IRISH LITERATURE: (continued 2)

I shall not give any more examples of deliberate carelessness, ineptitude, and West-Britonising in our Irish topography, for the instances may be numbered by thousands and thousands. I hope and trust that where it may be done without any great inconvenience a native Irish Government will be induced to provide for the restoration of our place-names on something like a rational basis.

Our music, too, has become Anglicised to an alarming extent. Not only has the national instrument, the harp—which efforts are now being made to revive in the Highlands—become extinct, but even the Irish pipes are threatened with the same fate. In place of the pipers and fiddlers who, even twenty years ago, were comparatively common, we are now in many places menaced by the German band and the barrel organ. Something should be done to keep the native pipes and the native airs amongst us still. If Ireland loses her music she loses what is, after her Gaelic language and literature, her most valuable and most characteristic possession. And she is rapidly losing it. A few years ago all our travelling fiddlers and pipers could play the old airs which were then constantly called for, the Cúis d’á pléidh, Drinaun Dunn, Roseen Dubh, Gamhan Geal Bán, Eileen-a-roon, Shawn O’Dwyer in Glanna, and the rest, whether gay or plaintive, which have for so many centuries entranced the Gael. But now English music-hall ballads and Scotch songs have gained an enormous place in the repertoire of the wandering minstrel, and the minstrels themselves are becoming fewer and fewer, and I fear worse and worse. It is difficult to find a remedy for this. I am afraid in this practical age to go so far as to advocate the establishment in Cork or Galway of a small institution in which young and promising pipers might be trained to play all the Irish airs and sent forth to delight our population; for I shall be told that this is not a matter for even an Irish Government to stir in, though it is certain that many a Government has lavished money on schemes less pleasant and less useful. For the present, then, I must be content with hoping that the revival of our Irish music may go hand in hand with the revival of Irish ideas and Celtic modes of thought which our Society is seeking to bring about, and that people may be brought to love the purity of Siúbhail Siúbhail, or the fun of the Moddereen Ruadh in preference to “Get Your Hair Cut,” or “Over the Garden Wall,” or, even if it is not asking too much, of “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay.”

Our games, too, were in a most grievous condition until the brave and patriotic men who started the Gaelic Athletic Association took in hand their revival. I confess that the instantaneous and extraordinary success which attended their efforts when working upon national lines has filled me with more hope for the future of Ireland than everything else put together. I consider the work of the association in reviving our ancient national game of caman, or hurling, and Gaelic football, has done more for Ireland than all the speeches of politicians for the last five years. And it is not alone that that splendid association revived for a time with vigour our national sports, but it revived also our national recollections, and the names of the various clubs through the country have perpetuated the memory of the great and good men and martyrs of Ireland. The physique of our youth has been improved in many of our counties; they have been taught self-restraint, and how to obey their captains; they have been, in many places, weaned from standing idle in their own roads or street corners; and not least, they have been introduced to the use of a thoroughly good and Irish garb. Wherever the warm striped green jersey of the Gaelic Athletic Association was seen, there Irish manhood and Irish memories were rapidly reviving. There torn collars and ugly neckties hanging awry and far better not there at all, and dirty shirts of bad linen were banished, and our young hurlers were clad like men and Irishmen, and not in the shoddy second-hand suits of Manchester and London shop-boys. Could not this alteration be carried still further? Could we not make that jersey still more popular, and could we not, in places where both garbs are worn, use our influence against English second-hand trousers, generally dirty in front, and hanging in muddy tatters at the heels, and in favour of the cleaner worsted stockings and neat breeches which many of the older generation still wear? Why have we discarded our own comfortable frieze? Why does every man in Connemara wear home-made and home-spun tweed, while in the midland counties we have become too proud for it, though we are not too proud to buy at every fair and market the most incongruous cast-off clothes imported from English cities, and to wear them? Let us, as far as we have any influence, set our faces against this aping of English dress, and encourage our women to spin and our men to wear comfortable frieze suits of their own wool, free from shoddy and humbug. So shall we de-Anglicise Ireland to some purpose, foster a native spirit and a growth of native custom which will form the strongest barrier against English influence and be in the end the surest guarantee of Irish autonomy.

