AN GAOGHAL.
29
The Gael.
A Monthly Journal Devoted to the Cultivation
and Preservation of the lrish Language.
Entered at the Brooklyn P. O. as second-class
matter.
BROOKLYN, N. Y., JANUARY, 1882
M. J. LOGAN, EDITOR
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. — Sixty Cents a Year
or Five Cents a single copy.
Money Orders and all Communications to
be addressed to the Editor, at No. 814 Pacific
Street, Brooklyn, N. Y
Terms of Advertising. — 10 cents a line. 25
per cent. discount to yearly advertisers.
THE CHICAGO CONVENTION.
Some dissatisfaction with the Chicago Con¬
vention for ignoring any mention of the Irish
Language in connection with Irish national¬
ity, in its platform and resolutions, exists in
the minds of many of the supporters of this
journal. We regret that this dissatisfaction
has been more or less vented through the New
York daily press. We regret it, because such
proceedings furnish weapons by which our
enemies will try to make it appear that we
cannot agree among ourselves. We felt the
omission keenly ourselves, but were not disap-
pointed. How could we, when we knew that
a prominent member of that Convention,
three years ago, made use of these expres¬
sions : “We could not revive the Irish Lan¬
guage if we would, and we would not if we
could”? The majority of those assembled in
Chicago were English-Irishmen, therefore that
which emanated from them was considerably
tinged with the Englishman's idea of existence
— the belly. As Mr. T. O’N. Russell said, “If
a man has no higher aim than his stomach, he
might as well be born an oyster." We do not
apply the term English-Irish disrespectfully to
the Chicago Conventionists. We know there
were honorable, patriotic men there, but it is
the logical sequence of their peculiarly anom¬
alous position.
We are a Land Leaguer in the fullest accep¬
tation of what that term implies (we belong
to two branches in this city). But we go fur¬
ther. We go for the unconditional surrender
of English power and influence in Ireland
and for all means to accomplish it. The title
page of this journal clearly indicates our sen¬
timents. At the same time we are willing,
and would urge all our countrymen, to accept
any concession as an installment, be it ever so
small, made to ameliorate the present deplora-
ble condition of our kindred.
The records of both ancient and modern
ages have amply demonstrated that there s
not so powerful a bond in cementing a peo-
ple together as that of the language. For
hundreds of years the Irish people have been
struggling to regain their independence, but
failed because they did not begin at the begin-
ning. They have begun at it now in earnest,
and will ultiinately succeed. The Language
(the marrow of nationalism) Movement,
which appeared like the hand on the wall a
few years ago, has evoked sentiments which
no power can subdue nor shall subdue. These
are the sentiments which feed the national
flame that has caused the greatesl commotion
ever known in the enemy's camp, and which
are destined to compass, ultimately, the free-
dom of our dear native land.
WHAT PHILO-CELTS HAVE TO BATTLE
AGAINST.
The most formidable and insidious enemy
to the progress of the movement for the Cul¬
tivation of the Irish Language is the erroneous
idea, propagated through English influence,
and accepted by the weak-minded and unin-
formed, that it is only the low and uneducated
portion of the Irish people who speak the na-
tional tongue. Now, the Irish man or woman
who supports this idea is like the Fox without
a Tail in Aesop's Fables.
We have it on the authority of Dr. Galla¬
gher, Bishop of Raphoe, in his Sermons, writ-
ten 144 years ago, that at that time there was
no English spoken in his diocese. There was
no English spoken in the province of Con-
uaught a hundred years ago, except by the
few English agents who resided there. Thirty
years ago there were not a dozen families in
the Barony of Dunmore, County Galway, who
spoke English as a business language; of this
we hare a personal knowledge. How then, it
will be asked, did the English language
spread? In this way : The poorer portion of
the people, who had no land to support them,
or who had not a sufficiency of it to produce
support, had to go to service in the “Big
Houses ” or to England for a part of the year,
generally the harvest time, to earn a living.
There they learned to speak English, and re-
turned more or less imbued with English
ideas. And this is the class of persons and
their descendants who turn up their noses and
say, “Oh, it is only the lower order who speak
Irish.” The comfortable farmers, who had no
need to wander about to earn a living, knew
no English at all, except whatever book knowl-
edge they had of it, whereas, the scullion from
the “Big House,” who could not tell the name
on a signboard, could talk them out of their
shoes with “Big House English.” Hence, the
intelligent reader will not be slow in forming
an idea of the class of persons who were flip¬
pant in the use of the English tongue, and to
what order of society they belonged. Conceive
the Swedish or German servant, who spends a
few years here and then returns to his own
country “full of English," and you can form
