6
AN GAODHAL.
Though the following letter from Father O'¬
Growney was intended for the Brooklyn Philo
Celtics, we think it of so much importance to the
future of the language (and, reader, to the preser¬
vation and identification of the Irish Nation) that
we place it before the Irish public.
Prescott, Ariz.
Feb. 5, '97.
Dear Mr. Logan:
I see in the January Irisleabhar
that at long last something is to be
done towards having in Ireland an
institution like the Welsh Eistedd¬
fod. We know how much the Eis¬
teddfod has done to promote the
study of Welsh and the formation
of a fine modern Wels literature.
With the present men in charge of
the Gaelic League, the proposed
annual Oireachtas will, in three or
four years, produce wonderful res¬
ults.
I would therefore respectfully
propose to your friends of the
Brooklyn society if they have, as
before indicated, an idea of devot¬
ing a few dollars to a useful pur¬
pose, they should devote them to a
prize to be given at the May Oir¬
eachtas, to be called the "Philo-Cel¬
tic Society of Brooklyn special
Prize," or any other title they might
wish instead.
This is a much more practical
object than that which I ventured
to support before — the encaurage¬
ment of Celtic ornamental art by
giving prizes for designs.
Art can wait, but the language
and literature are just at the crisis
and in a few years it will be deci¬
ded what will be their future. Let
us do everything to ensure a splen¬
did future.
A sum of 25 dollars or less, would
be cheerfully accepted by the Gael¬
ic League and applied as the Socie¬
ty should indicate.
Respectfully yours, with best
wishes to all,
Eoghan O'Gramhna.
ENGLISH PATRIOTISM.
Possibly, there is not a people in the world to¬
day, to take them en mass, so patriotic as the En¬
glish. Whenever seeing opportunity offers
anywhere to benefit their country, they are up
like one man in advocacy of it — organizing meet¬
ings and formulating resolutions urging the pow¬
ers that be, on the hypocritical plea of humanity,
(a trait which is so foreign to them as it is to the
habitants of the Cannibal Islands) to favorable ac¬
tion their on petitions. We have ample evidence
of this at the present time in the Olney-Paunce¬
fote Arbitration Treaty scheme. There is not an
Englishman, nor a newspaper conducted by pro-
Britons, in the United States that has not urged
the members of the Senate to enderse that treaty,
a treat actually vesting in the appointee of the
British government the decision of whether this
Republic has a right even to live, the two words,
"Or Otherwise," giving England the right to
bring that matter of inter-national dispute before
her arbitral commission — and Engishmen today
claim that they own this Republic — that the Re¬
volution does not hold. There are a few dil
uted Irish Mugwumps who second the English
idea, but they are so few that they are of small
consequence. But THE GAEL assures its fellow
American citizens that they have 20,000,000 of I¬
rish American fellow citizens prepared to shed
their life blood for their adopted country. That
country which, as the late Michael Doheny * said,
gave the food, shelter and the rights of human
freedom when they were ruthlessly deprived of
them IN THEIR OWN NATIVE LAND by the brutes
(the Seeleys) of England, as their kindred are to¬
day deprived of food material yearly to the tune
of over $12,000,000.00, and would be of life and
liberty if they offered the slightest material resis¬
tance to the high-handed freebooters who robbed
them. And these are the hypocritical scoundrels
who would, through the instrumentality of a few
Benedict Arnolds in our service, fain to control
the direction of our affaira.
* When the Copperheads of New York, during
the Secession movement, conspired to capture
the Brooklyn Navy Yard, they called on Doheny,
who was a leader of the Irish party in the city at
the time. — "No"! Said he, "I will never draw my
word on the nation that gave me food and shel¬
ter when they were denied me in the land of my
birth." And not only that but Doheny frustrated
the attempt, which was incited by the English,
for New York was cursed then, as it is to-day, by
wealthy cliques of Englishmen who would spare
no money to compass the ruin of this Republic.
No incident in Irish affairs for the last hundred
years has evoked in the hearts of Irishmen a
keener pang than that of the pronunciomento of
his Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, in his accept¬
ance of the A. O. H.'s donation to the founding
of an Irish Chair in the Catholic University at
Washington.
