Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-03-17

It's a quaint festival that is cele-
brated in the United States on March
II, and wherever else in this whole
world men of the Celtic race have
wandered-feast of the patron saint
of the Country That Might Have
Been" feast of st. Patrick of Ire
land. says the New Orleans Item.
| And these men who gather about
the formal banquet tables in cities
and towns, in roiStering groups III
1 frontier mining camps, in the garb
of the soldier of all countries save
their own-men of a kingdom OF
heart and mind, they are men OF
kingdom long since dead. Wander
ers of wanderers forever mourning
their long lost home; fighters for all
flags but the flag they lament brim-
ming with the laughter that is akin
| to tears.
The Country That Might Have
Been" they come from, these men
among us of Irish blood-tfte Celts
from the shadowy isle of the West
ern sea where the foremost Ventur-
ing wanderers from the old Aryan
home in the very dawn of the times
we know had looked into the ocean
mists from a bleak headland and
name it THE End of Land"
Here and there in the annals of
other races there are vague glimpses
of their forefathers as they marched,
| in their furs and hides, before the
women and the children across the
| face of Europe from the motherland
in the Himalayas. They stormed
across the land where Turk and Bull
gar are battling now-and did II be-
| fore ever Priam died in the fall of
! Troy. They raided Tuscan villages
| before the foundations of Rome were
laid, drove Basque to southwark,
Finn to north, set up their home-
steads in Gaul and Britain and
| Scotia; and the best of them, the
daring ones, the dreamers of dreams
and seers of visions, were they who
went on to the Westward-went to
| the Isle of Erse.
| And in the Isle of Erse is the
| Country That Might Have Been. y
! There, through the long ages, while
other peoples have sprung to life and
been wiped away like the frost on
| the winter window, while empires
have risen and crumbled, the Celts
of ireland have held their own. The
| Roman overran Gaul and Britain,
but to Ireland he hardly ventnred.
Frank and Goth, fierce Teuton
younger sons. beat back the CONT
mental Celts until in "half-forgotten
islands and peninsulas" only scat
| tNASh VI tAltul sun q
| found: But of Ireland it has been
| written:
ireland is the only European
| country where the native can show
| title of his descent, and can point
| out with gertrude, even as far back
as the prehistoric shadows, the race
from which he sprang."
| So Renan, himself Celt of Brit
tany. wrote of the people, of which
| he also said:
1T has known only how to retreat
| into the last essential space, and then
| driven into this last corner, meets its
enemies with invincible resistance.
| Even its fidelity has been a wasted
| devotion. Hard to conquer, and
| always behind time, 1t is faithful to
| its conquerors even when the latter
have ceased to be faithful to them
| selves. . Thus the Celtic race
| has spent itself resisting the age and
| defending desperate causes. =
! 1t would seem that at no time has II
had any gift for political life; that
sense of family has stif1ed all at
| tempts at larger organization"
! Perhaps in the words of the Celt OF
the half forgotten" peninsula of ole
France is the key to the reason why
in the long years no Pan Celtic
| Empire" was grouped about the CAPT.
| tails of the ancient kings at Tara OF
at Druimceta-why the land that heli
stately parliament while the wolves
still sucked Romulus Is a vassal lapt