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Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics
Gaelic Prose Literature
The Folk-Songs of Ireland
The Intellectual Future of the Gael
An electronic edition
Pádraic H. Pearse
Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by
Pádraig Bambury
University College, Cork
Second draft.
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Select editions
P.H. Pearse, An sgoil: a direct method course in Irish (Dublin: Maunsel, 1913).
P.H. Pearse, How does she stand?: three addresses (The Bodenstown series no. 1) (Dublin: Irish Freedom Press, 1915).
P.H. Pearse, From a hermitage (The Bodenstown series no. 2)(Dublin: Irish Freedom Press, 1915).
P.H. Pearse, The murder machine (The Bodenstown series no. 3) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916). Repr. U.C.C.: Department of Education, 1959.
P.H. Pearse, Ghosts (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916).
P.H. Pearse, The Spiritual Nation (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916).
P.H. Pearse, The Sovereign People (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916).
P.H. Pearse, The Separatist Idea (Tracts for the Times) (Dublin: Whelan, 1916).
Pádraic Colum, E.J. Harrington O'Brien (ed), Poems of the Irish revolutionary brotherhood, Thomas MacDonagh, P.H. Pearse (Pádraic MacPiarais), Joseph Mary Plunkett, Sir Roger Casement. (New and enl. ed.) (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1916). First edition, July, 1916; second edition, enlarged, September, 1916.
Michael Henry Gaffney, The stories of Pádraic Pearse (Dublin [etc.]: The Talbot Press Ltd. 1935). Contains ten plays by M.H. Gaffney based upon stories by Pádraic Pearse, and three plays by Pádraic Pearse edited by M.H. Gaffney.
Proinsias Mac Aonghusa, Liam Ó Reagain (ed), The best of Pearse (1967).
Seamus Ó Buachalla (ed), The literary writings of Patrick Pearse: writings in English (Dublin: Mercier, 1979).
Seamus Ó Buachalla, A significant Irish educationalist: the educational writings of P.H. Pearse (Dublin: Mercier, 1980).
Seamus Ó Buachalla (ed), The letters of P. H. Pearse (Gerrards Cross, Bucks.: Smythe, 1980).
Pádraic Mac Piarais (ed), Bodach an chóta lachtna (Baile Átha Cliath: Chonnradh na Gaedhilge, 1906).
Pádraic Mac Piarais, Bruidhean chaorthainn: sgéal Fiannaídheachta (Baile Átha Cliath: Chonnradh na Gaedhilge, 1912).
Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H.
Pearse (Dublin: Phoenix Publishing Co. ?1910 1919). 4 vols. v. 1. Political writings and speeches.—v. 2. Plays, stories, poems.—v. 3. Songs of the Irish rebels and specimens from an Irish anthology. Some aspects of Irish literature. Three lectures on Gaelic topics.—v. 4. The story of a success, edited by Desmond Ryan, and The man called Pearse, by Desmond Ryan.
Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H.
Pearse (Dublin; Belfast: Phoenix, ? 1916 1917). 5 vols. [v. 1] Plays, stories, poems.—[v. 2.] Political writings and speeches.—[v. 3] Story of a success. Man called Pearse.—[v. 4] Songs of the Irish rebels. Specimens from an Irish anthology. Some aspects of irish literature.—[v. 5] Scrivinni.
Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse … (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company 1917). 3rd ed. Translated by Joseph Campbell, introduction by Patrick Browne.
Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse. 6th ed. (Dublin: Phoenix, 1924 1917) v. 1. Political writings and speeches — v. 2. Plays, stories, poems.
Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1924). 5 vols. [v. 1] Songs of the Irish rebels and specimens from an Irish anthology. Some aspects of Irish literature. Three lectures on Gaelic topics. — [v. 2] Plays, stories, poems. — [v. 3] Scríbinní. — [v. 4] The story of a success [being a record of St. Enda's College] The man called Pearse / by Desmond Ryan. — [v. 5] Political writings and speeches.
Pádraic Pearse, Short stories of Pádraic Pearse (Cork: Mercier Press, 1968 1976 1989). (Iosagan, Eoineen of the birds, The
roads, The black chafer, The keening woman).
Pádraic Pearse, Political writing and speeches (Irish prose writings, 20) (Tokyo: Hon-no-tomosha, 1992). Originally published: Dublin: Maunsel & Roberts, 1922.
Pádraic Pearse, Political writings and speeches (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin and London: Maunsel & Roberts Ltd., 1922).
Pádraic Pearse, Political writings and Speeches (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix 1916). 6th ed. (Dublin [etc.]: Phoenix, 1924).
Pádraic Pearse, Plays Stories Poems (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin, London: Maunsel & Company Ltd., 1917). 5th ed. 1922. Also pubd. by Talbot Press, Dublin, 1917, repr. 1966. Repr. New York: AMS Press, 1978.
Pádraic Pearse, Filíocht Ghaeilge Pádraig Mhic Phiarais (Áth Cliath: Clóchomhar, 1981) Leabhair thaighde ; an 35u iml.
Pádraic Pearse, Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse (New York: Stokes, 1918). Contains The Singer, The King, The Master, Íosagán.
Pádraic Pearse, Songs of the Irish rebels and specimens from an Irish anthology: some aspects of Irish literature: three lectures on Gaelic topics (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: The Phoenix Publishing Co. 1910).
Pádraic Pearse, Songs of the Irish rebels (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1917).
Pádraic Pearse, Songs of the Irish rebels, and Specimens from an Irish anthology (Collected works of Pádraic H. Pearse) (Dublin: Maunsel, 1918).
Pádraic Pearse, The story of a success (The complete works of P. H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1917) .
Pádraic Pearse, Scríbinní (The complete works of P. H. Pearse) (Dublin: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1917).
Julius Pokorny, Die Seele Irlands: Novellen und Gedichte aus dem Irisch-Galischen des Patrick Henry Pearse und Anderer zum ersten Male ins Deutsche übertragen (Halle a.S.: Max Niemeyer 1922)
James Simmons, Ten Irish poets: an anthology of poems by George Buchanan, John Hewitt, Pádraic Fiacc, Pearse Hutchinson, James Simmons, Michael Hartnett, Eilean Ní Chuilleanáin, Michael Foley, Frank Ormsby & Tom Mathews (Cheadle: Carcanet Press, 1974).
Cathal Ó hAinle (ed), Gearrscéalta an Phiarsaigh (Dublin: Helicon, 1979).
Ciarán Ó Coigligh (ed), Filíocht Ghaeilge: Phádraig Mhic Phiarais (Baile Átha Cliath: Clóchomhar, 1981).
Pádraig Mac Piarais, et al., Une île et d'autres îles: poèmes gaeliques XXeme siècle (Quimper: Calligrammes, 1984).
Select bibliography
Pádraic Mac Piarais: Pearse from documents (Dublin: Co-ordinating committee for Educational Services, 1979). Facsimile documents. National Library of Ireland. facsimile documents.
Xavier Carty, In bloody protest—the tragedy of Patrick Pearse (Dublin: Able 1978).
Helen Louise Clark, Pádraic Pearse: a Gaelic idealist (1933). (Thesis (M.A.)—Boston College, 1933).
Mary Maguire Colum, St. Enda's School, Rathfarnham, Dublin.
Founded by Pádraic H. Pearse. (New York: Save St. Enda's Committee 1917).
Pádraic H. Pearse ([s.l.: s.n., C. F. Connolly) 1920).
Elizabeth Katherine Cussen, Irish motherhood in the drama of William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, and Pádraic Pearse: a comparative study. (1934) Thesis (M.A.), Boston College, 1934.
Ruth Dudley Edwards, Patrick Pearse: the triumph of failure (London: Gollancz, 1977).
