590
AN GAODHAL.
Colonization,
AND THE
IRISH LANGUAGE MOVEMENT.
Twelve years ago when the movement for the
preservation of the Irish Language assumed its
present form Irish National aspirations were con¬
fined in very narrow limits indeed, and any one
found bold enough to declare that Ireland could
wrest her long lost rights from England was look¬
ed upon as a senseless enthusiast. Very few, com¬
paratively speaking, took part in the Irish Langu¬
age movement, but the few who did succeeded in
propagating a sentiment through the land which
has now culminated in the Home Rule bill propos¬
ed by Mr. Gladstone. This declaration may seem
silly — that a comparatively few individuals could
be capable of producing such bloodless revolution.
Not at all. A small, well organized, aggressive
body of men will have no difficulty in shaping pub¬
lio opinion towards an object, especially when that
object is popular. There is not an Irishman or I¬
rishwoman living to-day but would like to be able
to read, write and speak his or her native language,
and we know Irishmen who would give hundreds
of dollars to be able to do so. Hence, the success
of the movement. Again, if properly considered, it
will be seen that in all nations a few leading men
shape public opinion and in fact decide their destin¬
ies. In this country, with fifty odd millions of peo¬
ple, some dozen men shape its public sentiment
and decide its destiny. We have on the one side,
Messrs Tilden, Thurman, Randall, Bayard, and on
the other, Blaine, Logan, Sherman, Conklin etc.
In England, Gladstone, Salisbury, Bright, Cham¬
berlain, and in Germany, Bismarck, and so of other
nations. And we claim for the Gaels the evolving
of the sentiment which has brought the Irish
political question to its present hopeful phase,
When Ireland gets the management of her
own internal affairs we take it for granted that the
teaching of the language as an ordinary routine in
the schools will be one of the first acts of the Irish
Parliament; because the neglect to do so would be
the rankest treason to the country. Hence, a bur¬
den will be taken off the shoulders of those who
kept the spirit alive, and they will be enabled to
direct their attention to the bettering of the social
condition of the other Ireland on this side of the
Atlantic. As remarked above, a few individuals
banded together and having a popular object in
view can create public opinion and shape public
policy. The Gaels have succeeded in shaping the
future destiny of their country because their ob¬
ject was popular and their motives pure and un¬
selfish, and they have compassed that within a
dozen of years. Let anyone who may be disposed
to controvert this claim state what the condition
of Irish national affairs had been twelve years
since. Irish national autonomy has been agitated
for ages but the agitators did not have a founda¬
tion on which to build the superstructure and the
consequence was that all efforts to erect it proved
abortive. Before Columbus's time the simple i¬
dea of making an egg stand on its end was not
thought of. And so with the ground-work and
foundation of Irish nationality — the language.
Now, brother Gaels, we have another important
duty to perform second only to that which we have
accomplished, but much easier of execution. It is
to place our poor kindred in these cities and also
in the large cities in England, on the millions of
acres of the finest land in the world lying idle in
our midst, and this we can accomplish by organ¬
ization without the possibility of a doubt. In our
last issue we sketched a simple plan of organization
and we named a number of gentlemen and request¬
ed their co-operation. In naming these gentlemen
particularly we explained why we did so and would
name all the subscribers of the Gael, men and
women, only that space would not permit it. But
we now request every reader of the Gael to become
a member of the
CELTIC HOMESTEAD LEGION
and to exert in promoting its object.
Some persons have told us that we cannot carry
out our object, that is, that we cannot carry out
the plan sketched by us. Now, we shall repeat
this plan. It is to give to any industrious man a
100 acre farm of good agricultural land, build him
a house, sink him a well, give him a horse and a
cow, seed, farming implements, and his keeping
until he raises his first crop, with the privilege of
paying the price back in easy yearly installments.
We repeat that it can be done, and that readily.
Now, let us have a hundred families prepared to
accept this offer, two hundred other families able
to pay immediately for their land, would be forth¬
coming, because the placing of a hundred families
in the one location would remove the objection to
settling in "a wild, isolated country."
By settling two or three hundred families in the
one location, the nucleus of a town is formed at
once, churches, schools &c., will spring up and
general business follow. The thing is as plain as
the noon-day. But Gaels may think many things
plain which seem a mountain to the general pub¬
lic.
We printed a puzzle in the last Gael thinking it
simple and interesting. Yet we met only one outside
the Gael's readers who could explain it though we
put the question to about three hundred. We have
received cards from a number of the Gael's readers
accounting for the cent — and a large number intim¬
ating that it was a childish thing. Of course it is
childish to those whose mental powers can analyze
such matters. Hence we have no hesitation in say¬
ing that the Gael's readers are at least five hundred
per cent more intelligent than the general run of
citizens, of all nationalities, and we shall offer ten
