AN GAOḊAL.
975
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.
Ninth Year of Publication.
Published at 814 Pacific st., Brooklyn, N. Y.
M. J. LOGAN, Editor and Proprietor.
Terms of Subscription — 1$ a year to students :
Sixty Cents to the general public, in advance ; $1
in arrears.
Terms of Advertising — 10 cents a line, Agate.
VOL 7, No. 12. JULY. 1890.
Gaels with the next issue you com¬
mence the 8th volume of your Nation¬
al journal. A good many of you have
not been cursed with a superabund¬
ance of worldly means, but you have
been blessed with undying thirst for
that learned lore which distinguished
your forefathers in the far-back, Dark
Ages when the people who now sur¬
round you were tattooing their bodies.
In reviving the literature of your an¬
cestry, you leave your children a trea¬
sure which gold cannot purchase
Enlarge, then, the sphere of useful¬
ness of your little Gael by increasing
its circulation. Impress on the minds
of your less informed countrymen the
necessity of circulating Gaelic litera¬
ture to was away the mountains of
filth flung at us by our social enemies.
Sixty cents will not be missed by
any you, and if you fail in getting your
neighbor to become a subscriber, why,
make him a present of it.
Some time ago we referred to a young
layer of this city, born of Irish par¬
ents, who asked us "Had the Irish an
alphabet for their language?" and
though thousands of others asked sim¬
ilar questions we emphasized the law¬
yer because he is supposed to be a man
of education — one of the learned Pro¬
fessions. Now, because of the short¬
coming of his parents and tutors and
the continuous yell of "ignorant Irish"
by the anti-Irish Gotho-Saxon element
in the country, this young man hon¬
estly believed that his forefathers were
no better than their enemies represen¬
ted them; and if he were taxed by his
Saxon associate with being descend¬
ed from such ancestry, he could only
hang his head in shame and try if pos¬
sible to shun such associations as were
aware of his parentage, and screen its
identity from subsequent associations.
How different would his demeanor be
were he after reading the Extracts
from Spalding's History of English Li¬
terature quoted in another column?
We cannot blame our Saxon neigh¬
bors for applying those terms to us as
they believe that they are true, as do
the uniformed portion of our own peo¬
ple, which is considerable.
It can hardly be conceived what in¬
jury this English cry of "ignorant Ir¬
ish" entails on Irish-Americans and
what pertains to them. They lose in
their social standing; and Catholicism
and Irishism being synonymus terms
with Americans, they actually believe
that the Irish are Catholic because of
their "ignorance." Now, the Irish were
Catholic when they were the instruct¬
ors of Europe, and the proof of that
fact should find its way into every Ca¬
tholic school-book and every Catholic
newspaper in the land; the proof con¬
sists of such matters as the extracts
which we have given, with the lang¬
uage and literature annexed.
THE "SCOTCH IRISH."
The reader has seen by the public
press that a convention of "Scotch Ir¬
ish" had been held in Pittsburg Pa. a
few weeks ago, and that the delegates
who met there took considerable pains
to convince the American public that
they (those whom the Conventionists
represented — the "Scotch Irish") were
a totally distinct race from THE IRISH,
and more than insinuated that they