Stefan Fodor, Douglas Hyde, Eoin MacNeill, and Pádraic Pearse of the Gaelic League: a study in Irish cultural nationalism and separatism, 1893-1916 (1986). Thesis (M.A.), Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, 1986.
James Hayes, Patrick H. Pearse, storyteller (Dublin: Talbot, 1920).
John J. Horgan, Parnell to Pearse: some recollections and reflections (Dublin: Browne & Nolan, 1948).
Louis N. Le Roux, La vie de Patrice Pearse (Rennes: Imprimerie Commerciale de Bretagne, 1932). Translated into English by Desmond Ryan (Dublin: Talbot, 1932).
Proinsias Mac Aonghusa, Quotations from P.H. Pearse, (Dublin: Mercier, 1979).
Mary Benecio McCarty (Sister), Pádraic Henry Pearse: an educator in the Gaelic tradition (1939) (Thesis (M.A.)—Marquette
University, 1939).
Hedley McCay, Pádraic Pearse; a new biography (Cork: Mercier Press, 1966).
John Bernard Moran, Sacrifice as exemplified by the life and writings of Pádraic Pearse is true to the Christian and Irish ideals; that portrayed in the Irish plays of Sean O'Casey is futile (1939). Submitted to Dept. of English. Thesis (M.A.)—Boston College, 1939.
Sean Farrell Moran, Patrick Pearse and the politics of redemption: the mind of the Easter rising, 1916 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1994).
P.S. O'Hegarty, A bibliography of books written by P. H. Pearse (s.l.: 1931).
Máiread O'Mahony, The political thought of Padraig H. Pearse: pragmatist or idealist (1994). Theses—M.A. (NUI, University College Cork).
Daniel J. O'Neill, The Irish revolution and the cult of the leader: observations on Griffith, Moran, Pearse and Connolly (Boston: Northeastern U.P., 1988).
Mary Brigid Pearse (ed), The home-life of Padraig Pearse as told by himself, his family and friends (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1934). Repr. Cork, Mercier 1979.
Maureen Quill, Pádraic H. Pearse—his philosophy of Irish education (1996). Theses—M.A. (NUI, University College Cork).
Desmond Ryan, The man called Pearse (Dublin: Maunsel, 1919).
Nicholas Joseph Wells, The meaning of love and patriotism as seen in the plays, poems, and stories of Pádraic Pearse (1931). (Thesis (M.A.)—Boston College, 1931).
The edition used in the digital edition
Pádraic Pearse
Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics
Songs of the Irish Rebels and Specimens from an Irish Anthology, Some Aspects of Irish Literature, Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics
Dublin
Phoenix Publishing Co. Ltd.
n.d.
159–236
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By Pádraic H. Pearse (1879-1916).
1897–1898
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PREFACE
The three lectures or papers comprised in
this little volume were not originally intended
to see the light of publication. They were
written, in every case, at a few days' notice,
and at different periods during the last twelve
months. Though I have revised them for
publication, yet I have not, by any means
made so many emendations as I would like,
preferring to send them forth as nearly as
possible in their original forms.
I hope no one will be so uncharitable as to
imagine that I have published this booklet
merely for the sake of seeing myself in print.
My main object as a matter of fact has been to
assist, in some little degree, in spreading the
reputation of the Society of which I have the
honour to be President, and before which the
lectures were delivered.
As I am but a student of Irish myself—and
young at that—I am aware that Gaelic scholars
will find little that is new in these papers; but it is not so much to the scholar they are
addressed as to the barbarian—to him, that is,
to whom our National language, with its wealth of poetry, romance, and folk-lore, is
still a sealed book. The subjects of which the lectures treat are to-day far from being so
new, or so out-of-the-way, as they would have been even a very few years ago; for, thanks to
the Gaelic League, to the Oireachtas, to the
Gaelic Journal, and to
Fáinne An Lae, Irishmen are beginning to realize that they
possess a language of their own, which, for antiquity, may vie with the languages of
Homer and Virgil, and, for youthful vigour and literary capabilities, with the languages of
Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe.
Gaelic Prose Literature Read in March, 1897
A great deal, Mr. Chairman, has, within the last few years, been said
and written about the ancient literature of the Gael. In Ireland, in
Great Britain, and on the Continent, a small but earnest band of workers
is engaged in opening up to the world the vast literary treasures of the
Irish language. In spite of this, however, the melancholy fact remains,
that, to most people, our literature—prose and poetry—is
still a terra incognita; a region as
dark and unexplored as the heart of Africa. Hence, as might naturally be
expected, we constantly find two very different opinions expressed by
two very different classes of people. First, we have the assertion of
ignorant and self-important critics of the up-to-date
school,
that the literature existing in the Gaelic language is of an utterly
worthless type—that it consists of a few odd songs written by
disreputable and half-educated poets, and of certain crazy old tales
about Fenians, giants, reptiles, and so forth. On the other
hand, we have the far more pardonable and far less erroneous belief of
enthusiastic Gaelic students, that the Irish language possesses the
grandest, the most ancient, and the most extensive literature in the
world. Now, the truth of the matter is simply this: there are, at the
present day, several nations possessing a literature more extensive and
possibly of a higher absolute, though certainly not of a
higher relative, degree of excellence, than Gaelic
literature; but the statement is strictly and undeniably true that
Ireland possesses a more ancient, a more extensive, and a better
literature, wholly of native growth, than any other
European country, with the single exception of Greece.
It is
impossible, of course, to determine the precise date at which our
forefathers first commenced to commit tales and poems to writing. We
know that they possessed some books, at least, before the arrival of St.
Patrick; but it is highly probable that these were derived either from
St. Patrick's predecessors in Ireland, or, from communication,
commercial or otherwise, with the Christians of the Continent. It is
true that many of our existing romances are, in incidents
and tone, completely pagan; that these existed, in some shape or other,
long before the time of St. Patrick is absolutely certain; that they
existed in a written form is, at least, possible. We may conclude, then,
that Irish literature, using literature
in the strict sense of
the word, dates from the fourth or fifth century of the Christian
era.
The way in which our early literature was produced and
propagated is a remarkable one. Handed down by word of mouth for
centuries, it was at length committed to writing—sometimes by the
professional bards themselves, more frequently, perhaps, by the humbler
scribes, lay and ecclesiastical. The service rendered to Gaelic
literature by these latter is indeed immense: in the quiet shelter of
great monastic establishments, or under the friendly protection of
powerful chiefs, these old Gaelic scribes lived and died; their cunning
pens it was that illuminated the pages of our priceless
manuscript-books, and that gave to the world the vast stores of Gaelic
literature, which having survived the ravages of Dane, and Norman, and
Cromwellian, are scattered to-day through the libraries of Europe, from
the Liffey to the Tiber, from the Tiber to the Neva.
Eire has long since been celebrated as the Land
of Song.
It is hence somewhat remarkable to find that prose has played
a more important part in the early literature of Ireland than in that of
any other country. Our great national epics—including, of course,
the
Táin Bó Cuailgne, which is recognized as emphatically the national epic—are all in prose.It is probable, however, that they were
originally in poetry. There exists, then, in the
Irish language, a most valuable, a most extensive, and a most unique
prose literature. It is in this uniqueness, indeed, that
the chief charm of Gaelic prose lies. There is absolutely nothing like
it in the world's literature. When the student enters its wide realms he
finds himself in a new world, surrounded by a new atmosphere, new
characters, new incidents, new modes of thought. The nearest approach to
our older romance-literature is perhaps to be found in those splendid
old sages of the Nordland, which are lately becoming so popular amongst
English scholars. It is well known, indeed, that some of the
Scandinavian epics are directly borrowed from our Gaelic epics—
style, characters, incidents, and all.
