916
AN GAOḊAL.
Moyarget, Ballintoy Co. Antrim, Ireland,
9 Enáir 1890.
Dear Mr. Logan: Herewith I send
you a postal order (5-6) for two sub¬
scriptions, one for self, and the other
Mr. E. Mulcahy, Killkeany, Ballyma¬
carbry, Clonmel, for another year. I
am late, but a pressure of parochial ex¬
igencies was the principal cause. I
send cream of my best wishes to all
the great supporters of the Gaelic ton¬
gue under the "Stars and Stripes," es¬
pecially those of An Gaoḋal. And
Pádraic sent me a valuable and schol¬
arly letter of his. He is doing won¬
ders.
Enair, this is the ancient Irish word
for January. It is used by St. Angus
in the opening verse of his incompara¬
ble metrical calender of the Irish saints
and it is in the last verse of January.
It is also used by him in the epilogue.
Again we find the same word for Jan¬
uary at page 14 Chronicon Scotorum.
This is more than warrant enough
for using it now. Enár or Eanár ap¬
pears to the nominative case. Romu¬
lus, it is said, had only ten months in
the year. The first, March, he called
after Mars, the god of war and the pa¬
tron of the state. December was the
tenth month. His successor, Numa,
king of Rome had this style of things
reformed, and named January after his
peculiar two faced god, Janus. The
next month he named Februs, to pur¬
ify. In Reilly's dict. Fabra means
February, a veil, curtain, fringe, eye¬
brows. Foley spells it Fáḃraḋ. And
O'Reilly has Foilleaċ, February, half
of February and January, bad weath¬
er, holidays, carnival. By what purty
process will our Latin friends derive
Enar from Janus? Slan le gaċ naon
ṫá aig-oḃair.
D. B. MULCAHY, P.P. M.R.I.A,
We received a sample copy of the American
Celt the other day, which in make-up, etc., is sec¬
ond to none in the States, but not seeing one word
of Celtic in it, we sent this card to the editor —
Editor American Celt,
Dear Sir — I have just received a copy of the
American Celt and I regret to have to say that I
see nothing Celtic about it, and therefore that the
title is a misnomer. It is an excellently gotten up
Saxon journal. If you and your Irish-Am¬
erican brother editors continue to write Saxon
for the next fifty years, you do more te denation¬
alize the Irish people than all the Cromwells Eng¬
land ever gave birth to. Why not urge the preser¬
vation of the Nation's language?
The GAEL.
New York, Dec. 23, 1889.
Editor Chicago Citizen,
Dear Sir, — I read in your issue of the 14th inst. a
a letter signed “A student of Gaelic," which was
in reply to a letter from the Rev. Father Keegan,
on the Gaelic Language, which appeared in your
issue of Nov, 30th. I must say that I agree with
much of what the Student's letter contains. He is
surely, correct in saying that we must not pick up
and spell, phonetically, all the gibberish we hear
uttered as Irish and have it so printed. However,
we ought to pick up every strange word we hear
and have it (if it be a proper word) properly spelled
and written. I say also with the Rev. Father Kee¬
gan, that we need a book containing the names of
men and women, animals and things, with the
proper translations, very much, but all in correct
Irish. I will not expatiate on this subject as does
our friend Mr. I mean the Student. But he tells us
that the Scotch Gaelic and Manx have been dis¬
torted for the sole purpose of making them as
much unlike the Irish as possible. I would now
ask, in Heaven's name, what object he and the Rev
Father could have in printing the Irish in English,
or, we'll say to please him, Roman type, unless it
is to make it look as much like the English as
possible? Is it not easier to read Irish in its natural
type than in English? Any intelligent person can
learn the Irish alphabet by reading it over three or
four times, and has it not a more majestic and pic¬
turesque appearance than any other type in use ?
There is not a paper that prints Irish in English
type (I won't call it anything else) that tries to
come near the Irish, as much as does the “Tuam
News." It leaves out a multiplicity of H's and
supplies their places with dots. Even then, where
is the Irish loving Irishman who would prefer that
pockmarked, Spanish-looking thing to the beauti¬
ful, clever, and above all, natural Irish type, as
we have it on the Irish American and on the other
papers which the Student appears to condemn.
And now, let me ask the Student and Mr. Russell
and also the Rev. Father who advocate the use of
English type for Irish language, if any Irish gram¬
mar or book of instruction does not specify dis¬
tinctly that we cannot reach the proper Irish ut¬
terance or pronunciation by the use of English let¬
ters, but at best, only an approximate? Then, I
ask, in God's name, if it is not as bad to ingraft
those barbarous approximations upon our beauti¬
ful language as it would be to use the barbarisms
of the Scotch Gaelic or Manx ? I can't see what
these gentlemen mean. Mr., I mean the Student
says he saw an Irish word improperly spelled in
the GAEL and another in the Irish Echo, and be¬
cause that was so, he asks the only three Irish
printing papers in America, namely, the Irish-A¬
merican, the GAODHAL, and the Irish Echo, for
Heaven's sake and for the sake of the Irish lan-