I have now mentioned a few of the principal points on which it would be desirable for us to move, with a view to de-Anglicising ourselves; but perhaps the principal point of all I have taken for granted. That is the necessity for encouraging the use of Anglo-Irish literature instead of English books, especially instead of English periodicals. We must set our face sternly against penny dreadfuls, shilling shockers, and still more, the garbage of vulgar English weeklies like Bow Bells and the Police Intelligence. Every house should have a copy of Moore and Davis. In a word, we must strive to cultivate everything that is most racial, most smacking of the soil, most Gaelic, most Irish, because in spite of the little admixture of Saxon blood in the north-east corner, this island is and will ever remain Celtic at the core, far more Celtic than most people imagine, because, as I have shown you, the names of our people are no criterion of their race. On racial lines, then, we shall best develop, following the bent of our own natures; and, in order to do this, we must create a strong feeling against West-Britonism, for it—if we give it the least chance, or show it the smallest quarter—will overwhelm us like a flood, and we shall find ourselves toiling painfully behind the English at each step following the same fashions, only six months behind the English ones; reading the same books, only months behind them: taking up the same fads, after they have become stale there, following them in our dress, literature, music, games, and ideas, only a long time after them and a vast way behind. We will become, what, I fear, we are largely at present, a nation of imitators, the Japanese of Western Europe, lost to the power of native initiative and alive only to second-hand assimilation. I do not think I am overrating this danger. We are probably at once the most assimilative and the most sensitive nation in Europe. A lady in Boston said to me that the Irish immigrants had become Americanised on the journey out before ever they landed at Castle Gardens. And when I ventured to regret it, she said, shrewdly, “If they did not at once become Americanised they would not be Irish.” I knew fifteen Irish workmen who were working in a haggard in England give up talking Irish amongst themselves because the English farmer laughed at them. And yet O’Connell used to call us the “finest peasantry in Europe.” Unfortunately, he took little care that we should remain so. We must teach ourselves to be less sensitive, we must teach ourselves not to be ashamed of ourselves, because the Gaelic people can never produce its best before the world as long as it remains tied to the apron-strings of another race and another island, waiting for it to move before it will venture to take any step itself.

In conclusion, I would earnestly appeal to every one, whether Unionist or Nationalist, who wishes to see the Irish nation produce its best—and surely whatever our politics are we all wish that—to set his face against this constant running to England for our books, literature, music, games, fashions, and ideas. I appeal to every one whatever his politics—for this is no political matter—to do his best to help the Irish race to develop in future upon Irish lines, even at the risk of encouraging national aspirations, because upon Irish lines alone can the Irish race once more become what it was of yore—one of the most original, artistic, literary, and charming peoples of Europe.

UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON

The Patriot Parliament

Of 1689, with its Statutes, Rites, and Proceedings.

By THOMAS DAVIS.

Edited, with an Introduction, by the Hon. Sir CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY, K.C.M.G.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square. DUBLIN: SEALY, BRYERS & WALKER, Middle Abbey Street. NEW YORK: P. J. KENEDY, Barclay Street.

NOTICES OF THE BRITISH PRESS.

From The Daily News.

The remarkable Series of papers on “The Patriot Parliament.”

From The Pall Mall Gazette.

The papers are by far the most valuable of Davis’s contribution to Irish history. Mr Lecky, in his history, has spoken of them with much admiration, and has adopted many of their conclusions. The account of the Jacobite Parliament which is given by Lord Macaulay has long been generally accepted in England, but we believe that any one who will candidly examine the evidence that is collected by Davis will arrive at the conclusion that this account is seriously misleading.

To many, however, the most attractive part of this little volume will be the introduction which is written by Sir Gavan Duffy. It is a brilliant and powerful indictment of the government of Ireland under the Stuarts. It is impossible to mistake the accent of sincerity that runs through his pages, and very few men have written Irish history with such eloquence and force.

From The Westminster Gazette.

We have Mr. Lecky’s testimony that Davis’s account of what he calls the Patriot Parliament is “the best and fullest” he is acquainted with. He has made it clear that Macaulay’s condemnation of the Parliament was over coloured.

From Notes and Queries.

We do not discuss politics, even when upwards of two hundred years intervenes between the then and the now. From the literary point of view, taking into consideration the limitations of a popular book, we have little but praise to give to Davis’s “Patriot Parliament.” He wrote as a partisan; but we detect no perversion of facts. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s introduction is remarkably interesting. Some of our readers will like to put this volume on the shelf where they keep their books of historic reference, for in the appendix is a carefully compiled catalogue of the Lords and Commons of the Parliament of 1689.

From The Times.

A reprint of a politico-historical tract by a writer highly commended by Mr. Lecky, with an appreciative biographical introduction from the pen of a well-known authority on Irish history.