Speaking very broadly, Gaelic prose may be divided into two great chronological
divisions. The former, extending up to the sixteenth century, a period
of over a thousand years, was the reign of the bards—and a long,
glorious and prolific reign it was; the latter, which includes the last
three centuries, is a period of decline, fall, and finally, of
resurrection.
The former of these two divisions should properly be divided into
two, ancient and medieval. The former would embrace a period extending
from the fifth century to the twelfth the latter from the twelfth to the
sixteenth. The prose styles of these two periods are very different:
that of the former is severe, unadorned, unencumbered by unnecessary
words; the latter, on the contrary is marked by a ponderous, ornate,
multi-adjectival style, often extremely interesting, but sometimes
degenerating into bombast.
For the purpose of this lecture I
shall consider these two divisions as one, the later being, as a matter
of fact, merely the developed form of the earlier.
It is to this
period then—the reign of the bards, as I call it—that I
shall almost entirely confine my attention. The amount of literature
which was produced during this thousand
years or so is simply incredible; by far the
greater part of it has perished, but there still
remains enough to fill some 1,400 printed
volumes, and to keep the Celtic scholars of
Europe busied in editing and publishing it for
the next two centuries. Yet, in the face of
these facts, we frequently hear educated Irishmen
assert that the Irish language has produced no literature! O tempora! O
Mores!
This enormous mass of prose may again be
sub-divided into numerous classes: history,
biography, historic-romance, and fiction, or
romance undiluted. The first of these divisions
however, can scarcely come under the head of
literature,
being, for the most part, mere
annals, or compilations of dates and facts; the
second, that of biography, is mostly of a hagiological
kind: it deals, that is, with the lives of
the early Irish saints, and though most valuable
and interesting in itself, and frequently of a
high degree of literary excellence, it has not
the claims to popularity amongst general
readers that the latter two classes have.
We now come to the romantic prose literature
of Ireland, part of it a mixture of genuine
history and fiction, much of it, no doubt,
fiction pure and simple. There is no literary
production of any age or nation so entrancing,
and, if I might use the word, so refreshing, so
bracing, as these romantic prose-works; they
have an atmosphere of old-world quaintness
and freshness about them, they are pervaded
by a poetic magic and glamour peculiarly
their own; the poet, or the scholar, or the
antiquarian, finds in them a wealth of beauty,
of imagination, of historic lore, which he can
find nowhere else. Yet, in spite of all this,
there is almost a universal opinion—which
exists even amongst lovers of the language—
that Gaelic romantic prose is of the driest and
most uninteresting character. How this absurd
misconception has grown up, and holds ground
I am positively unable to conceive—unless,
indeed, it be due to the nature of the works
generally selected as text-books, or to the bad
and unreadable translations which editors of
such works conceive themselves bound to
make.Absolutely the best living translator of romantic Gaelic prose is Rev. Dr. Hogan, S.J. His translation of Cath Rois na Riogh is scholarly, accurate, and withal a splendid piece of English prose. The fault of most translations from the Gaelic is that they are too literal; the spirit of a work cannot be preserved in a word-for-word translation. Who would think of putting into the hands of a student a word-for-word translation of, say, a Greek or Latin classic or of a modern French or German work?
Our historic-romantic literature deals with
many personages and events, but the larger
part of it can be grouped into three great
cycles: the mythological cycle, the early
heroic cycle (which centres round Cúchulainn
and the knights of the Craobh Ruadh), and the
later heroic cycle (which circles round Fionn,
the son of Cumhal, and the Fianna Eireann).
Some of the tales, at least as we have them at
present, are mere fragments; most of them,
however, are sagas of considerable, indeed,
sometimes of almost appalling length. In
the later romances we find the very first
examples of that form of literature which
exerts such a potent influence to-day—the
novel. The
Toruigheacht Dhiarmada
agus Ghráinne, is neither more or less than a novel—a novel with a regular and most artfully-contrived, yet perfectly natural, plot. It is, as a matter of fact, one of the greatest and
one of the most interesting historical novels ever written.
Of the three cycles, the mythological is, of course, the oldest; whilst the second or Red-Branch cycle is the finest from a literary point
of view. As the three, however, as far as style and incidents are concerned, are perfectly similar, it will be sufficient for me to make a few general remarks on their character, illustrating by one or two extracts.
The first point that strikes the reader of
Gaelic prose, and particularly of this special
kind, is its wonderful descriptive power.
Irish, from its copiousness and expressiveness,
is, perhaps, better adapted for description
than any other language. It is especially rich
in beautiful and sonorous epithets, and many
of these are so delicately shaded in meaning
that, though their signification and application
are perfectly clear in Irish, yet they
must frequently be rendered by the same word
in English.There are many Irish words which absolutely defy translation into English: Miss Norma Borthwick (Aodh Ruadh
) in her prize winning essay in Gaelic at the recent Oireachtas instances, amongst others, Flaitheamhail
and Tráithnín
. It is by piling up such epithets as these that the really marvellous descriptive
effect I have alluded to is obtained.
There are two scenes in the description of
which our old storytellers particularly excel,
and they are constantly recurring in our romantic
literature—a battle and a sea voyage. To
select the most suitable specimen of a battle
piece where there is so large a field of choice
is somewhat difficult. I shall begin, however,
with the
Táin Bó Cuailgne itself—one of the
oldest, and certainly the finest and most important
of the epic-romances of the Red-Branch cycle. Here is Sullivan's translation
of a portion of the Fight at the Ford
between Cúchluainn and his friend Ferdiad:—
So close was the fight they made now that
their heads met above and their feet below and
their arms in the middle over the rims and
bosses of their shields. So close was the fight
they made that they cleft and loosened their
shields from their rims to their centres. So
close was the fight which they made that they
turned and bent and shivered their spears
from their joints to their hefts! Such was the
closeness of the fight which they made that the
Bocanachs and Bananachs and wild people of the glens and demons of the air screamed
from the rims of their shields, and from the
hilts of their swords, and from the hefts of
their spears. Such was the closeness of the
fight which they made that they cast the river
out of its bed and out of its course, so that it
might have been a reclining and reposing
couch for a king or for a queen in the middle
of the ford, so that there was not a drop of
water in it unless it dropped into it by the
trampling and the hewing which the two
champions and the two heroes made in the
middle of the ford. Such was the intensity of
the fight which they made that the stud of the
Gaels darted away in fright and shyness,
with fury and madness, breaking their chains
and their yokes, their ropes and their traces,
and that the women and youths and small
people and camp-followers, and non-combatants
of the men of Eire broke out of the
camp southwestwards.
Here is another description of a single fight
translated by Father Hogan from the
Cath
Rois na Riogh, or Battle of Rosnaree. This battle was fought on the Boyne about the first year of the Christian era, and the saga describing it is, both in its older and more modern
forms, quite pre-Christian in tone and texture.
Cúchulainn had been inflicting heavy slaughter
on the men of Leinster, or, as a Gaelic bard
would put it in euphemistic-poetic language,
he had been playing the music of his sword on
them, when he approached the ring of battle in
which he saw the diadem of the high-king
Cairbre Nia Fear himself: after an interchange
change of defiances:—
Those two smote each other, and each of
them inflicted abundance of wounds on his
opponent, and they plied furious, angry,
truly grim, effort-strong strife against each
other, and they quickened hands to smite
fiercely and feet to hold firm against the oncome
of the fight and of mutual wounding. Howbeit,
stout were the strokes and fierce the live-wounds, strong were the good thrusts, earnest
was the hard fighting, and stern were the
hearts, for it was a smiting of two brave
champions, it was a lacerating of two lions, it
was a madness of two bears; two bulls on a
mound and two steers on a ridge were they at
that time.
