The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1914-03-14
SPEAKS ON IRISH IDEALS
Address of Father P. c. York at
Gaelic Celebration

Address OF Father P. C. York at
Gaelic Celebration
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Successful Program
Following is the address Of Father
Yorke on Irish Ideals:
The object of this festival, and of
similar festivals held in Ireland and
elsewhere by the Gaelic League, is
to bring before the minds of the Irish.
whether born within the four shores
Of Ireland or beyond the sea, the fact
that we have q great national heri.
tage peculiar to ourselves and Of
which we should be proud. 1t is true
that, as the result Of our political
misfortune, the years have dealt hard
ly with 1t and a defective system Of
education has blinded us to it's value;
but nevertheless it still exists, and
whether in good repute or bad repute
1t is the one real thing we Irish can
call our own.
Whatever may be thought Of the
Gaelic League, Of its men or Of its
methods, of it's success or it's unsuc-
cess, this one thing it has achieved
1t has made Irishmen realize the value
and the potency of the national name.
1t has evoked the spirit that feels
that nothing that claims the name of
Irish can be alien to the Irish heart.
Be it high or lowly. great or small.
the secret of its attraction to the
Irish must be always the very fact
that it is Irish. The mammoth prod
ucts of the shipyards of Belfast, and
the fairy lace made in a peasants cot
tage, the elaborate mastery of the art.
list, as we'll as the simplest Tilt on a
village maiden's lips-all are appre-
ciated, all are cherished because they
are achievements of Irish industry and
revelations of the Irish soul.
In every age and in every country
there Is a danger that now one and
now another momentary pressing need
of the national life may bring men to
believe that such a temporary emer.
gency is the very essence Of the ma
ton itself. In thinking nationally we
must before all keep in mind the mot
to, mot in bread alone doth man
live" Politics at one time seem to
monopolize the national energy, at
another time military glory. and again
it is commerce, or industry, or art, or
science. But no one of these things
is the nation. They are expressions
Of the nations life and the nations
talent, but the nation itself exists be-
fore them, and lies behind them, and
is greater than all of them. We may
reduce a nation to servitude, we may
take. away the arms in which the war
riors trusted, we may burn its ships
and let the grass grow on its high
ways, we may condemn its people to
be hewers of wood and drawers of
water, we may brutalize the old and
deny learning to the young-and all
these things were done in Ireland
but as long as the nation is conscious
Of it's own soul and thinks its own
thoughts that no man can bind and
speaks in what is the expression Of
the national personality, in what 10
the very sum and substance Of nation
ality-the national language - then
that nation still lives. and, though oft
doomed to death, is fated not to die.
This is the great achievement Of
Eugene O'Growney that he saw. this
truth and was able to make others see
1t, too. Spencer. the enemy with the
enemy's Quickness to discern the weak
points in the armor, recognized it
three hundred years before. III the
tongue be Irish the heart must needs
be Irish, too" The Four Masters.
Geoffrey Heating, the Franciscans
knew it when in the great overthrow
Of the Irish fortunes, they gathered
up the remains of the literature and
the records and the traditions and
in foreign presses committed them to
print lest the world might forget that
the Island of Saints was also the
Island of Scholars. Davis and Nc
Hale realized it, but unfortunately
O'Connell did not, and the Union.
with its legacy of interminable politi.
cal agitation, the Famine, the Emigra-
ton, and, above all, the miscalled ma
tional schools, blinded the eyes of the
wittiest and most humorous people in
Europe to the simple fact that an
Irishman without Irish was as absurd
and ridiculous as an Englishman with.
out English or Frenchman with.
out French.
For, after all, what is the national