AN GAODHAL.
893
the book is 5s.
We have several of the stories in
manuscript already from Mr. Blake,
and we shall publish them from time
to time as soon as opportunity offers, i.
e., as soon as we can add to our stock
of Gaelic type.
As may be seen by the foregoing
dedication, the Rev. Mr. Cleaver has
paid the expense of publishing this
Gaelic story book. We have a large
number of rich Irishmen in America.
How many of them are coming for¬
ward to help to preserve the language
of their forefathers? Apart from sup¬
porting those journals which publish
the language, there are many other
ways in which patriotic Irishmen could
illumine the pages of history in conn¬
ection with the language. A cheap
Irish-English and English-Irish dict¬
ionary is a necessity. Is there an Irish¬
man or woman in America who will
undertake its production? O'Donovan
and O'Curry were comparatively poor
men in their time, but their memories
will continue to shine in the pages of
history when their millionaire country¬
men will be forgotten. We appeal
then, to our well-to-do countrymen to
build a monument for themselves in
Gaelic literature which shall live for¬
ever.
A Note by the Author.
It seems ridiculous that we cannot publish a
book in our own language without introducing
more or less of English into it. I had determined
to publish these stories just as they are, without
any commentary, such seeming to me unneces¬
sary; but certain friends pointed out to me the
advisability of adding some explanatory observa¬
tions on the text, which should prove useful to
any who may use this book to learn Irish.
I accordingly write — reluctantly enough — this
and the following notes in English, seeing that
some learners may find them useful; and as people
are always asking, "What is the good of keeping
up the language at all?" I determined that this
first note should be a short answer to the ques¬
tion,
Perhaps I cannot do better than reproduce here
part of an answer already, published elsewhere,
when those who wished to preserve our language
were accused by an Irish magazine of aimlessness
and foolishness. I then said —
"If we allow our living language to die out, it
is almost certain that we condemn our literary re¬
cords to remain in obscurity. All our great schol¬
ars, nearly all those who have done anything for
the elucidation of our MSS. — O'Connor of Ballin¬
agar, O'Donovan, O'Curry, Petrie, Hennessy — all
these spoke the language naturally from their cra¬
dle, and had it not been so they would never have
been able to accomplish the work they did, a
work which first made it possible for a Jubianville
or a Windisch to prosecute their Celtic studies with
any success.
"There is no use in arguing the advantage of
making Irish the language of our newspapers and
clubs, because that is and ever will be an impossi¬
bility; but for several reasons we wish to arrest
the language in its downward path, and if we can¬
not spread it (as I do not believe we very much
can), we will at least prevent it from dying out,
and make sure that those who speak it now shall
also transmit it unmodified to their descend¬
ants. ....
"To be told that the language which I spoke
from my cradle, the language of my father and
grandfather, and all my ancesters in an unbroken
line leading up into the remote twilight of antique
it, have spoken; the language which has en¬
twined itself with every fire of my being, helped
to mould my habits of conduct and forms of
thought; to be calmly told by an Irish journal
that the sooner I leave it to the universities' the
better; that we will improve our English speak¬
ing by giving up our Irish; to be told this by a re¬
presentative Irish journal is naturally and justly
painful.
"I do not think the Saxon language has greater
claims upon the western peasantry, or on myself,
than the Irish language has, or that we should be
told to give up the tongue of our father that we
may better speak the language of strangers ...
"I cannot conceive a more acute pain in the
power of sentiment to inflict than that which I
should feel if. after a life passed in England, or
America, or the Colonies, I were to come back to
my native mountains and find that the indifference
or the actual discouragement of our leaders had
succeeded in destroying the language of my child¬
hood, and with it the tales, the traditions, the le¬
gends, the imaginations with which my cradle had
been surrounded.
"I do not think it would be for the advantage
of our race to let the language die. I affirm with¬
out hesitation that those who continue to speak
their own language are in every way the intellect¬
ual and generally the moral, superiors of those
who have allowed it to die out. When a locality
has allowed Irish to die out the people lose nearly
all those distinctive characteristics which make
them so lovable and so courteous. I have verifi¬
ed this over and over again, and feel sure I am