There is a vigorous description of a general
conflict in the Fenian saga, the
Cath Finntraghá,
in some respects one of the finest, though not one of the most ancient of our historic-romantic tales. The following is a
close translation of a portion of it:—
Thereafter those two equally eager and
equally keen armies poured forth against each
other, like dense woods, with their proud
noisy strokes, and spilling a black deluge,
actively, fiercely, perilously, angrily, furiously,
destructively, boldly, vehemently, hastily;
and great was the grating of swords against
bones, and the cracking of bones that were
crushed, and bodies that were mangled, and eyes
that were blinded, and arms that were shortened
to the back, and mother without son, and fair
wife without mate. Then the beings of the
upper regions responded to the battle, telling
the evil and the woe that was destined to be
done on that day, and the sea chattered telling
the losses, and the waves raised a heavy woeful
great moan in wailing them, and the beasts
howled telling of them in their bestial
way, and the rough hills creaked with the
danger of that attack, and the woods trembled
in wailing the heroes, and the grey stones
cried from the deeds of the champions, and the
winds sighed telling the high deeds, and the
earth trembled prophesying the heavy slaughter,
and the sun was covered with a blue mantle
from the cries of the grey hosts, and the clouds
were shining black at the time of that hour,
and the hounds and whelps, and crows and the
demoniac women of the glen, and the spectres
of the air, and the wolves of the forest howled
together from every quarter and every corner
round about them, and a demoniacal devilish
section of the race of tempters to evil and
wrong kept urging them on against each other.
The description of a field of battle has always
been a favourite theme with poets, and
many is the example of such a description we
have, from the battle-scenes of the Prince of
Poets, down to Tennyson's splendid lay,
The Charge of the Light Brigade. But
it is no exaggeration to say that no great
writer, either in prose or poetry, has succeeded
in painting a more vivid, a more
realistic picture of a battle-scene than the
pictures of the unknown writers of these
passages. It should be noticed that most
writers describe only the bright side of a battle:
they paint its pride, pomp, and circumstance,
but they leave out all mention of its more disagreeable
details. Gaelic writers on the contrary,
are admirably true to nature: they
describe the glory of a battle-field with the
greatest enthusiasm, but they also depict its
horror. We hear not alone the wild, inspiring
slogan and the ringing cheer of victory, but
also the agonized shriek of the wounded, and
the fearful moan of the dying; not alone the
clang of steel on shield and hauberk, but the
thud of the fallen champion, and the crushing
of his limbs beneath the rush of feet. I
would have no hesitation whatever in placing
some of these passages, for realistic effect,
beside any passage not merely of Scott,
Macauley, or Tennyson, but of Homer himself.
I purposely compare this descriptive prose
with the descriptive poetry of other nations;
for, though nominally prose, it is, in reality,
poetry. It may be accurately described as
poetical prose, or prose-poetry.
The Gael being notoriously a non-seafaring
race, it is rather striking that one of the great
fortes of Gaelic writers should lie in the description
of the changing moods of the ocean.
This remarkable circumstance is probably to
be explained by that innate love of nature
which is so peculiarly Celtic. Everyone must
have noticed how in the extracts I have read
the Celtic nature-love, and the Celtic belief in
nature's influence over, and sympathy with,
man so frequently appear. Almost all the
similes of a Gaelic writer are drawn from nature,
and particularly from the phenomena connected
with the ocean. In the
Battle of Moyrath, for instance, we are told that on
the conveying of certain news to him the
stern steadfast heart of Conall started from the
mid-upper part of his chest like the noise of a
sea-green wave against the earth.
In the Battle of Ventry, it is said of two warriors as
they fought that one would think that the
bank overflowing, white-foaming curled wave
of Cliodhna, and the long-sided steady
wave of Tuagh, and the great right-courageous
wave of Rudhraighe had arisen to smother one
another.
In the Battle of Rosnaree
the
march to battle of the men of Ulster is described
as like the tide of a strong torrent belching
through the top of a rugged mountain, so that
it bruises and breaks what there is of stones
and of trees before it.
In the Pursuit of the
Giolla Deacair
Diarmuid's rush on his foes
under them, over them, and through them
is
compared to that of hawk through flight of
small birds, or wolf through sheep-flock,
or to the weighty rush of a mad swollen
stream in spate that over and adown a cliff
of ocean spouts.
When we consider this intense love of
nature which characterizes the Celt, we cannot
wonder that Gaelic writers should especially
delight in describing a thing so vast, so powerful,
and so mysterious as the ocean. Here is
Mr. O'Grady's translation of the description
in
Tadhg Mac Céin of the sailing of Tadhg and his companions:—
Forth on the vast illimitable abyss they
drive their vessel accordingly over the volume
of the potent and tremendous deluge, till at
last neither ahead of them nor astern could
they see land at all, but only colossal ocean's
superfices. Further on they heard about them
concert of multifarious unknown birds, and
hoarse booming of the main; salmons irridescent,
white bellied, throwing themselves all
around the currach; in their wake, huge
bull-seals thick and dark, that ever cleft the
flashing wash of the oars as they pursued them,
and following these again great whales of the
deep. So that for the prodigiousness of their
motion, fashion, and variety, the young men
found it a festive thing to scrutinize and watch
them all, for hitherto they had not used to see
the diverse oceanic reptiles, the bulky marine
monsters.
Here is a description of a storm, taken from
the
Cath Finntrága:—
Then arose the winds, and grew high the
waves, so that they heard nothing but the
furious mad sporting of the mermaids, and the
many crazy voices of the hovering terrified
birds above the pure green waters that were
in uproar. There was no welcome forsooth,
to him who got the service and attendance
of that angry, cold, and deep sea, with the force
of the waves, and of the tide, and of the strong
blasts; nor was the babbling of those watery
tribes pleasant with the creaking of the ropes
that were lashed into strings, and with the
buffeting of the masts by the fierce winds that
shivered them severely.
The extraordinary fertility of language displayed
in all these descriptive passages is one
of their chief characteristics. Gaelic writers
delight in heaping up epithet on epithet, comparison
on comparison. These epithets and
comparisons exhibit the greatness boldness and
vigour, and sometimes they almost startle one
with their peculiar vehemence; but they are
always, above all things, appropriate, and convey
to the reader's mind a most vivid—in some
cases an almost too vivid—picture of what the
author is describing. These writers have all a
vast range of vocabulary, and it is no uncommon
thing to find twenty or thirty adjectives, all of
different meaning, but all most applicable,
qualifying the same noun. These strings of
adjectives are introduced chiefly for the sake of
alliteration, which is as prominent a feature of
Gaelic prose as it is of Gaelic poetry. All the
passages I have quoted are, in the original Irish,
full of alliteration and similar effects. Now, this
brings home two facts to us: first, the extraordinary
plasticity of the language which allows
all this, and, secondly, the prodigious amount
of labour and pains which must have been
bestowed by the authors on these passages.The labour required to produce an alliterative effect in Irish is, however, by no means so great as we might imagine. Modern English, as everyone knows does not at all lend itself to alliteration with the facility of Irish. When we attempt to frame a continuous alliterative sentence we almost always produce
a nonsense of the four fat friars fanning fainting flies
type.
The genius of Irish, on the contrary, peculiarly fits it for alliteration.
I have frequently heard Irish speakers produce fine alliterative sentences
quite unconsciously, and we know that Gaelic poets, even of the second or third rank, can dash off alliterative stanzas extemporarily.
Gaelic prose-works are emphatically, and in the
fullest sense of the words, works of art,—art the
most wonderful, the most consummate and the
most finished.
