The Irish standard., 1913-09-13
Distinct individuality Shown in National and
Historic Trend of Literary
Work. ~.
lrishnen Have Written in Quantity in Eng
lish and in Quality in the Gaelic,
Declares Shane Leslie.

Before we PROFOUND our correlative
query, we must give utterance to a
train of long suppressed thought as to
the meaning of Irish literature.
Its definition we have never been
able to define, and even as to what
language 1t Is written in, Irish writer's
themselves have left us in uncertainty.
There Is good deal to be said for
both the languages Gaelic and Eng
lish) which head this essay, ON the
different ground that Irishmen have
written in quantity in one, in quality
In the other.
1t has been grudgingly admitted
that the failure of the Irish people to
found school of political or econo-
mic science has never affected their
abilities in literature. We possess
the relics of a literary past. to which
tradition and manuscripts have proved
precarious shrine. But the real re-
liquary must always remain in the
Irish tongue.
Thereby alone have scholars been
able to pry into the, moods, secular
or religious, which have colored the
national, history. Consecutive annals
in a learned prose exist side by side
with f1nely-developed emotions In
poetry. Much is fragmentary and
archaic, much is out of tune with
modern taste, but the variety, as well
as the beauty, of what has been hand
ed down gives meaning and wonder
TO the term, Irish literature"
It has only been recently that the
heirs have turned to their heritage
and sought out the speaking witness
of their hitherto garbled past. The
value Of this Gaelic writing had lin
gered in European consciousness, but
| only as memory Of some prae-medi.
aeval literature, whose succession had
died down in the battle of modern
tongues.
But it's true value was always
known to groups Of hereditary litera
:: teurs, the last of whom became only
| extinct in the decades previous to the
great Famine. Their struggle, in the
face of hateful odds, to keep alive
the great literary tradition Of Ire
land is a tale that can never be told
| for the tellers of the "Three Sorrows
OF Storytelling" became a sorrow
themselves. The collapse Of Irish
literature is briefly summed. To the
! waters Of Marah succeeded those Of
Lethe. Oblivion upon bitterness.
The language fingered on, but the
(: fine and exquisite arts seemingly per
F; ished. Here the crying of an Irish
artist after the Jacobite wars to the
heir of his craft: "Son, cultivate not
I; poetry, the profession of thy ancestors
forsake utterly, fling into oblivion the
memory of their munificence, who
,, were the poets treasure"
| But even the eighteenth century
with its blind concealment of literary
light under the bushel Of ascendancy
was not devoid of all grace and mag
nanimity towards the old script. Ed
mund Burke had the foresight (al
most second sight for his time) tt
secure the manuscript Of the Senchw
Nor as a national possession. F1oot
bequeathed his money to encourage
the study Of Irish On the othel
hand, Thomas Moore, who Is perhaps
responsible for bringing more Celtic
words into English currency than an!
other writer before or since, wrote hi
/ History Of Ireland" without knowl
edge even OF the existence of th'
native annals.
| When faced with records in 1risl
by Eugene O'Curry, he confessed hov
little had been his right to produces
an Irish history. It was true, he be
lieved in tho nationality Of his poetry
and he has been believed to be tn
national poet ever since, but 1t mus
be remembered that he only becam
Ineligible to most of his fellow-coun
! trymen after translation by Archbish
op MacHale, Few things are less easy