The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1914-06-06
nature Of IRISH
LITERARY PATRIOTISM
Irish Literary Revival Not Tear
Stained and Sad. But Has Tinee
of Joyousness.
Elbridee Colby in Catholic World
Declares Yeates is in Romantic
Quest of Melancholy.
Gaelic League Has Had Wonderful
Influence Upon Irish Industrial
and Literary Revival.

When Mr.. Seumas MacManus
appeared before a New York audi
ence last winter he read a little
poem. by "Ethna Carberry." Md
ran:
The wake, aggradh! We yet shall
win a gold chown from your head,
Strong wine to make royal feast
the white wine and the red
And in your oaken neither the yellow
mead shall flow
What day you rise. in all mems eyes
"a Queen.
Mo Chraoibhim Ono!
The silver speech our fathers knew
shall once again be heard;
The fire-lit story. grooming song,
sweeter than Tilt of bird;
Your quicken-tree shall break in
flower. its ruddy fruit shall glow,
And the Gentle People dance be-
meath its shade
Mo Chraoibhin Ono!
We shall take the liberty to add
to this single stanza from the hand
of Mr.. MacManus himself:
My life is then my Queens, to leave,
To order. or to ask it.
This good right arm to fend or
strike.
t., \ s<, <~ %1o
This hand that waits, this heart that
beats. r..
Are hers when she shall need 'em,
And my secret soul is burning for
Her trumpet-call to Freedom
Kathleen.
o sound the call to Freedom!
And Immediately there arises to
ones lips the exclamation: But
this is SO different from the other
poetry of the Irish Revival" OF
course! People have been too long
in error. The Irish evival is not, as
Mr.. Yeates' reputation might seem
to imply, an event Of decade: it
began seventy odd years ago with
the re-possession of education. The
success in 1929 of Daniel O'Connell's
agitation against the Penal Laws,
and the establishment in 1888 of the
National School System, marked the
breaking away from the dread legacy
of past years. Not in the work of
Mr.. Yeates, not in the work of the
Abbey Street Theater, not even in
the work Of those other Irish writer's
of English verse more truly Irish
and less French than he. lies the
source of the real Irish revival;
that source must be traced to the
spread of the teaching and know
ledge of the Gaelic language-in
seventeen years it's study has
claimed from thirty to three hundred
thousand pupils-and to the remark
able industrial revival of the past
decade. And this is the work of the
Gaelic League. They, the true Irish
revivalists. do not dream in sorrow
of the past: they look to hope to the
future. They are practical idealists:
they labor for social and economic,
as the basis of political freedom. To
them the impending Home Rule Bill,
or any Home Rule Bill, is only
step: they look to day of freedom
for Ireland when her splendid sun
shall ride the skies again." and she
shall raise in all mems eyes-a
Queen!"
Mr.. Paul Elmer More, in one of
the early Shelburn Essays, said that
the movement of which Mr.. Yeates
is the leader is. in its last analysis,
defeat. AS such, and Mr.. More's
criticism is true. it is essentially un-
representative of Ireland to-day. The
Yeatsian haunting music of sweet
sorrow" is far removed from the
actually and the ideality of Irish
life. Mr.. Yeates' Irish Revival" is
a romatic quest of melancholy, q
vain longing for "old. forgotten far
of things" and the poems by Seu-
mas O'sullivan. ITO a Poet and
I'm an Irish Theatre, show how
little feeling the true freshman has
for these vague symbols Of forgotten
Celtic beauty. Spiritual courage
amid material defeat has been the
chief characteristic of the Irish
nationality-in the fighters Of. '9S
and in the mid-century songsters.
Davis. Mangan. Callahan, and walsh.
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