Whilst admiring these alliterative runs
and
descriptive passages, as such, we cannot but
admit that their perpetual recurrence is an
abuse. The inflated style which marks our
romantic tales from the twelfth century onwards
stands alone in literature. It is not found in
our oldest romances, and there is nothing like
it, as far as I am aware, in any other European
literature. How it was introduced into Gaelic
prose is, however, by no means difficult to
conceive. We must never forget that our
prose epics were originally intended not to be
written, but to be recited. The bards, of
course, did not learn them off in extenso;
indeed no human being—not even an Irish
bard—could possibly learn by heart three
hundred and fifty prose tales of such length
as the great majority of our romances. In
all probability the bard learned only the outline
or skeleton of each story, and this outline
he filled in extemporarily with his own words
whilst in the act of reciting. We can easily
conceive how a bard possessing an enormous
command over language would revel in rolling
forth to his astonished hearers a long list of
alliterative adjectives and compound words.
Afterwards, when the tales came to be written
down, this turgid style was not unnaturally
retained; and succeeding writers imitated, and
even outdid the extravagance of the bardic
language. This is why the later romance is
the more turgid and ornamental, as a rule, in its
style. Any attempt to revive this inflated
style in modern Irish prose would, of course, be
absurd. Such a sentence, for instance, as
Wrathful, horrid, wrathful-gloomy, ungentle,
very-angry, unfriendly, was the keen
angry, very fiery look that each of them cast
on the other from the flashing of the intent-ruinous eyes, under the soft brinks of the
frowning, wrinkled cluster-brows
(which
occurs in the
Cath Rois na Riogh,) might be very effective when thundered forth by a bard
to an audience of chiefs and gallowglasses, but
in a modern composition it would be intolerable.
When this fondness for adjectival ornamentation
is kept in restraint nothing can surpass our
medieval romantic tales in simple dignity of
style. All the declamation on earth would fail
to produce the touching effect of the old storyteller's
description of the death of the children
of TuireannThe chaste simplicity which distinguishes the Fate of the Children of Tuireann is admirable preserved throughout Mr. O' Duffy's translation.:—
When Brian heard that he went back to where his two brothers were, and he lay down between them; and his soul went forth from him and from his two brothers at the same time.
Equally touching is the death of Tuireann himself:—
After that lay, Tuireann fell on his children, and his soul went from him; and they were buried immediately in the same grave.
For simplicity and pathos I have never read
a passage equal to these, unless, perhaps, it be
the description of the death of Diarmuid in the
Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne.
The purely fictitious prose tales found in
our manuscripts are almost always of a humorous
nature. Commenting on this Tomás Ó Flannaghaile has the following very trenchant remarks:—
It has been sometimes asserted—by those
who knew nothing about the subject—that the
ancient and medieval Irish had no humour!
The inference being, we suppose, that we only
acquired that faculty after we had been brought
into close connection with the intensely
humorous English people, and had learned
their language—the doings of that people in
Ireland during the last three hundred years
being especially humorous and playful, and so
highly adapted to develop in us a playful and
light-hearted disposition! As a matter of
fact, however, half of the modern so-called
Irish humour
is nothing but a caricature of
the Irishman's manners or a burlesque of his
English dialect. Unfortunately, it is not Englishmen
only who find such things immensely
funny—many of our own countrymen, too,
consider them prime subjects for ridicule.
The more English some of us are the more we
think we are entitled to make game of those
who are less English but more Irish; for
your Cork man laughs at the Kerry man, the
Carlow man at the Cork man, the Dublin man
at the Carlow man, and the Saxon at us all.
As a specimen of genuine Gaelic humorous prose Mr. O'Flannghaile quotes a tale from the introduction to
Silva Gadelica; it is translated from an Irish manuscript in the British Museum—
Three penitents resolved to quit the world for the ascetic life, and so sought the wilderness. After exactly a year's silence the first
said, 'Tis a good life we lead.
At the next year's end the second answered, It is so.
Another year being run out, the third exclaimed,
If I cannot have peace and quite here I'll go back to the world!
A Munster folk-tale very similar to this is quoted by Mr. O'Flannghaile from the
Gaelic Journal for August, 1894:—
The hero of it was Michael na Buile, Michael of the Madness
, or Mad Mick
. Now, there is a beautiful valley in Kerry, some
miles to the West of Tralee, and it is called Gleann na nGealt
, or Madmen's Glen
, and thither the crazy used to resort to drink its wholesome waters and to eat its cresses. So Mad Mick went to try the waters and the cresses, and to get rest for his poor head.
One day a stray cow found her way into the glen, and her lowing might be heard for miles around, but though the glen was full of madmen no one spoke. But at the end of seven years, an old man more acute of hearing than the rest cries out, Is that a cow I heard?
Seven years after this a young man answering cries, Where did you hear her?
And now, at the
end of another seven years, Mick, unable to stand the noisy conversation any longer, cried out, The glen is bothered with ye!
And then Mad Mick quitted Gleann na nGealt,
bothered entirely with the noise and brawling of that same glen.
The powers of description to which I have
alluded in connection with the heroic tales are
quite as evident in the humorous ones. The
following, for example, is Mr.O'Grady's translation
of the description of the Giolla Deacair and
his steed. Owing to the translator's mannerisms
it is not, perhaps, quite so racy as it might be.Mr. O'Grady constantly goes out of his way to find some odd-looking English word or phrase to translate a quite simple Irish expression.
Buailios do phreib é,
for instance,
he renders impinges upon him with a kick;
ocus do bhrised cos eich eile,
he elaborately translates, and yet another's legs would fracture with a kick.
This stilted style of translation is calculated to give the barbarian
quite a false notion of Irish prose. There is, however, no doubt about the fact that Silva Gadelica
is one of the monumental books of the century. In his Teanga Thíoramhuil na hEireann Mr. O'Neill Russell expresses the regret that the language of the tale is not easier to be understood
by those who have not had the opportunity and time to study our older literature. This is scarcely the point, for Mr. O'Grady's object in Silva Gadelica is to give some idea, not of modern but of mediæval Irish prose. And, after all, the language of the tales is not so very difficult; an ordinary reader of Irish can certainly understand it as easily as an ordinary reader of English can understand the language of the Faerie Queene.
A Fiann had been placed on guard by Fionn:—
Nor had he been long so when out of the eastern airt directly he marked draw towards him a ruffian, virile indeed, but right ugly, a creature devilish and misshapen, a grumpy-looking and ill favoured loon, equipped as thus: a shield that on the convex was black and loathly-coloured, gloomy, hung on his
back's expanse; upon his dingy, grimy left
thigh, all distorted, was a wide-grooved and
clean-striking sword; struck up his shoulders
he had two long javelins, broad in the head,
which, for a length of time before, he had not
raised in fight or melée; over his armature
and harness was thrown a mantle of a limp
texture, whilst every limb of him was blacker
than a smith's coal quenched in cold ice-water.
A sulky, cross-built horse was there, gaunt in
the carcase, with skimpy grey hind-quarters
shambling upon weedy legs, and wearing a
rude iron halter. This beast his master towed
behind him, and how he failed to drag the head
from the neck, and this from the attenuated
body, was a wonder, such plucks he communicated
to the rusty iron halter, and sought thus
to knock some travel or progression out of
his nag. But a greater marvel yet than this
it was that the latter missed of wrenching from
his owners corporal barrel the thick, long arms
of the big man: such the sudden stands and
stops he made against him, and the jibbing.
In the meantime, even as the thunder of some
vast, mighty surf was the resonance of each
ponderously lusty, vigorous whack, that with
an iron cudgel, the big man laid well into the
horse, endeavouring, as we have said, thus to
get some travel or progression out of him.
This strange cavalier came to the presence of
Fionn and, after some altercation with Conán
Maol or Bald Conán
, he asked and obtained
leave to let his horse loose. The big man,
pursues the storyteller, pulls the rough iron
halter which was round the horse's head, and
the creature started off, rushing with mighty
swift strides till it reached the Fianna's horsetroop,
which, it seems, he began to lacerate
and kill promptly; with a bite he would whip
out the eye of one of them, with a snap he
would snip off the ear of the second, and yet
another's legs would fracture with a kick.
