160
AN GAOḊAL.
Irish Language journal is 4 College Green and that
of the Gaelic Union journal 24 D’Olier St. In a
recent issue of the GAEL we expressed our sentim-
ents regarding these journals. The only ques-
tion now to be met is that of funds to support
them. We regret to have to declare that if this
question were before any other people on the face
of the earth to-day it would be decided in favor
of the publication of the journals before a week.
As the secretaries of the Parent Society have fully
placed before our readers why the people should
preserve their language we shall say nothing on
that head, and merely refer to the pecuniary aid
solicited. Ten shillings a year is about two dol¬
lars and fifty cents. For this the subscriber will
get a copy of the journal as often as it is publish-
ed. This sum does not amount to a quarter a
month, and, surely, the Irishman or woman who
would grudge to pay that for a journal in their
own language should never proclaim themselves
Irish. How very short that would go in a liquor
saloon.
We commend this matter to our countrymen.
See what the little GAEL has accomplished. It
has urged our kindred at home to do something;
it has shamed them into it. Yes, it has shamed
them into the laudable efforts which are now being
made in pushing the Irish language movement.
The cost of the GAEL is only sixty cents a year —
five cents a month — the price of one bad cigar or
a glass of beer. Yet for these five cents ten GAELS
will be scattered through the country. We would
ask, Does any one of our subscribers miss the sixty
cents which they paid for the GAEL last year? And
yet they have the satisfaction of having a journal,
however small, in their native language : in the
language of that country which we call our own
and with which our nearest and dearest sentiments
and associations are inseparably interwoven —- for
the small sum of sixty cents a year. Is that Irish
man living to-day who does not look back to his
infantile days and who does not bestow a pass-
ing thought on the recreations and associations
which then occupied his time and mind; the fam-
iliar spots where he and his companians used to
enjoy themselves, without a momentary emotion,
and yet how lukewarm he is to preserve any me-
mento that he ever had a home, (be it ever so hum¬
ble) and that he is not a nondescript cast on the
waves of the world without a country nor the evi¬
dence that he ever had one.
Those residing in the neighborhood of New
York and Brooklyn will receive thorough instruc-
tion in the Irish Language by calling at either of
the following places. —
Clarendon Hall, Nos. 114 & 116 13th St. N. Y.
Wednesday and Sunday evenings ; 295 Bowery,
Thursday and Sunday evenings, at Jefferson Hall,
junction of Adams, Willoughby and Fulton Sts.,
Thursday and Sunday evenings, at 8 o'clock.
THE GAELIC UNION,
19 Kildare St., Dublin, Nov. 22 '82.
To Editor of An Gaodhal:
Sir : A letter which appeared in the Irish Times
of the 25th Sep. last, from Mr. Ward, Belfast. ap-
pears in your impression for October. I beg to
enclose my reply to that letter, cut out of the Irish
Times of the 28th. Sep. I have no doubt you will
give it as much prominence as you gave Mr. Ward's
letter.
I remain, Sir,
yours faithfully,
MICHAEL CUSACK.
Hon. Treasurer to the Gaelic Union.
TO THE EDITOR IRISH TIMES.
Sir, — In the year 1876 the Rev. John Nolan, O.
D. C., and others founded in Dublin a society for
the Preservation of the Irish Language. Three
years later the Rev. J. Nolan resigned his seat on
the council, and retired from the society. The
council unanimously requested him to withdraw
his resignation. He declined.
In the year 1880 he founded the Gaelic Union,
His undoubted honesty, his prudent zeal, and well-
directed energy and industry, coupled with his em-
inently practical intellect, drew around him — with-
out distinction of creed or party — most of the lead-
ing members of the first society which he had
founded. How successful he and his colleagues
have been during the past two years in carrying
out the objects of the Gaelic Union the public
Press from time to time has shown.
That the two societies are not by any means an-
tagonistic in their views may be gathered from the
fact that several gentlemen are members of the
councils of both societies; I have myself the honor
of being a member of both councils. I have not
been absent from a single meeting of either coun-
cil since the Irish Congress was held in Dublin last
August. I was present at the Congress and took
part in some of its deliberations. So, too, were
two other members of the Council of the Gaelic
Union — viz., the Rev. Maxwell H. Close and Mr.
John Fleming. Both these gentlemen read papers
at that meeting.
Of late I have been looking after the business
of the two societies for the preservation of the Ir-
ish language, and I have quite satisfied myself that
there is neither reason nor necessity for the exist-
ence of more than one society in Dublin to carry
on the work we all have so much at heart, and I
have the very best reason to believe that an effort
will be made at an early date, by those whose de¬
cision will, I have no doubt be respected by both
societies, to amalgamate them, and thus put an
end to the erroneous feeling which has been pain-
fully brought home to me by Mr. Ward's letter in
yesterday's Irish Times, that the existing societies
are interfering with each other's work.
The Society for the Preservation of the Irish
