628
AN GAOḊAL.
ited.
The Gaelic Journal is the first and the only
journal published on Irish soil in the interest of
the National Language, yet this monthly journal
cannot appear, even once a month, for want of
funds to turn it out. And this is the only national
journal of people who are shouting loudly for
national autonomy? Such people will never get
national autonomy, English politicians are shrewd
enough to measure the mettle of a people who have
not patriotism enough to keep alive the only one
little monthly journal in the interest of their lan¬
guage on their native soil, Irish nationalists have
five sixths of the Irish representatives in the Brit¬
tish Parliament, yet Salisbury and Churchill did
not deign to even mention the cause of Ireland in
opening Parliament, though it was on the ques¬
tion of Irish Home Rule that they attained to
power. These English politicians know perfectly
well that they never need fear the bleating of
those sham Irish patriots who permit their parent
tongue to starve to death. The English people —
it is now made plain — will not yield their control
over Ireland until they are forced to do so, and
they rightly judge that there is not manhood e¬
nough in the Irish people today to have recourse
to that force, for the total exclusion of Ireland and
her affairs from the queen's speech at the opening
of parliament cannot be interpreted in any other
way.
They treated the Irish question with silent con¬
tempt because they have had the full measure
of the class of persons with whom they are dealing,
a class of persons so lost to all sense of national
pride that they would not reach out their arm to
rescue the mainspring of their nationality from dy¬
ing! These men to command national respect?
No. Only true nationalists will command respect:
The Gael has now about twenty-eight hundred
readers, and it is they and the readers of the Dub¬
lin Gaelic Journal who will create the sentiment
which will give Home Rule to Ireland. That sen¬
timent is being built on a foundation which cannot
be shaken or dislodged, and which has withstood the
billows and breakers of angry seas for more than
three thousand years.
Irishmen will have to fight for Home Rule.
Mr. Gladstone, as if telling Irishmen what to do,
has reiterated over again that the English never
gave anything to Ireland except through fear.
Will those Irishmen who see their language in the
throes of death, and who will not reach out a hand
to save her, command that fear which the greatest
statesman of modern times tells them is necessary
to attain their end. Never.
It cannot be said in this connection that we op¬
posed parliamentary agitation for we are one of the
three or four men who started the Parnell Parlia¬
mentary Fund Association in this city; and we
did so in order to give the world to see that Irish¬
men did not want to resort to extreme means to
regain their lost rights if they could get them by
words and speeches.
WHAT CAUSED THE CHANGE.
For some time after the publication of the Dub¬
in Gaelic Journal the Galic Union conducted
Gaelic department in the Irishman. As the read¬
ers of the Gael are already aware, Mr. T. O'N.
Russell did all in his power to disparage its use¬
fulness, and to one of his communications to the
Irishman on that head, the Gaelic Editor who was
connected with the Gaelic Journal, in a note app¬
ended to Mr. Russell's letter, used the following
language. —
[Our reasons for printing the letter referred to a¬
bove by our friend. Mr. Russell, were clearly stat¬
ed in a note we appanded to that letter at the time.
As to the controversy between Mr. Russell and the
Gaodhal with which we have nothing to do, and
upon which too much valuable time and energy
have been wasted, we then suggested that the id¬
ioms in dispute should be placed before a few well
known Irish scholars whose decision should be fi¬
nal. There is nothing impracticable in this and
it is only what Mr. Russell himself (as we find)
suggested in an American paper some time since.
To the names then put forward no exception could
possibly be taken, save to our own, and in such a
matter we would not take it on ourselves to inter¬
fere. We would add the name of Mr John Flem¬
ing, a veteran Irish scholar, who has spoken, read
and written Irish from his boyhood — indeed, the
question might be very well left to him alone to
settle.
As to the other matter on which our friend touch¬
ed, we really must claim to be allowed our own
discretion. No dialect of Irish (happily) is reduc¬
ed to such a level as to deserve the comparison he
makes. All are spoken by native Irishmen, not
by poor coolies endeavoring wearily to "pick up"
another tongue. And every local peculiarity of
of Irish is valuabe. Our language is far from that
fixed standard its friends hope to see; and each
local dialect helps and gives some light (little or
much) upon many difficult questions, Dr. Wind¬
isch, of Leipzig, certainly not ignorant, nor likely
to favor vulgarisms in language, is clearly not of
the same opinion as Mr. Russell on this point.
He writes to us in the Gaelic Journal for February
(p. 129), as follows :— As far as I can see, the Irish
given in your journal is the modern language of
the books, what we call die se riftspreche. Now
it would be very interesting to get also an idea of
the different popular dialects spoken in the differ¬
ent parts of Ireland, but as they are spoken — e. g.,
in tales &c., not translated into modern literary I¬
rish, I suppose that there are many scholars who
would be very grateful for such specimens.
Such a specimen was the letter the insertion of
which Mr. Russell objects to. — Ed. Gaelic "Depart¬
ment."]
We have seen by the transactions of the Gaelic
Union meetings lately reported in a friendly (?)
Journal, that the one of the council towards the
Gael has considerably changed, and that it no
longer approves of its course in publishing what
Professor Windisch says would be gratifying to
many Gaelic scholars, namely, the Irish Lang¬
uage as it as spoken.
What has caused that change in the council's
sentiments if it be correctly reported? Would the
