18
AN GAOḊAL.
Air na peacaiḋe riaṁ a ḋeunaḋ.
D'ḟás mar an t-uḃall is milse
Ar an taoḃ deas de'n ċrann,
Is mar sin d'ḟás an Tiarna innte
Le solus a ṫaḃairt díḃ-se
Mar is duais ar réir ar ġníoṁara
Tá go cinte againn le fáġail.
PHILO-CELTS.
On March 14 the Brooklyn Philo-Celtic Society
had its annual election of officers, with the follow¬
ing result. — President, P. S. McDwyer; vice pre¬
sident, Miss Annie Ward; recording secretary,
Miss Katie McDonnell ; financial secretary. Thos
Jordan; treasurer, Miss Mary Guiren; librarian,
Thomas Galligan; sergeant-at-arms, Nicholas
Heaney; chaplain, Rev. Thos. J. Fitzgerald;
corresponding secretary, M. J. Logan.
The outgoing officers being called on to report,
the financial secretary reported 69 members on
the roll, the treasurer reported the society finan¬
cially sound, and the corresponding secretary sub¬
mitted
The Twenty Second Annual Report of the Phi¬
lo Celtic Society of Brooklyn.
Philo-Celts, — When, twenty-five years ago, the
foundation of your Society was laid the Irish Lan¬
guage was not taught in any public school or
college in the whole world save Saint Jarlath's
College, Tuam, Ireland. The agitation instituted
by this Society in urging the formation of socie¬
ties for teaching the Irish language throughout
the country had the effect of rousing general in¬
terest in the matter and several societies sprang
up in our large cities, in New York, Philadelphia,
San Francisco, Chicago, and other centres of pop¬
ulation.
The American press took kindly to the Philo-
Celts and published long and numerous articles,
both humorous and grave, concerning their effort
and anticipations. Many of these articles were
criticisms on interviews by Philo-Celts who claim¬
ed that the Gaelic language was the oldest hum¬
an speech in the world and that the proof there
lay moldering in the archives of the universities
of continental Europe in Irish manuscripts
brought there by Irish monks, to preserve them
from the destructive ravages of the zealots of the
reformation during their persecuting forays on
the Irish.
Prominent newspapers in France, Germany
and the continent of Europe generally copied
some of the articles in the American press on the
Philo-Celts and the claims which they made in
behalf of their language. At this time, too, pro¬
minent European philologists, such as Mons.
H. D’Arbois de Jubainville, College de France,
Paris ; Mons. Emile Ernault, Paris; Professor
Hugo Schuchardt, University of Gratz, Styria;
Dr. Max Nettlau, Vienna, Austria; Ernst Wind¬
isch, professor of Sanscrit, University of Leipzig;
Professor Thurneysen, Freiburg, Germany, and
Heinrich Zimmer, professor of Sanscrit and com¬
parative philology, Griefswald, Prussia, were see¬
king in vain through the modern classics Latin,
Greek and Hebrew to discover the missing link
which anciently connected these languages with
the Aryan and through it with the Sanscrit (shan
scriobh, old writing, which is pure Gaelic). See¬
ing the claims of the Philo-Celts in their public
press, these philologists repaired to those univer¬
ities wherein it was stated the old Keltic records
could be found, unearted them, digested them
and proclaimed to the world that in them they
had discovered the missing link.
The delightful news was heralded through the
continental press and also the charge of barbar¬
ism against England in endeavoring to destroy,
for political purposes, a language, a knowledge
of which was indispensable to the full pursuit of
philological research was made. Parnell being at
this time in the zenith of his fame the British go¬
vernment got scared lest the charge of barbarity
in relation to the language by the continental
press should also extend to the general (mis) gov¬
ernment of Ireland by the English, the commiss¬
ioners of education in Ireland were ordered forth¬
with to permit the teaching of Irish in the public
schools on an equal footing with other foriegn(?)
languages.
The Dublin Gaelic society availed itself of this
boon and for the first time in the history of Eng¬
lish rule in Ireland, in the autumn of 1882, the
first batch of Irish children graduated in their
native language. There is now an annual exam¬
ination and up to 1897 some 13,000 pupils have
been presented for examination, of whom about
8,000 have received certificates of graduation.
Thro' the efforts of your Society (the Gaelic re¬
vival being started in Brooklyn in 1872) in direct¬
ing the attention of European philologists to the
antiquity of the Gaelic language, Celtic chairs
have been founded in all the leading colleges and
universities of Europe, the British isles and Am¬
erica. The American universities so favored are
the Catholic University, Washington; Harvard
University, Cambridge, Mass, and Johns Hop¬
kins University, Baltimore, Md. Gaelic societies
have sprung up in all the leading cities of America
and are now in operation in Boston (2), Chicago
Holyoke, New Haven, Kansas City, New York (2)
Pawtucket, Philadelphia, Providence, Peru (Ind)
Saint Paul, Springfield, Williamsport and your-
own society. And through the Gaelic League
(Continued on page 23.)
in 1872
