AN GAOḊAL.
189
Irish-American will not wear. He will throw it to
the wind and enter the enemy's camp, as millions of
his countrymen (as the census show) have already
done. Then, we say, there is not an Irish interest
in the country that has not suffered, and that will
not suffer, by deflecting this large number of custom¬
ers — even the last supplier, the undertaker!
THE SCOTCH IRISH.
A certain Irish-American boy we know works in
a large "Scotch-Irish" publishing establishment in
N Y City. He was there but a few weeks when his
workmates (who are all Scotch and English) began
their onslaught on the "Low, Ignorant Irish."
"Wait till to-morrow and I'll show you by your own
historians who is "Low and Ignorant," said the boy.
Next day he brought a copy of THE GAEL with him
and showed his abusers the Irish Language and
the extracts from Spalding. The sight of the lan¬
guage gave them a set-back, but the extracts from
Spalding they pronounced as a forgery. Next the
boy brought Spalding's and Cornwell's histories,
with the extracts given below marked in pencil,
with him to the shop and proudly threw them open
and pointed to his proof. The hands crowd¬
ed around and appeared as if thunder-struck by the
result. One of the bosses who saw the commotion
came up with a sneering smile (as much as to say
that the others had not read the matter aright). He
examined the parts marked, turned to and examin¬
ed the title pages — back again to the subject mat¬
ter, read and re-read it, and at last turned to the
boy and said, — "Well" — (calling the boy by name)
your people have been greatly wronged."
"Low ignorant Irish" has not been heard in the
shop since, and no one is thought more of than the
boy.
It is a crying shame for Irish-American parents
not to protect their children against these siurs. It
is a material injury to the children.
Following is the pith of the extracts above men¬
tioned, —
"All who then (the Dark Ages) cultivated learn¬
ing (in England) were ecclesiastics; and by far the
larger number of those who became eminent in it
were unquestionably Irishmen. Most of them are
described by old writers as Scots, but this name
was first applied to the Irish Ceits, and was not
transferred the to inhabitants of North Britain till
after the Dark Ages."
Then, after the standing extract in the Gael,
Spalding continues, —
"Nor does it appear that the Scottish Celts can
point to literary monuments of any kind, having an
antiquity at all comparable to this. Indeed their
social position was, in all respects, much below that
of their western kinsmen."
"Scotland, so-called from a tribe of Irish Scots who
passed over in the 6th century, overcome the inha¬
bitants and gave their name to the country. The
Romans called it Caledonia." — Historical Geogra¬
phy by James Cornwell, PH. D., F. R. G. S. Ed¬
inburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1865.
Here we have two bigoted though learned Scotch
historians tell who and what the "Scotch-Irish"
are. Had not seven hundred years' pressure of the
foreign yoke crushed all the self-respecting and man¬
ly impulses of the Irish character, all the dead walls
in America would be placarded over with the evid¬
ence of their social superiority. But, instead, some
of them will say, "The Gael is no good to me, I
cannot read it."
We see that the blackguardism on the veteran
Irish scholar, John Fleming, is again emerging
from the shade of the mysterious cloud (yet unex¬
plained) which kept it out of sight for some time.
The impartial observer must be convinced of eith¬
er of two facts — that the blackguardism on John
Fleming has a deeply laid motive, or that it is an
inherent characteristic of him who employs it.
The ostensible cause for the blackguardism is
the preposition Chum, and the dictionaries define
it as meaning to ; in order to, etc. When it means
to it governs the accusative or dative case of nouns,
and when it means in order to, it governs the gen¬
itive case. Hence, when placed before nouns which
are (by the nature of the context) in the dative it
means to, and cannot change that case into the
genitive (which would change the meaning of the
whole sentence — an absurdity), as is demonstrated
by the title page of the Gael, thus. —
An Gaoḋal, leaḃar-aiṫris míosaṁuil,
taḃarṫa ċum [do] an teanga Ġaeḋilge
a ċosnaḋ agus a ṡaorṫuġaḋ agus ċum
[do] féin-riaġla ciniḋ na h-Éireann.
Simply, then, as the direct and proper rule; when
do can be substituted for chum, cum is a simple
preposition, as in the above example. English
grammarians recommend a similar mode to deter¬
mine the part of speech to which doubtful words
belong; as, his hat is worth a dollar, where value
is substituted for worth the more readily to deter¬
mine the part of speech to which Worth, in that
instance, belongs.
As a further proof that the incessant attacks on
Mr Fleming are other than personal, we shall put
the word which is the sham cause of the attack in
such form that the reader needs no knowledge of
Irish to see the fallacy. —
John came to strike Thomas.
The reader sees that there is no possessive or gen¬
itive case in that sentence — that it admits of none,
unless the sense be changed. The equivalent in
Irish is. —
Ṫainic Seáġan ċum [or le] Tomás do
ḃualaḋ.
The shammers would construct the sentence thus :
Ṫainic Seáġan ċum Ṫomáis do ḃualaḋ,
which in English would be,
John came to strike Thomas's,
an incomplete sentence which would cause the lis¬
tener to ask.
"Thomas's what? Is it his head, his cow, or his
— ass?" Were it his head, then the case is diffe¬
rent, and Thomas would be in the possessive or
genitive case, thus, —
Ṫainic Seáġan ċum ceann Ṫomáis do
ḃualaḋ,
John came to strike Thomas's head,
Thomas being governed in the genitive case by the
noun "head," according to rule. — "The latter of
two nouns coming together, when the objects of
which they are names are different, is governed by
the former in the genitive case."
MacPherson destroyed the Scotch Gaelic as the
shammers seek to destroy the Irish. The Gaelic
student should write no word in the genitive form
unless it embody a genitive idea whether chum,
do, or le be placed before it. The genitive idea in
Irish corresponds to the possessive case in English
