IRELAND
123
IRELAND
Aryan origin and have their counterparts in most movement which succeeded. Certain it is that a
Aryan literature. Of these, too, it is only recently great popular movement in favour of the language
■■ .. ■ . 1 1 r.^1 _ ■ — ^_ and literature sprang up at the very close of the nine-
teenth century in Ireland itself, under the auspices of a society called the Gaelic League, founded upon a
that collections have been made. There is one re-
mark which must not be omitted about this folk-
poetry and indeed about Irish .MS. poetry as well —
it possesses scarcely anything in the nature of a
ballad. Lyrics couched in the most exquisitely
artful rhyme, and <lidactic and bacchanalian and
religious poetry of all sorts, Ireland and the Highlands
of .Scotland imiduced in plenty, l>ut they have almost
nothing in the nature of the splendid Lowland ballads.
They could not tell a story in verse. With the ex-
previous society called the Gaelic Union, which
an offshoot from an older and still existing body,
the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Lan-
guage. The Gaelic League was founded in the year
IS'.)'.',; the objects were: (1) The preservation of Irish
as the national language in Ireland and the extension
of its use as a spoken tongue. (2) The study and
ception of the Ossianic poems and a few poems of publication of existing Irish literature and the cuiti-
' .... vation of a modern literature in Irish.
Such was the intellectual stagnation in Ireland at the period of this foundation that it would be safe to assert that there were not, at the time, more than a few hundred people living, if so many, who could read or write in Irish. After many years of silent labour and much painful uphill toil, the League has at last become a widely spread popular movement throughout the Irish world. Hundreds of l>ooks have been written and published imder its auspices, and many thousands of people have been taught to read them. It publishes a weekly and a monthly paper, and it has done a great deal towards collecting the rapidly perishing folk-lore of the country. The number of work- ing affiliated branches belong- ing to the League, carrying on educational work from week to week, in the year 190S, was in JIunster 192, in Leinster 115, in Ulster 113, and in Connacht 74. There were 22 branches in Scotland, 11 in England, and a few more isolated ones scattered over Europe and America. The League is gov- erned by a president, two vice- presidents, and an annually elected executive of forty-five members, of whom fifteen must
the classic school there was never any attempt made
to recount a striking tale through the medium of
verse.
Modern Irish Printed Literature. — For long it was belie\-ed that the Celtic languages were connected with the East — with the Phcenicians, according to a fa- vourite theory — or at least that they had nothing in common with the .\ryan, or In- _^^„
do-European, group of tongues. All the scholars of the eigh- teenth century and of the be- ginning of the nineteenth took up thisattitude. Even the great German scholar Bopp excluded Celtic from his Indo-European grammar. Lhuyd, the Welsh antiquary, had already shown early in the eighteenth century the close co- relationship be- tween all the Celtic tongues, but it remained for the Bava- rian Zeuss to prove to the world beyond yea or nay, in his "Grammatica Celtica " pub- lished in 1853, that the Celtic languages were Indo-European. Since that day Celtic scholar- ship, based upon Zcuss's monu- mental work, has made enor- mous strides. The work of the great native Irish scliolars O'Curry and O'Donovan, who first penetrated the difficult language of the Brehon Laws, and who from their marvel-
^
Left;
Ogham Stone.s
At KillccQ Cormac, Kildare. Inscription:
DUFTAXO[sl SAFEI SAHATTOS, [StOne of] the
wise Duftan Right: AtSt. Dogmael'.s, Wales. Sagramxi maqi CUNATAMI, [Stone] of Sagramn, son of Cun- atam
lous and unique acquaintance with Irish manuscripts reside in or near Dublin, the rest represent
first gave to the world a general knowledge of Irish various parts of the coimtry and Scotland and
literature, was succeeded by the more strictly scien- England. These meet once a month in Dublin,
tific laliours of Whitley Stokes, Father Edmund Ho- and govern the League. They controlled and paid
gan, S.J., Robert Atkinson, and of Standish Hayes out of their own funds in 190S seven organizers for
O'Grady (whose acquaintance with the modern and Conn's Half of Ireland (Connacht and Ulster), and
ancient literature makes him the legitimate succes- there were forty-two district teachers working for
sor of O'Donovan and O'Curry), of W. M. Hennessy the League in this part of Ireland. In Mogh's Half
and Father Bartholomew MacCarthy, all in Ireland, (Leinster and Munster) there were six organizers and
while Zeuss found a worthy successor in Ebel, who eighty district teachers. There are also si.x colleges
published a corrected and augmented version of his connected with and practically founded by the
"Grammatica" in 1S71. In "recent days Windisch, Gaelic League, at Ballingeary in Cork, at Partry in
Thurneysen, Zimmer, and Kuno Meyer have done Mayo, at Cloghaneely in Donegal, at Ring in Water-
immense work in the same field. In France, Gaidoz ford, and one each in Dublin and Belfast. The
founded the "Revue Celtique" in 1S70, afterwards country colleges have two terms, each of which lasts
edited by d'.\rbois de Jubainville, and of which about six weeks. The Dublin and Belfast colleges
twenty-eight volumes have appeared; in them many are open during the winter. There were over two
Irish texts have been published and much light thrown hundred students at each of the Cork and Mayo
upon Clitic sulijects in general. The " Zeit-schrift fiir colleges in 1908.
cehische Philologie" made its appearance in 1896, Scores of writers in Irish have arisen under the
and was followed by the " Archiv fiir celtische Lexi- impetus of the new movement, scarcely one of whom,
cographie". it is safe to say, would ever have put pen to paper in
Up to this point, and by most of these learned men, English. Perhaps the best-known and most idiomatic
the Irish language was regarded as a subject for pure writer in Irish at the present day is Canon Peter
scliohirship only, and as a thing dead, havin;
immedi:ite or necessary connexion with the country
or the people that had given it birth. Their .scho-
O'Leary, P.P., of Castlelyons in Comity Cork. He
is a novelist, grammarian, and writer on miscel-
laneous subjects. Michael Breatlmach (or Walsh),
lastic labours, however, may to some extent have J. J. Doyle, T. Hayes, Father Dinneen, M. O'Malley.
unconsciously prepared the way for the popular P. O'Conaire, Conan Maol (P. J. O'Shea), P. O'Shea.
