436
AN GAODHAL
Ample funds to meet those indispensible expen¬
ses should be supplied by the millions of Irish¬
men all over the world whose social position the
Union seeks to elevate, and has, even now, consid¬
erably elevated. Millions of foreigners who met
the Irish here and there; found them ignorant of
their language, in fact of any language, looked
upon the race as a tribe, with no antecedents, and
dependent on England for that scant measure
of civilization which they accorded them. What is
the result to-day through the exertions of the
Gaelic Movement ? It is that the scholars of Eu¬
rope have rebuked the English Nation for trying
to destroy the language of a learned, noble people
for an ignoble purpose: and that Irishmen, be¬
coming conscious of their own proper standing a¬
mong the nations, are steeled to dare and do the
liberation of their country from the profaning
stranger.
Seeing those results, should not the Irish peo¬
ple everywhere assist their friends in Dublin in
still furthering the good work ? Let every read¬
er of the Gael try to get his well-to-do friends to
send contributions to the Gaelic Union, address¬
ed to the Treasurer, 19 Kildare St.
Now that the Irish people are emerging from
the darkness which enveloped them for centuries
to the light which American freedom has shed ov¬
er the nations, should not the Gaelic Journal
have the largest circulation of any paper in the
world? Could there be a more lasting monument
erected by our wealthy Irishmen than the do¬
nation of a few thousand dollars to this noble pur¬
pose.
The Council congratulates the Gael on being
thoroughly Irish and non-sectional. That is what
it is. It claims Ireland for Irishmen, and for no
body else, and it claims that an Irishman is the
equal of any other man, and when either of these
points is ignored, by action or innueudo, only is
the Gael, apparently, sectional. When it sees
Irishmen ignored because they are Irishmen, or
because of their religious sentiments, or, of their
subjection by an unscrupulous alien power, then,
and only then, is the Gael sectional! That Irish¬
men are ostracised on account of these things on¬
ly a fool or a knave would deny. And that this
ostracism is, in a large measure, due to the actions
of Irishmen themselves the Gael fully believes.
Now, to support our remarks by facts, we must
mention religion, though not in a sectional sense
but merely to elucidate our argument. The popu¬
lation of Brooklyn is about 600.000, of this num¬
ber fully one-third are Irish-American. Political¬
ly Brooklyn is Democratic by about 12.000, and
the Irish-American element up to this belonged,
almost exclusively, to that party and formed two-
thirds of its members. Now, no Irish-American
in sympathy with this majority ever got a nomina¬
tion for mayor of the city, Englishmen and Ger¬
mans generally being the recepients, and some of
these so devoid of literary culture that they were
not able to write their own messages, but had to
employ Irishmen to do it. If this negation of
Irishmen a mere accident! Is not this putting
Burchardism into practice! Now, if Irishmen
generally had the spunk to resent such sectional¬
ism on their side by, for the time, going en
mass, to the other side, they would force their
proper recognition, for it is in the nature of party
to seek alliances for self-interest, so that the Irish
element could enforce respect by firm, indepen¬
ent action.
The Gael has no politics, but it looks on them as
a copartnership concern in which each partner has
an equal share, it would not be defrauded out
of his share even at the cost of personal friend¬
ship or the impotent threats of defunct sectional
reprisals. The vampire of sectionalism has for
ever lost its sting in this country, and, if it occa¬
sionally hisses, it merely reminds one of by-gone
days.
PROF. ROEHRIG ON THE IRISH LANG¬
UAGE.
Continued from page 427.
It lived in people's minds, as an oral tradition, in
fragmentary songs and tales. At last the Irish
Fileadhe brought together the legends and stor¬
ies they could remember in relation to these inci¬
dents; and from all these fragments combined,
they produced, — in the Seventh Century, — the
well connected and admirably elaborated
Tain Bo Cualnge.
There Fergus, the hero, who had been dead for
six hundred years, returns in an apparition and
relates to one of the Fileadhe the whole story
which now constitutes one of the finest epopees in
Irish literature.
We may further mention the
Cofadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh
[the "War of the Gaedhil [ or Irish ] with the
Danes. Gall, as we have seen, in the Irish
means enemies, hostile strangers, foreigners. And
such were these Scandinavian pirates who invad¬
ed Ireland, burned the convents, and drove the
clergy from Armagh, which, under their chief and
leader, Turgesius, had had become their capital.
We must not omit to say a word of another high¬
ly interesting piece of Irish literature, the
Accalam in da Suad —
a dialogue between the two scholars, Nede and
Fercertne. In its present form it seems not to
date back any farther than the beginning of the
Ninth Century, though its contents and peculiari¬
ties point us to events and customs of much old¬
er, and even to pagan times. Adne, the son of
Uthider, of Connaught, who was chief of the poets
of Ireland, had a son whose name was Nede. This