The Fianna, of course, were scarcely disposed
to stand this. Take thy horse out of that, O
big man!
cried Conán. I swear by the
divisions of heaven and earth that, had it not
been on the security of Fionn and the Fianna
thou hast let him free, I would dash his brains
out.
I swear by the divisions of heaven
and earth,
said the big man, that take him
out of that I never will.
Conán himself then
succeeded in recapturing the animal, and, on
Fionn's advice, he mounted him in order to
gallop him to death over hills and hollows.
But, in spite of all Conán's endeavours, the
animal obstinately refused to stir. Fionn was
thereupon struck with the idea that it would be
necessary to place on the steed's back the
number of men that would weigh exactly as
much as his master. So no less than thirteen
men mounted behind Conán, and the horse,
curiously enough, lay down under them and
got up again. The Giolla Deacair, not relishing
the treatment his faithful nag received,
after reciting a lay to Fionn, weakly and
wearily
departed; but when he had reached
the top of a hill, he grit up his coat tails, and
away with him with the speed of a swallow or a
roe-deer, or like a vociferous March wind on
the ridge of a mountain.
When the horse
saw this, he immediately started after master,
with Conán and the thirteen men on his back.
Fionn and the Fianna guffawed with a shout
of mockery flouting Conán,
who screamed
and screeched for help.
Utlimately, however,
the Fianna deemed it advisable to start in pursuit,
and they followed the steed over hill and
glen till they reached sea; here, one of them
succeeded in catching the steed by the tail, but
he, Conán, and the thirteen men were dragged
into the sea, and the Fianna had to pass through
many a marvellous adventure before they
recovered them again. I would advise everyone
one that possibly can to read this truly splendid
tale in the original.
In these stories we find, as the critic already
quoted says, the true Irish extravagance, the
true Irish love of the incongruous—the genuine
article, independent of brogue or burlesque.
It is in this love of the fantastic, or incongruous,
that Celtic humour peculiarly consists. The
Celt is famous throughout the world for his wit;
but it is in humour that he is pre-eminent.
And Celtic humour, be it remarked, though
sometimes broad enough is, as a rule, of an
exceedingly subtle and delicate kind, so that it
is not everyone who can appreciate it.
What an extraordinary and melancholy fact it
is that we do not know the authors of any of the
works we have been considering. They exist,
splendid, beautiful, and unique; they have
come down to us, almost the only thing that remains
of our glorious past; but the oft-repeated
question Who wrote them?
is a
question no man can answer. Powerful and
judicious must have been the minds that conceived
these grand old tales, skilful must have
been the hands that wrote them. But their
authors have long since been mouldering in the
quiet obscurity of ruined abbeys, and history
records not their names. These men wrote not
for gain, they wrote not even for the nobler
reward of glory, but they wrote out of pure and
spontaneous love for literature itself. What a
mighty race they were, those Gaelic bards of
old! Honour to their memory! Oblivion
has hitherto been their portion; but they have
one consolation, for, though their names have
been forgotten, their works, which are their
second and greater selves, will live on through
the ages.
I had intended, Mr. Chairman, to make a
few remarks on the works and style of the more
modern writers of Gaelic prose, especially of
Brother Michael O'Clery and of Geoffrey
Keating. At the end of a paper like this, however,
I would not have time to do them justice,
and consequently shall not attempt to do so.
I need only remark that to the ordinary reader
who reads for amusement rather than for instruction,
modern Gaelic prose is by no means
so interesting as medieval; whilst it is not
nearly so extensive. This is easily explained.
The several conquests and re-conquests of Ireland,
from the time of the Reformation to that
of the Revolution, completely swept away the
old order of things. Defeat, conquest, and
persecution did not, indeed, silence the Gaelic
muse, for we know that much of our sweetest
Gaelic poetry was written, or rather composed,
for some of it has never been written, during the
seventeenth and following centuries; but with
prose the case was naturally very different. A
good education, leisure, access to libraries, are
necessary for the composition of great prose
works; and these were not to be had. When
the power of the native chieftains had been
broken, and the monasteries had been swept
away by the Reformation, the occupation and
the raison d'être of the bard were gone; and so
that noble line of storytellers, that had been held
in honour by the Gael for two thousand years,
disappeared from the land.
A few words should certainly be said about
Irish prose, as written at the present day. Of
course, the work that modern Gaelic scholars
are engaged in doing is mainly one of revival;
it consists, for the most part, not in original
work, but in editing, translating and annotating
existing texts. There is growing up, however,
in the ranks of the Gaelic League, a school of
modern Gaelic writers; and their work may be
seen, month by month, in the columns of the
Gaelic Journal. A modern Gaelic prose style
is being formed, and, when developed,
it will combine, let us hope, the purity
and elegance of Keating, with the nature-love and imagination-play of the medieval
romances.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, it may be
asked what are the future prospects of Gaelic
prose literature? Is this glorious literature a
thing of the past?—a thing on which we may
look back with pride indeed, but which is now
utterly and irretrievably gone? Or, can it be
that it yet has a future before it?—that the day
will yet come when the bard and the seanchaidh
will once more hold a honoured place in Eire,
when the world will listen in amazement, as it
did of yore, to the immortal sgéalta of the
Gaelic race? Personally, Mr. Chairman, I am
convinced that this day will come; and that it
will come is the firm belief of thousands today.
We will be met, of course, with the
stereotyped objection that the men who say and
think these things are enthusiasts; this is
perhaps, true; but it would be well to recollect
that every great movement that has ever been
carried out on this earth has been carried out
simply and solely by enthusiasts.
Centuries ago, when the European civilization
and literature of to-day were unknown, Eire had
her day of empire; but hers was the empire
not of brute force, but of intellectuality. Time
was when this land of ours was the literary
centre of Christendom, when the learned of the
world found their chief reading in these very
prose tales that we have been considering.
Gaelic literature, like the Gaelic race, has long
been dying, but it is fated not to die
. When
we remember the past, and when we look into
the future, we are driven to admit, laying all
enthusiasm aside, or, at least, avoiding extravagance
in our enthusiasm, that in centuries yet
to come these self-same old epics, these self-same old sgéalta, with their simple and beautiful
imagery, with their grand and sonorous descriptive
passages, with their strange old-world
Celtic eloquence, may still be inspiring and
rejuvenating the heart of man, and lifting him
to higher and nobler ideals.
THE FOLK SONGS OF IRELANDRead in January, '98. In its original form this paper was considerably longer, as I quoted in full many of the best examples of living Gaelic folk-songs. As most of these, however, are to be found in Dr. Hyde's Abhráin Ghrádha Chúige Connacht, it is unnecessary to print them here. I would advise anyone whom the somewhat desultory remarks contained in the following paper may succeed in interesting in the subject to fly at once to the pages of Dr. Hyde.
I have called this paper
The Folk-Songs
of Ireland, Mr. Chairman, simply because I
was unable to think of any better title. I fear,
however, that the name is calculated to give a
false impression of what I really intend to do.
Even had I had full materials at hand, which
unfortunately, I had not, it would be impossible
within the limits of a paper like this, to treat in
anything like an adequate manner a subject
so vast and so important as the folk-songs of
Ireland. I do not propose, then, to trace in
detail, the history of the folk-song, entering
into an elaborate discussion as to its origin and
antiquity; nor do I propose to make an exhaustive
classification and analysis of the Gaelic
folk-songs existing at the present day. Such
a task would, indeed, be quite beyond me;
and I shall have to content myself with making
a few rapid and tentative remarks, of a more or
less general nature, in the hope of interesting
the members of the Society in a species of unwritten
literature—the expression, though a
bull, may be allowed on account of its handiness
—which may not, perhaps, up to the
present have received from us that attention
which it deserves.