From The Globe.

Mr. Lecky once described Davis’s work as “by far the best and fullest account” of the assembly in question, and in reproducing it the Irish Society have earned the thanks of all students of Irish history.

From The Scotsman.

The work is a valuable and instructive account of the work done by “the Popish Parliament of James II.” It is introduced by a paper in which its editor tells all that need be known of Davis, and shows in what respects his account corrects Macaulay. The reissue should be welcome to every one interested in Irish history.

From The Manchester Guardian.

It is a vigorous and readable paper, and it carries weight with it.

From The Newcastle Chronicle.

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s introduction extends to nearly one hundred pages, and traces in bold and rapid lines the history of Ireland under the Stuarts. It is written with that ease, lucidity, and decision which marks the style of Davis’s colleague of fifty years ago, who now does this service to the history of his country and to the memory of his friend.

From The Scottish Leader.

It would not have been easy indeed to make a better opening of such a series as this aspires to be. “The Patriotic Parliament” is only a characteristic fragment of the work of one of Ireland’s most notable heroes, and it is also a contribution of real merit to Irish history. A perusal of this little book will fully justify Mr. Lecky’s praise of the skill and industry displayed by Davis, at the same time that it will fill one with a kind of amused admiration of the fervid and somewhat youthful enthusiasm of the “Young Ireland” of 1845.

From The Freeman.

The Irish Parliament of 1690 has been seriously maligned by Macaulay, Froude, Ingram, and others. This is a vindication, and the work of an Irish Protestant. The introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy is very vividly written and gives a view of the colonisation of Ulster of a very serious character. We have not space for the story as given here, but we commend it to our readers who desire to understand the springs of Irish discontent.

From The Baptist.

To impartial students of history Davis’s work will be indispensable.

From The Methodist Times.

This humble-looking little book marks an era. Sir Charles Duffy has prefixed an introduction in which he tells once more the long story of Ireland’s wrongs. The perusal of it makes one feel that England will never lay aside her prejudices and look at Irish questions as she looks at Italian or Russian questions. After Sir C. G. Duffy’s introduction comes Thomas Davis’s modest preface. It fills five pages; it was written just fifty years ago. It is altogether admirable in tone and sentiment.

From The Universe.

We are of opinion that the issue of this new library will tend to place the position of our country more fairly before the public, and will foster a much-wanted knowledge of Ireland, its requirements and its failings, amongst our own people. We bid the patriotic venture most heartily welcome.

As a necessity, this opening book is identified with Thomas Davis—not by any means that it is the best specimen of his thought or writing—as in some sort acting as a hyphen between his era and ours—the era of glorious promise and that of partial fruition. Sir Gavan Duffy—thanks that he still survives—supplies a masterly introduction, which to us is the kernel of the volume.

From The Catholic Times.

Not the least of the many services which Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s prolific pen has rendered to the country which gave him birth, and which he has long loved and served with patriotic devotion, is the interesting historical introduction he has prefixed to Thomas Davis’s “Patriotic Parliament.” The mind of the statesman, the heart of the patriot, and the hand of the practised politician are strikingly evident on every page of this powerful polemic.

From The Weekly Register.

We are, it may be hoped, at the beginning of a better time. Along with the publications of the Irish Literary Society, which have just begun so well with “The Patriotic Parliament of 1689,” the joint work of Thomas Davis and Gavan Duffy, the twin brethren of modern literature in Ireland, may we see also many a publication by the Irish clergy of such books as the two we have named, and the volumes published some years ago by the present Coadjutor-Bishop for Kildare and Leighlin.

From The Colonies and India.

The book before us is one which no student of Irish history can well be without, for it discloses in what is no doubt the true light the character of the Catholic Parliament of James II.

From The Weekly Despatch.

The volume, a very graphic account of the “Patriot Parliament” of 1689, written by Thomas Davis, the Irish patriot of two generations back, is an interesting and very instructive narrative, correcting the slanders and false statements of Macaulay and other English historians, and showing how just, and even how tolerant of Protestant aliens, Irish Catholics could be in the short time allowed to them, more than a hundred years before Grattan’s Parliament came into existence, for experimenting in Home Rule. But the most readable portion of the volume is the long introduction supplied by the editor, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who here succinctly reminds us of some of the wrongs inflicted on his fellow-countrymen and fellow-religionists in the old days, and not yet redressed.

From The Weekly Sun.

