AN GAOḊAL.
783
A monthly Journal devoted to the Cultivation and
Preservation of the Irish Language and the au¬
tonomy of the Irish Nation.
Entered at the Brooklyn P. O. as second-class mail
matter.
Seventh Year of Publication.
Published at 814 Pacific st., Brooklyn, N. Y.,
M. J. LOGAN, Editor and Proprietor
Terms of Subscription — Sixty Cents a year, in
advance ; Five Cents a single copy.
Terms of Advertising — 10 cents a line, Agate.
VOL 6, No. 8. MARCH, 1888
The Reader.
We have re-commenced the first
lessons in Irish this month, with the
pronunciation of each word [as nearly
as it can be conveyed by any combina¬
tion of the English sound of the let¬
ters] there-under. The value of this
mode to the learner cannot be over-es¬
timated. Let the student thoroughly
master the exercises given by the next
issue, and so on, and in a short time he
will not be wholly ignorant of the lan¬
guage of ancient Erinn
And you, degenerate son of the Eme¬
rald Isle who may chance to get these
invaluable lessons and who would cast
them into the waste baskets of "no
good," pause and put them carefully
away on yourself, for your children
yet unborn may breathe a silent pray¬
er and bless your worthless memory
for even the slight insight they may
give them of knowing something of that
language which they may have heard
had once resounded through the halls
of their remote ancestry when those
ancestry bore the pre-eminent titles of
Saints and Scholars!
IRELAND IN 1880.
From "A Gate of Flowers" by T. O'HAGAN, M. A.
Hearts are failing, mothers wailing,
Hope is drooping o'er the land,
God of mercy ! help der Erin,
Stay the famine with Thy hand.
Clouds are gathering, darkly gathering,
Fast the tide of woe rolls on,
Help dear Erin, oh, ye people !
Till the wave of want is gone.
"Help us, help us ! or we perish,"
Is the cry from o'er the deep,
And the billows of the ocean
Chant a lonely dirge and weep.
Help dear Erin, help dear Erin!
Sounds a tocsin from the dead,
Sound the voice of armied martyrs
That a nation's glory led.
They are dying, they are dying!
Sighs the breeze upon the stream,
They are dying, Erin's children —
O my God is this a dream?
In the midst of wealth and plenty,
Hunger knocking at the door,
Shrouds of it, shrouds of mercy,
Wrap the dead for evermore.
Cold the night and chill the morning,
Dies the fire upon the hearth, —
Dies the hope of Erin's children,
Faint each ember quench'd by dearth.
Woe is Erin, woe her people !
Famine darkens o'er the land,
Tears of sorrow bathe a nation,
Suffering Erin — faithful band.
They are dying, they are dying!!
Sighs the harp across the deep,
They are dying, Erin's children
Chant the psalm of death in sleep.
Tears and sorrow — hope to-morrow —
Beds of woe in silence told —
God of Erin, God of mercy!
Take the dying to Thy fold.
They are dying, they are dying!
Oh, affection, can it be
That the homes of happy childhood
Sink beneath the woeful sea?
They are dying, "DE PROFUNDIS!"
Lay them gently 'neath the sod;
"MISERERE:" faithful Erin,
Live forever with thy God.
On the opposite page should appear this -
NOTE — The above song is composed to the air of
Patrick's Day as that tune was sung and played in
Munster sixty years ago. It was to the same air
that Andre MacCurtain wrote his "Peep o' Day
Rangers," about the middle of the last century: It
is more forcible and musical than the setting to
which Moore wrote his "Prince's Day." — W. R.
'Tis a fallacy for the Irish people to
say that they desire freedom: Of all
the phases of slavery, that of the mind
is the most degrading because it is vo¬
luntary, and none would submit to it
except those fit for nothing else,
