AN GAOḊAL
731
Eucharist, the better to blindfold those
whom he led to be slaughtered. * This,
then, is a specimen of what detectives
do to attain their end; and there were
scores of innocent patriotic men in and
around Carrick-on-Suir who would shed
their life-blood for "Kelly's" genuine¬
ness until his character became known
As Irishmen cannot be punished here
for being members of such societies, the
object of the detectives will, of course,
be to split and disorganize them; and
that they partially succeed is made ev¬
ident by recent events.
No slur can be cast on a man for be¬
ing a detective, but no patriotic Irish
man would become an instrument to
crush Irish national aspirations.
Ten years ago, in a communication
to the Irish World, some of the Boston
Gaels taxed T O'N. Russell publicly
with being a British detective. If
that be his calling, he is trying to do
nothing but what any honorable man
assuming such business should do,
namely, the carrying out of the in¬
structions of his employer. The fact
that no one could see him do any bus¬
iness and of his spending large sums of
money going about from city to city,
especially those cities which were con¬
sidered centres of Irish national activ¬
ity, told heavily against him. If the
Boston charges be well founded, his vi¬
rulent, defamatory actions towards the
GAEL are intelligible - and these actions
would tend to support the charge, for
straws show the direction of the wind.
But we shall tell him and the Brit¬
ish government that the GAEL is ex¬
tending daily, and that we expect to
see it a weekly journal in the near fu¬
ture.
The fact of our refusing to permit
T. O'N Russell to run the Gael could
not cause him to injure the movement
if he had an honest desire to serve it.
He had no such desire ; and the only
parallel we can find for his course is
that of the false mother of the Bible —
He would quarter the infant.
In trying to run down the GAEL, T. O'N. Russell
does not point to a single grammatical error, that
the question might be discussed, but deals in gen¬
ralities. He himself is not able to write a single
Irish sentence idiomatically correct. We ad¬
mit that the GAEL contains many blinders from
time to time, but the reason is, that we cannot spare
time from our ordinary business to pay proper at¬
tention to it.
With, perhaps, one exception all the Gaelic writ¬
ers that we see make some blunders. These blund¬
ers arise generally because there is a divergence of
opinion regarding the governing power of certain
prepositions, and concerning the gender of some
nouns which have no sex.
But in classical languages, whose cases, moods
and tenses are formed by inflection, this seeming
imperfection does not vitiate their correctness.
T. O'N. Russell is a very smart man, as all self
educated persons generally are, unscrupulous, and
well adapted for the business which, it is alleged,
he pursues in our midst. But, after what has
been adverted to in these remarks, if he should
succeed in diverting one subscriber from the GAEL,
and, thereby, from a united effort in the Gaelic cause,
the subscriber whom he could so divert is of a very
shallow mind, indeed, and incapable of perceiving
the various wiles of the enemy.
It has been the continual practice of England to
hold up Irishmen as a class who cannot agree
among themselves and, therefore, unfit to govern
themselves. But it is a notorious fact that in non-
political and social organizations splits and dis¬
agreements are unknown, and that it is only in
organizations tending to perpetuate and maintain
Irish patriotic sentiments that discord is being
fomented! Throw a firebrand into the most
orderly assemblage and it will create a commotion.
Hence, any one capable of forming an opinion will
at once perceive the cause of discord in Irish
patriotic societies — the British detective. Patriotic
Irishmen should try to discover those detectives
who throw such firebrands into their societies, and,
when discovered, give them such caution as would
deter others from following suit.
I may not be amiss for other organizations as
well as the Gaelic to note the above reasoning and
profit by it.
* Vide trial of Sergeant McCarthy, etc.
§ Joyce makes one preposition govern the ac¬
cusative in the singular and the dative in the
plural. Bourke makes the same preposition gov¬
ern both singular and plural in the dative.
Sgríoḃann léiġṫeoir Gaoḋailġe ċug¬
ainn a fiafruġaḋ má tá an móḋ sgríḃ¬
inne seo ceart. —
"Tá siad 'na ḃ-fearaiḃ móra;
Is breáġ na fearaiḃ iad."
Ċonncamar an móḋ sgríoḃṫaḋ seo le
scoláiriḃ maiṫe go coitċíonta; aċt ba
ṁaiṫ linn clos ó scoláiriḃ elle 'na ṫim¬
ċioll sul do ḃéarfaḋ sinn freagraḋ air
Mar sin, tá súil againn go g-cluinn¬
fimid uaṫa seo atá léiġeanta anns an
teangain in a ṫaob.