There ought to be many such books in circulation in England and Ireland, and I hope that this volume will run through many editions. Ignorance has been the bane of the two countries hitherto. Books like “The Irish Parliament under James II.” will go far to cement that feeling of friendship by showing the people of this country how erroneous their preconceived opinions of the character of the Irish people have been.

From The Freeman’s Journal.

Though written fifty years ago, it is as much alive with lessons for the hour as any composition of recent date. The introduction is in itself a most valuable summary of the story of Ireland during the Stuart period. Together with Davis’s work it forms a book of which no student of Irish history or Irish politics can afford to remain in ignorance.

From The Lyceum.

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in his Introduction gives us a sketch of the times immediately preceding the 1689 Parliament, beginning with the Plantation of Ulster under James I. Step by step he traces the course of events through the dark period of Cromwell’s campaigns, through the reign of Charles II., with his lack of good faith and honour in his dealings with Ireland, down to the time when James, a fugitive from his own country and in peril of his life, landed on the shores of Ireland and summoned a Parliament of his Irish subjects. Davis’s writings on this Parliament and his ample vindication of it from the contumely and abuse so freely bestowed on it, have now, for the first time, been collected together and given to the reading world as a connected whole. It is a book to be closely studied as throwing a bright and instructive light on a dark and much misrepresented portion of Irish history.

From The Dublin Daily Independent.

To Sir Charles Gavan Duffy this work must have been much of a labour of love. Of that company of devoted Irishmen who had gathered together in Dublin nigh fifty years ago—he alone survives with one other, a busy philanthropist in a southern city who has enhanced the beauty of our national ballads and endeared himself to his countrymen thereby. The coming home of Gavan Duffy to renew the work of his early manhood after half a century of exile is an interesting incident. The young fresh revival in Irish literature in its connection with these few fine old men is as the return of the Son of Cool to the few remaining old Fians who kept true to the traditions of their youth in the heart of the wooded hills of Connaught. It is the proof that their fond hopes cannot be for ever unfulfilled. Sharing with Sir Charles Gavan Duffy the kudos of editing the New Library were two men—not unknown to their countrymen. One of them, as An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn, has laboured earnestly and well to resuscitate an interest in the purely Gaelic side of Irish literature—Dr. Douglas Hyde. The other, recognising that Thomas Davis’s influence is of that peculiar kind rather bequeathed than withdrawn, has gone forth zealously to the endeavour of making Thomas Davis understanded of the people, and with confidence to Mr. T. W. Rolleston may be entrusted the gathering up the fragments that remain—that nothing be lost—of those who brought a new soul into Erinn.

From The Dublin Evening Telegraph.

An able work, by Thomas Davis, edited by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, with a magnificent essay on the Stuart and Cromwell period. That we should get such a jewel as this first volume, such a thing of beauty for a shilling, is little short of a marvel.

From The Cork Herald.

It might be said, without exaggeration, that the appearance of this work—the forerunner as it is of a series in which Irish life, Irish genius, and Irish character will be represented—constitutes an event of no ordinary importance in Irish history. It is the outcome of a desire and a want which have been long felt that the Irish people should know accurately and intimately everything connected with the past history of their country, with its literature, its music, its antiquities, and its art. The same idea which is now taking visible shape, presented itself to the minds of the leaders of the Young Ireland movement fifty years ago, when a series of little books was published which have since been the companions, the inspiration, and the delight of two generations of Irishmen at home and abroad. There are few Irishmen who have not at one time or another received a potent intellectual stimulus from the writings of Davis or Duffy, Mitchell or M’Nevin. We do not err, therefore, when we say that great possibilities lie hidden in this new movement.

WORKS by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D. (An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn).

“LEABHAR SGEULUIGHEACHTA.”

viii—261 pp., 8vo. Price 5/-. Gill & Son, O’Connell Street, Dublin.

Containing some sixteen Folk Tales, Riddles, Ranns, &c., in Irish, with copious Notes on the Pronunciation, Vocabulary, and Dialect.

“The multitude of characteristic idioms and of those charmingly expressive turns of speech which one meets with daily among the peasantry is so great as to make the work a perfect treasure-house of rich jewels of thought.... Dr. Hyde deserves well, not only of his country, but of all scientific investigators and philologists.”—Freeman’s Journal.

“This is the most noteworthy addition that has been made for nearly a century to modern Gaelic literature.”—Chicago Citizen.

