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AN GAODHAL.
they by their inactivity permit the handful who
are at the crank of the machine to turn the Nation¬
ality of Ireland over to England as Adrian the IV.
turned over her materiality? The investing of
England with power to possess herself of Irish e¬
moluments temporarily sinks into insignificence
compared with the permanent loss of nationhood
which would inevitably result from the destruc¬
tion of the language. And yet Irishmen stand
coldly by while that process is being silently and
insidiously worked before their eyes!
It is said that Cardinal Cullen's object in dena¬
tionalizing his countrymen was, that they might
reconvert the English to the Catholic Fold. What
a shallow idea, to think that a degraded people
could convert any one !
But what are the fruits of the Cardinal's unpa¬
triotism? Here they are, —
In 1851 the population of Great Britain and Ire¬
land, in round numbers, was 27,000,000, of whom
six millions were Catholics ; in 1891 the popula¬
tion was 38,000,000, of whom only Five-and-a-half
millions were Catholics — three and a half millions
in Ireland and two in Great Britain. And out of
the Thirty * Millions of the Irish race scattered o¬
ver the English-speaking communities of the
world less than Fifteen millions (per Whittaker's
Almanac) of them acknowledge the Catholic reli¬
gion, though over 75 per cent of the Irish emi¬
grants were Catholics as would be the same pro¬
portion of their descendants to-day had the same
efforts been made to educate them in their ancient
language and literature, and expose to them the
brillant literary achievements of their forefathers
as were to degrade them
* In a laboriously tabulated statistical article
in the New York Sun, the Rev. Ed. McSweeney,
of St Mary's College, Emettsburg, claims that if
the descendants of the Catholic immigrants kept
the Faith one-third of our population would be
Catholic.
[For the last twenty-two years we have met
hundreds of the Irish people who denied that they
were Irish, but who, when pressed because of pe¬
culiar name, etc. would excuse themselves by say¬
ing that they were born in England. Were such
persons aware of their own social superiority as
is proven by the Spalding Extracts, they would
no more claim to be English than the French do;
and that is the cause why Father McSweeney's
estimate does not obtain — Ed.]
From present appearances his Holiness, Pope
Leo XIII. will do more during his Pontificacy to
extend the Church and disperse chronic prejudi¬
ces than any other pope since the days of St Pe¬
ter. May God grant him length of days to direct
the good work. We hope his Holiness will send
a Satolli to Ireland to investigate the reason why
Catholicity is not co-extensive with her scattered
children.
We have asserted the cause to be the erroneous
supposition that the Irish have been a low, ignor¬
ant, race, obtained because of the neglect to culti¬
vate the language and literature, which contain
incontrovertible evidence to the contrary — and we
stand by that assertion.
We have a lot of Gaelic matter which was too
late for this issue, or, came late to get insertion.
Matter is on hand from Messrs O'Byrne, O'Leary,
O'Reilly, Gillan (Old country), Lally, McCormick,
Griffin and Cross.
MR. WARD'S LETTER.
Editor of the Gael
Sir. — Enclosed please find an order for eight
dollars to your sturdy Gael — from this far-off
land of the setting sun. Your friends and I wish
the Gael a long life. Tell my friends that I am on
the staff of an evening paper of this city, and that
I am proud of the same, as times are very dull and
employment scarce. But I am ten times pronder
to see my name in the Gael (just to hand) ranked
with the best Gaelic writers. I wonder what would
my old Gaelic friend — the Great McHale, or my
poor father — God rest his soul — say to this if he
could speak from his grave in Mayo?
But, I cry red shame on those who run in debt to
the Gael, that was the first to rouse the Gaelic
spark, and has kept it alive through all its up-hill
toil. Oh, country people. I say again, shame on
you, that call yourselves Irish, and not support
such sturdy, fearless vindicator of creed, language
and country as the Gael.
Dr. A. T. Leonard, of this city, asked me as I
called how much I wanted, handing me five dol¬
lars, and saving that he could not read a word of
it, but hope that his little school of young Leon¬
ards, whose mother is of a stanch Fenian stock
from Cork, might. Dr. Leonard is a Galway man
and stands at the head of his profession — a young
man whose fine figure, handsome face, and cheer¬
ful smile would make a sick man well.
So send along the Gael; it has many warm
friends here.
Yours very truly,
MARTIN P. WARD.
THE MAC TALLA
We have received several copies of the Mac-Talla,
published at Sydney, Cape Breton, by Mr. J. G.
MacKinnon. It has now entered on its second
year, and has doubled its former size. It is now
eight pages — paper size of the Gael, and is pub¬
lished weekly. $1. a year; it is all in Gaelic.
Here is an extract from it :—
Dh'eug Reine Lagimodiere aig St. Bonafice.
Manitoba, Di-domhnich s'a chaidh. Be a cheud
leanamh geal a rugadh riamh am Manitoba. Bha
e ceithir fichead bliadhna sa coig deug a dh'aois,
agus bha a mhatair ceud bliadhna nuair a dheug
i.
Now, any Irish reader can understand the above,
and all ought to patronize the publication. Our
Scotch children are a little froward, to be sure,
but, they are our children, and we should extend
them parental indulgence, for, blood is thicker
than water. It is a good sign that our wayward
children are not wholly lost and merged in the
Saxon mushroom, when we see them cling so ten¬
aciously to the speech of their old mother Scotia.
Through the kindness of Timothy Gleeson, Esq
Lisquinlan, we have received the May No. of that
very interesting publication, the Journal of the
Cork Historical and Archeological Society. The
most interesting papers to the Gaelic reader in the
Journal are, a Biographical sketch of the Life of
Edward Walsh, the Poet, by Mr. Gleeson, and the
Life of Saint Finbar, of Cork, translated by Mr.
Patrich Stanton — the Irish and English being in
parallel columns. There are other interesting pa¬
pers, and a very nice map of ancient and modern
Cork,