It is in the highest degree probable that every
form of literature which we have at the present
day has sprung from the folk-tale and the folk-song. These two were, to a by-gone age, all
that the press, the novel, and the drama are to
ours. Co-æval with man himself, they are, so
to speak, the two elemental forms of literature.
It is impossible to conceive a state of society
in which they did not exist: since man first
trod this earth to the present moment, he has
loved to wander in the land of fancy opened up
by the folk-tale, and to pour forth in song the
emotions of his soul.
Most of our great authorities incline to the
belief that the folk-tale originated in an attempt
on the part of primitive man to bring home more
strongly to himself, or, as one might put it, to
represent pictorially to himself, the phenomena
of nature. The folk-song also, I conceive, owes
its existence to the influence of nature on man.
We moderns, who live in an atmosphere which
we studiously endeavour to render as unnatural
as possible, can scarcely form an idea of what
nature means to the savage—and the savage, let
us remember, is the man as God made him.
Living in constant contact and communication
with nature, its beauties and potencies stir him
with feelings unknown to us. Nature is all in
all to him—his friend, his life, his god. Hence,
just as primitive man attempted, in the folk-tale,
to allegorize in a simple form the phenomena
and objects of nature—representing the cloud
as the boat that sails over land and sea, the sun
as the giant that drinks up lakes and strands fish
and boats, the rainbow as the man that jumps
a hundred miles, the blade of grass as a slender
green man
—so, in the folk-song, did he endeavour
to give expression to the bounding joy
of his heart at the glorious sounds and sights of
nature—the delight with which he listened to
the bird-song, the mystic fascination with which
he heard the wind-moan, and the streamlet-laugh, the awe with which he gazed on the
mighty sea and the sombre mountain. The
song, then, was originally man's hymn of
praise to nature, and, through nature, to
God.
If this theory be true we should expect to find
that the earliest songs of every nation are nature-hymns. This is exactly what we do find. The
songs of those nations which are to-day in a
state somewhat similar to that of our ancestors
three thousand years ago, are all expressions
either of praise or of fear, to the forces of nature,
these being very frequently represented as
divinities. The earliest songs of our own race
have, of course, been lost, or, at least, have come
down to us in forms which it is now impossible
to recognize. But going back as far as we
possibly can, we discover that the oldest lines
of poetry extant in any vernacular European
tongue, with the exception of Greek, are those
three strange but beautiful pieces attributed to
Amergin, son of Milidh—traditionally represented
as the first verses ever sung in Eire.
Here is how Dr. Sigerson translates the first
few lines of Amergin's
Triumph-Song:—
I, the Wind at sea,
I, the roaring Billow,
I, the roar of Ocean,
I, the seven Cohorts,
I, the Ox upholding,
I, the rock-borne Osprey,
I, the flash of Lightning,
I, the Ray in Mazes.
This poem,
says Dr. Hyde, is noticeable
for its curious pantheistic strain which reminds
one strangely of the East.
Pantheistic or not,
it is instinct with the nature-spirit so characteristic
of the early productions of every race. I
quote it not, of course, as a folk-song, but as an
instance of the part in which nature-worship has
played in the genesis of Gaelic poetry.
It may be urged by those who are acquainted
with the Gaelic folk-songs of the present day
that comparatively few of them can be described
as nature songs. This is, no doubt, true. We
rarely find a Donegal fisherman singing an
Ode to the West Wind, or a Connemara
labourer, an Address to the Daisy. But, is
it not quite possible that many songs which are
now love songs pure and simple were once
nature-songs? The folk-memory is, as everyone
knows, wonderfully retentive and conservative.
Yet, we find that, while a folk-tale
itself may be preserved for two thousand years—
and preserved without any radical change in
incidents or detail even to the very word-formulæ
and nonsense-ending—yet the origin
and meaning of the tale have been forgotten.
The Mayo peasant, for instance, who relates
the story of Páidín drinking up the lake,See An Sgeuluidhe Gaodhalach Cuid I. no more dreams that Páidín is, in all probability, a solar-myth, than he does that his own grandfather
sleeping in the church-yard hard-by is
one. In the same way, whilst the ideas and
words of a folk-song may be preserved, its
meaning and origin may, in many cases, have
been completely lost.
In quite recent times we find a striking example
of such a process,—a case in which the
meaning and origin, not of a single song, but of
a whole class of songs, have been forgotten,
though the songs themselves, which include
some of the finest in the language, are popular
all over Gaelic-speaking Ireland to-day. The
eighteenth century poets almost always referred
to Ireland under some allegorical name,—and
very beautiful these allegorical names are.
Róisín Dubh
, Sighle Ní Gadhra
,
Caitlín Ní Uallacháin
,—these and many more were
originally patriotic or political songs, but are
now sung as love-songs. The
Páistín Fionn
too, is considered by Hardiman to represent
the son of James II.—thus forming one of the
most remarkable instances on record of a song's
having lost its meaning, the Páistín Fionn
being now treated as a girl. What has happened
in the case of this particular class of song may
very well have happened in the case of many
more.
It is true, of course, that most of the Gaelic
folk-songs current to-day, are, in their present
forms at least, not more than one or two centuries old. But the antiquity of existing folk-songs is often much greater than would at first
sight appear. We may, for instance, come
across a Munster song, which from its language
and style, and from the political or other allusions
which it may contain, we may be inclined
to set down as, say, one hundred and fifty years
old. We may then fall in with a Connacht
version of the same song, and soon after with an
Ulster version, both of about the same date as
the Munster song. Now, when we find three
distinct versions of a folk-song, each belonging
to a different province, and the three of approximately
the same date, we must necessarily
conclude that all three versions have come
from a common root,—a folk-song, that is,
belonging to some date at least a century or two
earlier than that of the three existing versions.
We thus see that the language of a folk-song
forms a very far from infallible guide to its
antiquity; and it is quite possible that many
our best-known and most modern-looking songs
are some centuries older than they appear.
Further than this, however, it is highly probable
that there exist a small number of folk
songs which are of the very highest antiquity.
We know that the greater number of our
folk-tales are of comparatively modern date,—
either accounts, more or less embellished with
imagination, of events which have actually
occurred among the peasantry, or else pure
and simple inventions of the folk-fancy; but
we know also that there are a number of old tales,—including those which contains traces of
nature-myths,—which have been handed down
by word of mouth for two or three thousand
years. Now, there is no reason in the world
that what is true of the folk-tale should not also
be true of the folk-song. Most of those current
to-day are, as has been said, of comparatively
recent date; but, reasoning from analogy,
nothing is more probable than that there is
many a folk-song sung to-day around the turf
fire of a Munster cabin, or on the bare side of a
Connacht mountain, which has been sung by
generation after generation since the Gael first
set foot in Eire.
Let us turn, however, from dry theorizing to
the warm living folk-songs themselves. Here,
at any rate, we are on firm ground. The question
of their age and origin, interesting as it
undoubtedly is, is, after all, but of secondary importance:
be they centuries old, or be they but
of yesterday, they are here, and they speak for
themselves. Had the Gaelic race never produced
a scrap of literature—had our treasures
of history and romance never had a being, had
our Cormacs, and our O'Clerys, and our
Keatings, and our Donnchadh Ruadhs, never
written a line—these folk-songs of ours would
still have been sufficient to prove for all time
the glorious capabilities of our race. Let the
scoffer scoff as he wills—let the up-to-date
young Irishman fresh from the National
School, or from the still worse, and still more
un-Irish Intermediate regime, sneer as he, and
he only, can sneer, let him solace his soul with
the London Music-hall song, and the pantomime
ballad—but the fact remains that these
folk-songs exist, the fact remains that the brains
of Irish-speaking peasant men and women have
given birth to them, the fact remains that, by
wilfully making up his mind to ignore them, and
their language, he is committing an act, not
merely of egregious folly, but of actual criminality,
for which his children and his children's
children may curse him yet.
