88
AN GAODHAL.
A PARALLEL.
In going over these “Sentiments” the reader
cannot fail to observe the frequent mention of the
United Irishman as the source through which a
considerable number of our subscribers were made
aware of the GAEL's existence. A good deal
has been said pro and con O'Donovan Rossa,
but his singleness of purpose in (unsolicited) ad-
vertising the GAEL from week to week in the col-
umns of his paper stands out in bold relief when
compared with the actions of other pretentious
proprietors of New York City Irish American
Journalism. After a decade of years in which
the laudable purpose of preserving and cultivating
the language of Ireland had been discussed in the
columns of these very journals to which we refer,
a journal had been founded for the exclusive pur-
pose of bringing the subject of that discussion to
a successful issue ; printed and published in
the language of Ireland; and by and through
the very parties who originated that discussion,
yet these editors did not consider the matter of so
much importance as a news item as to make the
slightest mention of it in their journals! Yes,
the advent of the first journal ever published in
in the Irish language and character and devoted
exclusively to the nation's dying language, did
not deserve a passing notice at their hands! And
yet, with our limited means of advertising the
GAEL, we have in our possession over eight hun¬
dred communications expressing sentiments sim-
ilar to those produced above !! These patriotic
editors would devote columns and pages to the
reproduction of American political stump oratory
and not a single line to announce to their readers
the advent of an Irish journal devoted to the teach¬
ing and to the preserving of the national lan¬
guage of their country!!! Where is the patriot¬
ism? Where is the consistency? Do they not
know that their treatment of Irish national pol-
itics is like unto the quack physician who pre-
scribed venesection for the patient who was dy¬
ing of exhaustion? Do they not know that the
language in which they agitate for Irish national
independence, even if they were sincere, is an
antidote to the nostrums which they prescribe ?
And do they not know that every line written and
read in the speech of England is a tacit avowal
of, and a strengthening to her sway? Yet, for
the world, they would not say a word that would
bring the GAEL, the only Irish journal published,
under the notice of their readers ! But despite
this disengenuous journalistic conduct, (we assert
that any journalist is disengenuous, nay, dishon¬
est, who fails to publish whatever would be news
to his readers, under all circumstances) the GAEL
is now known, read and appreciated all over
the land. The proud Celt, emerged from the
comatose state in which centuries of oppression
enveloped him, cannot brook the indignity of
being forced into the degrading condition which
the unpatriotism of permitting his national lan-
guage to perish would necessarily entail. The
emancipated Celt will be no slave, nor will he
be content with the language of the slave. And
we assert that every Irishman, ignorant of the
language of his country, is an English slave, and
we dare him to logically contradict it. Yes, “He
has bowed his very neck beneath the Saxon's
galling yoke.” What must be the sentiments
of the well to do Irish-American who has leisure
to saunter down Broadway, or any other fashion-
able thoroughfare through this free and invigor-
ating land, when he contemplates that he is
there a nondescript, neither an American, an
Englishman, nor a no-other-man. He, indeed,
lisps the English tongue, and though the En-
glish might accept his slavish services, yet there
is an impassable gulf which separates the two
peoples — the Celt can no more become a Saxon
than a Caucassian, an Ethiopian — the two races
are ethnologically distinct. What, then, is the
Irish Celt going to do? Why, to cultivate his
language and to preserve his individuality, and
to saunter up Broadway, or any other Way, at
his full height, whenever leisure or inclination
may prompt him. We, in company with Mr. T
O'N. Russell, walked up Broadway, N. Y. some
time ago, discoursing, as all Irishmen should, in
the ancient language of our ancestry, the language
of saints and scholars — and we declare we never
felt happier in our life. It was then only three
years since Mr. Russell commenced the study of
the language. Were Irishmen embued with the
emotions which pervaded us on that occasion, the
the reflection “The language of the conqueror in
the mouth of the conquered, is the language of
the slave” would alight lightly on them, because
they would learn their language at any sacrifice.
A NATION'S LANGUAGE.
In urging on the Irish people the many reasons
why they should strive to cultivate thier country's
language, we believe we cannot do better than to
quote Canon Bourke's opening remarks in the intro-
duction to his College Irish Grammar.- Grammar.-
"No nation supposes her sons and daughters to
be educated who have not learned their mother
tongue. It would be considered incongruous in a
German not to know the German language; in a
native of Italy not to know the sweet Tuscan; in
an Englishman not to know English. A Frenchman
unable to understand the language in which a Boss
uet or a Chateaubrand wrote — in which a Massillon
preached, a Mirabeau thundered- in which Napoleon
I. dictated laws to Europe — would be an anomaly in
his own land: and, strange to say, an Irishman with
