AN GAOḊAL.
37
The Gael.
A Monthly Journal Devoted to the Cultivation
and Preservation of the Irish Language.
M. J. LOGAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. — Sixty Cents
a Year, Five Cents a single copy.
Terms of Advertising. — 10 cents a line. 25 per
cent discount to yearly advertisers.
Money Orders and all Communications to be ad-
dressed to the Editor, at No. 814 Pacific St. Brook-
lyn, N. Y.
Entered at the Brooklyn P. O. as second-class
matter.
BROOKLYN, N. Y. FEBRUARY, 1882.
THE PROSPECT OF AN GAODHAL.
When, five months ago, we determined to produce
a Monthly Journal wholly devoted to the cultivation
and preservation of the Irish Language, and the
autonomy of the Irish nation, wise men shook their
heads and smiled at, what to them seemed, our sim-
plicity in embarking in so utopian an undertaking,
and prophesied for it a speedy termination, but
not being in the least daunted by the prognostications
of those wise Prophets, we pursued the even tenure
of our course and, instead of our undertaking end-
ing in a speedy collapse, we are enabled, thanks to
our patriotic patrons, to enlarge the size of this, its
fifth, issue! And we have now no hesitation in say¬
ing, that five years hence, it will have the largest
circulation of any Irish-American Journal ever pub-
lished in this country.
So, Messrs, Wiseacres, even at only its fifth issue
the paper is both an ideal and a financial success.
This is as we expected. Our thorough acquaintance
with real Irish sentiment convinced us that the Irish
people needed only to be shown that the evidence of
their ancient civilization and enlightenment still exist¬
ed to arouse them to an active participation in lay¬
ing that evidence before the world. The GAODHAL
is now read and patronized from Killybegs in the
County Donegal, Ireland, to Leland, Oregon! It
has made its way into every city, town, and hamlet
in the United States, and before five other months
are over us, we expect to have it wherever an Irish¬
man has secured a foothold.
THE IRISH NOT PECULIARLY ADDICTED TO
DIVISION.
Some people presume to say that if Ireland were
given up to Irishmen to-morrow they could not
govern themselves, that there would be nothing but
fighting and bloodshed among them. We cannot see
any evidence whereon to found this accusation.
We find in the histories of all countries, savage and
civilized, records of strife and internal commotion
from time to time. We believe there is not a more
enlightned country in the world to day than these
United States, yet, in the short space of twenty years
we have two presidents murdered. Assuming that
we had to record this proportion of regicide for a
space of say, two thousand years we should have the
enormous number of two hundred. An enormity of
crime like this cannot be alleged to the Irish. I-
solated cases in the course of centuries heaped on
top of one another in a short treatise is not a
true representation of the state of society. Take
benign (hic) mother England, from whom this false
accusation against us emanates and examine her rec-
ord on this head; —
Twenty-eight Saxon Kings, part killed by each
other, part murdered by their own subjects; others
deposed and obliged to fly for refuge. Four of the
Northumbrian kings alone murdered, and three de-
posed within the space of forty-one years. Charles
II. of France, having heard of such atrocities, though
he had intended to send large presents to England,
changed his mind, and told Alcuin, an Englishman,
his majesty's tutor, “that England was indeed a per-
fidious and perverse nation, a murderer of their
lords, and worse than pagans.” The bishops and
nobles had also to fly, so that for thirty years no one
dared sit on the throne of Northumbria. There was
one unbroken chain of internecine strife until the
10th century, see 'Mylius' England” or any impar-
tial English history. After the Norman invasion we
have the unnatural rebellion of Henry II.'s own
children. The baron wars under King John and
Henry III — Edward II.'s own queen; Eleanor, and
son, the prince of Wales, conspired to dethrone him.
The woeful feuds of the Yorks and Lancasters —
the oceans of blood that deluged the country for
thirty years, under Henry VI and Edward IV. — the
murder of Richard II. — all are acquainted with the
history of Richard III! His grandfather, the earl
of Cambridge, beheaded at Southampton, — the duke
of York, his father — beheaded before Sandal. His
three brothers, one of them slain in cold blood — the
duke of Clarance drowned in a butt of Malmsey, his
two nephews, strangled in their beds, besides eleven
battles fought — in one of which 36,730 Englishmen
were left dead on the field, besides the wounded !
(Echard, p. 520.) This was the battle of Taunton,
in Yorkshire. Philip Comines, an English writer,
says, “eighty of the royal blood were lost in them,”
of whom was Henry VI. — a good and virtuous prince.
The Usurper Richard III., was killęd in the battle of
Bosworth, after having swam to the throne on rivers of
blood. His opponent, the earl of Richmond, assum-
ed the sceptre, as Henry VII. — who by marrying the
daughter of Edward IV., united the houses of York
and Lancaster, and thus ended the terrible factions
of “the White and Red Rose." All this we have
from their own historians.
