Meade County news., 1916-06-08

LAD we CAME WH0T6 JuC
~ road ended and stood opposite
~ the seldom visited Island Of
Achill Beg. There was only
one thing for us to do-that was to
shout and shout until someone on the
island heard us and launched boat
to ferry us across, writes traveller to
the Emerald Isle, in Ireland. We
talked while we waited about the ul-
tra-nationalism of the friend we were
going to visit. There had been
project to build causeway from this
peninsula of the mainland to the is
land of his sojourn. Our friend OBJ
jected because he did not want the rs
families he lived amongst to be cor
rupted by an alien culture. We shout
ed again.
Then we saw stir on the island
and knew that a boat was being
launched. Another wayfarer had
come up and was waiting to cross over
with us. This was young woman
who thought little of nursing her baby
while she waited. She had taken
the child to some far-away dispensary
upon the peninsula and had received
a pronouncement upon its sickness.
Now she held it and talked to it as
If it was treasure-as if 1t was won
derful she had got the child back so
far. This young woman took our
phrases in Gaelic as good conversa-
tional coin. Most native speakers talk
to learners either scornfully or
patronizingly, but she talked trusting
ly, as If we had the Gaelic like the
flowing sea-" as they say. 1t was evi-
IDENTIFY that our friend on the island
had brought no hint of paucity in
Gaelic speech.
He lived with one of the island
families in the utmost discomfort.
Meat the people seldom saw, and they
burnt it when they undertook to cook
1t. They boiled potatoes well enough.
But no amount of repetition could get
them to make drinkable tea. Our
friend had room that had no catch
on its door and he was waited upon by
a barefooted girl. His mental nour-
ishment seemed as zestless as his
physical fare. There were books on
his shelf, but they were dictionaries,
grammars, textbooks, handbooks, ex-
ercises in translation, volumes of
propagandist journals. There was
one thing in the room that promised
some delight-our friends fiddle. We
knew how we'll he could play the
music Of fishers and shepherds of Gae-
lie Scotland and Ireland.
A Stronghold of Gaelic.
He held this remote island as
lonely post in battle that seemed
long lost-a battle of languages and
civilization. Gaelic might be surren.
dered or sold on the moinland or in
the big islands, but herv 25 families
would be drilled to hold and keep it.
Actually he had made this island the
one spot In the British islands where
English is a decaying language. He
had found 1t flourishing here and Gae.
~AS ohA ASouJ W 6lNC OuI.
had restored Gaelic. The young men
and young women who would spend
six months Of the year in the fields
of England and East Scotland spoke
no English here. We saw him fling
the door open and dart out like
weasel when he heard an English
phrase used by someone in the main
room. But the harvester was speak
ing Of "The Midland Great Western
Railway" and how could name like
that be put into Gaelic?
He was giving a lecture that night,
and we followed him as he went, Ian
tern in hand, to the schoolhouse. We
passed closed houses before which
geese seemed to sleep standing. We
walked amongst ducks that gave one
the impression that they were truants
from snhool-they slipped - pools Of
o1u0r.N-@-~~O