“His collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories is the fruit of years of pious work. He has travelled into every corner of Ireland where the old tongue still lingers, gathering from the mouths of the Irish-speaking peasants the olden stories that linger among them.”—Nation.

“BESIDE THE FIRE.”

lviii—204 pp., large 8vo. Price 7/6. David Nutt, Strand, London.

Containing Folk Tales and Fairy Stories in Irish and English, collected from the mouths of the peasantry. With Introduction and Notes, and additional Notes by Alfred Nutt.

“Any reader conversant with the subject will at once recognise the fact that this book is distinctly the most valuable contribution that has ever been made to Irish Folk-lore. It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that it is the only work in that particular department that is trustworthy in its details and scientific in its treatment.”—Nature.

“We may say that Dr. Hyde’s is the first [collection of Irish Folk-lore] which has been presented in a form entirely satisfactory to the scientific folk-lorist.... Few men know the living Gaelic tongue so well as Dr. Hyde, and he has made it his object to give these fragments of Gaelic tradition exactly as he gathered them from the lips of the peasantry, and with all the collateral information that the scientific investigator can require. The result is certainly one of the most interesting and entertaining books of Folk-lore that it has ever been our good fortune to come across.”—The Speaker.

“Perhaps the most interesting part of Dr. Hyde’s collection of Irish tales, ‘Beside the Fire,’ is his Introduction.”—Saturday Review.

“We trust that his warning, though late, is not given in vain, and that a whole literature will not be allowed to die or to become a fossil in the studies of the Dryasdusts.”—Daily News leading article.

“COIS NA TEINEADH.”

60 pp., large 8vo. Price 1/6. Gill & Son, O’Connell Street, Dublin.

Containing six Folk Stories in Irish, reprinted from the last volume. With Additional Notes, &c.

CONTES IRLANDAIS.

Being Extracts from the untranslated portion of the “Leabhar Sgeuluigheachta,” translated into French by M. Georges Dottin, with the original Irish text in Roman letters as arranged by MONSIEUR Dottin on the opposite page.

70pp., 4to. Price 7/6. Gill & Son, O’Connell Street, Dublin.

ABHRÁIN GRÁDH; OR, LOVE SONGS OF CONNACHT.

Containing 45 Poems collected from the mouths of Connacht peasantry or from modern manuscripts, now for the first time collected, translated, and published, with metrical and literal versions in English on one side of the page and the Irish text on the other, with Notes, Anecdotes, and much Illustrative matter.

160pp., 8vo. Price 2/6 net. T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Buildings, and Gill & Son, Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin.

“In these Connaught Love Songs Dr. Hyde has made, whether in verse or prose, the best transcript of Celtic poetry into English that we have yet had. So much of the magic, so much of the local colour, the native grace, the idiom of the Irish as he has given, one had thought it impossible to give.”—Ernest Rhys, in the Academy, Oct. 13th, 1893.

“We cannot too cordially commend to ethnologists and Gaelic antiquarians these relics of Irish Folk Songs collected with so much industry and devotion by Dr. Hyde.”—The Times, July 20th, 1893.

“The price of this valuable and delightful work is only half-a-crown, and it should be welcomed by several classes of readers. The folk-lorists of course will pounce on it, but folk-lorists are a very small public and despised of men. Still less numerous are students of the Irish language, who here find what they need, the Erse poetry on the left page, the literal translation on the right.... There remains the class of English readers of poetry, and to them the ‘Love Songs of Connacht’ may be warmly recommended.”—From the Daily News leading article, Sept. 1st, 1893.

“No one who has examined Dr. Hyde’s previous work can fail to see that he combines two gifts, the conjunction of which is rarely met with in one man; he adds to the knowledge, the love of accuracy, and the scientific spirit of a modern scholar that sense of the form, and love of the spirit of his material which belongs to the creative far more than to the critical mind. And if such praise seems to any reader excessive, let him examine for himself the ‘Fourth Chapter of the Songs of Connacht.’”—From the Speaker, July 15th, 1893.

“Every page deserves some quotation.... Accompanying the poems is the enchanting commentary of Dr. Hyde; he tells of the old folk from whose lips, of the old manuscripts, from whose pages he took his songs. He is philosophical, historical, scientific, at need.... The reader will reflect that were these poems, or poems a thousand times less good in Greek or Latin, old French, or old German, or songs of Russia or Roumania, many a learned man, many a lover of poetry, would be keen to edit, criticise, proclaim them.”—From the Daily Chronicle, Aug. 21st, 1893.