people. How
impossible seemed the task! Ever!
force, native and foreign, was swayet
in opposition. For, strange to say
the natives had come to despise ant
, ridicule their own language; they hat
come to regard it's use as badge o
inferiority and sign Of vulgarity
because such forsooth was the esti
| mate formed by the more refined
English, and would-be English, or al
they were called "West Brittons.'
Here surely was the real conquest o
; Ireland-the conquest Of the Irisl
mind-becoming manifest. When Irish
men began to despise the language
that should be their proudest posses
sion, their most precious heritage o
all the countries-they began equal!
+ to regard everything Irish or inferio
and everything English as superior
and hence they were Fastening to Ri
themselves of their native ciyiliza