AN GAODHAL.
161
Language has been doing so little during the past
three years that I shall gladly pay for half a dozen
advertisements in the Irish Times, setting forth
their work, if the materials for such an advertise-
ment are supplied, and if any impartial judge de-
cides that they have done even as much as the re-
cently-started Gaelic Union under all its disadvana¬
tages has already done. The Congress committee
may be as deliberate in their proceedings as the so-
ciety under whose auspices the Congress was held,
but working people will call it sloth. Not expect-
ing that the Congress Committee would ever give
effect to Mr. Ward's resolution, the Gaelic Union
issued its “Gaelic Journal” circular a month after
that resolution was passed. There is not a single
passage in that calling for Mr. Ward’s letter — not
a single passage showing that the Gaelic Union
contemplated sending it out under the wings of the
Congress. Moreover, the first name to the circular
is that of the Rev. M. H. Close, M. A., vice-presi-
dent of the Gaelic Union, and any document bear-
ing that gentleman's name will, to say the least of
it, receive more respectful consideration from a
disinterested and patriotic public than the circular
has received from Mr. Ward.
Passing over his want of courtesy as exhibited
in the 13th paragraph of his letter, I cannot help
thniking that at any other time we could laugh
consumedly at Mr. Ward’s letter from Belfast, cau-
tioning all lovers of the old tongue to beware of
such “individuals” as the Rev. Maxwell Close, Pro-
testant clergyman, M. Cusack, Civil Service grinder
Rev. J. Nolan, Roman Catholic priest, and other
characters more or less disreputable.
For my part I don’t care who does the work so
long as it is done. — Yours, &c.,
M. Cusack,
Hon. Treasurer to the
Gaelic Union.
The Gaelic Union,
19 Kildare St., Dublin
29th September, 1882.
ADDRESS to the IRISH PEOPLE at HOME
and ABROAD.
After many years of patient labor and sacrifice
in the cause of Ireland’s Language the Society,
inaugurated in 1876 for its preservation, guided
by the growing interest evinced in its revival, has
decided on founding a journal to aid in the work
it then began.
Since that year the Society has directed its prin-
cipal efforts to have the Vernacular Tongue recog-
ised in the systems of public education in the coun-
try, convinced that the schools of Ireland should
best contribute to the revival of the Language, so
much identified with their glorious past, so essen-
tial to the true dignity of our Nation and so intima-
ately associated with the ancient records of the
Irish race itself In that direction we have advan-
ced a long way towards success, and the Society is
being enabled steadily and surely to obtain for
Irish that position to which as the National
Language of Ireland it is so justly entitled.
The Society now advances a step further, to
place before the Irish People a project which it is
their duty to support and foster, as they value the
precious inheritance of a clear, a strong, a har-
monfous and a noble Language. In particular do
we appeal for support for our new undertaking to
the Irish Hiearchy, and Clergy of all denominatons,
relying on their patrioism, conscious of the val-
uable aid they can bring to our work, and mindful
of the many claims which the Irish Language has
upon their consideration and esteem.
Too long have we suffered ourselves to be up-
braided with indifference to the Lrnguage by men
not of our own Nation, and to foreigners has it
almost entirely been left, in the past, to rouse
us to a sense of the treasures, that lie hidden and
neglected amongst us. The Irish People certain-
ly cannot afford to look with indiference on the
Irish Language, for it has been well and worthily
said by an illustrious scholar, that a Nation which
allows her Language to go to ruin, is parting
the best half of her intellectual independence, and
testifies her willingness to cease to exist.
The annals and songs of Ireland are written
in that Language; in it we trace the antiquity of
the Irish race, its origin and history. It equally
shared in the vicissitudes and struggles of our
people; and now that a brighter prospect seems
to open for our country, is it to witness the dis-
appearance from our midst of the grandest mem-
morial of our Nation — the ornament of our name
and the shrine of our brightest glories?
With the People of Ireland, whose Language it
is, the answer lies. They have the power, if
they have the will, to save it.
We ask them to make this cause their own,
to take it up as a matter of urgent necessity
and National importance, and to relax no effort
until the dear old Tongue — emblematic of
an intellectual Nationality — once more reasserts
its rightful place on the roll of living Languages
BRIAN O'LOONEY M.R.I.A.
RICHARD J. O'DUFFY,
}
Hon.
Secs.
9, KILDARE ST. DUBLIN
October 1882.
PROVISIONAL DIRECTORATE.
Mir Aulad Ali, Professor of Oriental Languages,
T. D. C.,
Patrick Barry, Dublin.
Rev. M. H. Close, M. R. I.A., Dublin;
Dr. Michael F. Cox, B. A., M. R. I. A., Dublin.
Wm. J. Doherty, C. E., M. R. I. A., Dublin;
John Fleming, Dublin;
W. M. Hennessy, M. R. I. A., Dublin;