In his folk-songs the Gaelic peasant reveals
himself in a new light to us. He shows us a
side of his character hitherto unknown and undreamt
of. We behold him wandering in an
ideal world of his own. Black, dreary bog ;
damp, half-roofless mud-cabin—these things
are forgotten. He shows himself the poet and
the dreamer now as of yore. We hear him
pouring out, in his folk-songs, his feelings of
joy or of sorrow, of love or of hate. We hear
the peasant-girl singing by her spinning-wheel,
hear the mother crooning over her infant, hear
the lover giving utterance, in sweet and passionate
language, to the love which fills his soul.
The rollicking strain of the drinking-song
mingles with the sad piercing note of the
caoineadh,—the plaintive wail of the young
mother carried off by the sluagh-sidhe mingles
with the hymn of love and trust to the Muire
Máthair. Love, and joy, and sorrow, and
hope,—these are the notes that perpetually
ring through our folk-poetry, as through our
folk-music,—these are the tints that colour the
lives and character of our people.
The Gaelic folk-song, be it remembered, is
totally distinct, not only from the technical
poetry of the ancient bards, but also from the
highly-polished, voluptuous, and, as it has been
well called, Swinburne-like poetry of the 18th
century Munster school. The folk-song proper
is the product of a folk-poet, and the common
possession of the folk-people. Hence, it possesses
those two distinguishing characteristics
of the folk-fancy—simplicity of language and
beauty of thought.
Simplicity, beautiful and almost childlike
simplicity, both of idea and language—this is,
above all things, the leading characteristic of
Gaelic folk-poetry, as, indeed, of all folk-poetry.
The ideas are such as a child might grasp, the
language such as a child might use and understand.
Take for instance, such a song as
Eibhlín A Rúin, probably the best known and most popular in the language. It is possible to
conceive anything more beautifully simple than the poet-lover's declaration?—
Do shiubhalfainn an saoghal mór leat,
Acht cleamhnas d' fagháil ó'm stór,
'S ní scarfainn go deó leatsa
A Eibhlín A rúin!
Or his bold impassioned question:—
A' dtiocfaidh nó'n bhfanfaid tú,
A Eibhlín A rúin?
Or Eibhlín's answer:—
Tiocfaidh mé 's ní fanfaidh mé,
Tiocfaidh mé 's ní fanfaidh mé,
Tiocfaidh mé 's ní fanfaidh mé,
'S euloghaidh mé le m'stór!
Take again, say, the
Páistín Foinn. For
beautiful and simple effect what would surpass either version of its chorus?—either that beginning—
Is tusa mo rún, mo rún, mo rún,
Or that other version which commences:—
'S óró, bog liomsa, bog liomsa, bog liomsa.
Assuredly, language is capable of nothing more inexpressibly soft and melodious than this song.
The extreme simplicity of our folk-songs extends not merely to the thoughts and language but also, very naturally, to the metre. The
thought and word parallelism, the intricate internal assonances, the studious employment of alliteration, so characteristic of literary Irish poetry—these, as a rule, are absent from the folk-song. The verse-structure is of the simplest imaginable kind. Here, for instance, is the opening stanza of a song in which peasant-girl caoines for her absent lover:—
Mo bhrón ar an bhfairrge,
Is é atá mór,
Is é gabháil idir mé,
'S mo mhile stór!
Dr.Hyde's English version of this stanza runs:—
My grief on the sea,
How the waves of it roll!
For they heave between me
And the love of my soul!
The language and ideas throughout this song are so simple that we may
well believe it was the composition of a peasant-woman. Dr. Hyde got it
from an old woman named Brighid Ní Corruaidh (anglicé, Biddy Crummey), who lived in a hut in the middle of a bog in Roscommon. As he mournfully remarks, T´ sí marbh anois 's a cuid abhrán leithe,
She
is dead now, and her songs with her.
One of the chief charms of the folk-imagination is the originality, the quaintness, the oddness of its conception. What could be more delightfully quaint and original than the song composed by the fairies of Knockgraffon, aided by the little hunchback Lusmore? Or, to take a very different example, than that beautiful dialogue,
Tadhg agus Máire, one of the finest songs in the language?
It is a remarkable fact that our folk-poetry contains so little of a ballad nature. Lovesongs we have, and drinking-songs, and occupation-songs, and lullabies, and caoineadhs,—but few songs, if any, which contain a regular story. The nearest approach,
perhaps, is in a certain class of religious songs, many of them in the
form of a dialogue between Death and a Sinner or Death and a Lady,
perhaps, or Death
and Someone-else,—long and uninteresting enough frequently, to tell the truth. The best example of this kind of religious ballad I have
ever come across is a really fine poem called
The Keening of the Three Marys, which, with a poetical translation, will be found in Dr. Hyde's Abhráin Diadha Chúige Connacht
Fond as they are of story-telling, the ballad
seems to have little attraction for our folk-people.
What they delight in, above everything else, is
their love-songs; and accordingly we find that
their love-songs are not only the most numerous
but also, as a rule, by far the best intrinsically.
It is in the love-song that the folk-poet shows
best the beauty, and wealth, and originality of
his imagination, the depth and tenderness of
his soul. The love-song, indeed, is the form in
which all the grandest and most poetical aspirations
of our nature finds expression. Next to
love of God and love of country, love of woman
is the noblest feeling that can stir men's souls;
and well did our Gaelic folk-poets feel this, for
they have left us many of the most beautiful and
most valuable love-songs in the world.
I have already referred to that wonderful
beauty of thought which characterises our folk-songs. What a lovely expression, for instance,
is réalt eolais,
star of knowledge,
or
guiding-star,
and how appropriately it is
applied by a lover to the one he loves. Another
star-comparison—more beautiful still perhaps—
is réaltan tríd an gceó
a star through
the mist.
A girl says to her lover:—
A ógánaigh óig mar réaltan tríd an gceó,
Do thugas-sa mo ghean go léir dhuit,
which Dr. Hyde translates:—
Oh! youth, whom I have kissed like a star through the mist,
I have given thee this heart altogether.
What a bold and beautiful comparison is that in
Tadhg agus Máire:—
Ba duibhe bhí an ghrain ag luighe
Ioná do ghnúir, a Mháire—
Blacker was the sun at setting than thy face, my Mary !
or, as Dr. Hyde renders it in the exact metre of the original:—
The setting sun shows black and dun
And cold beside thee, Mary.
One more example will suffice. Could lovelier
or more appropriate similes be found than these?
A's shaoil mé, a stóirín.
Go mba gealach agus grian thu,
A's shaoil mé 'na dhiaigh sin
go mba sneachta ar an sliabh thu;
A's shaoil mé 'na dhiaidh sin
Go mba lóchrann ó Dhia thu,
Nó gur ab tú an réalt-eolais,
Ag dul rómham a's 'mo dhaiidh thu!
Dr. Hyde's translation is:—
I thought, O my love! you were so—
As the moon is, or sun on a fountain,
And I thought after that you were snow,
The cold snow on top of the mountain;
And I thought after that you were more,
Like God's lamp shining to find me,
Or the bright star of knowledge before,
And the star of knowledge behind me!
Assuredly the minds which conceived such
thoughts and shaped them into such words
must have been the minds of true poets. So
elevated, so refined, so free from anything
approaching coarseness, is the language of these
songs that it is almost incredible that their
authors were peasant men and women. Yet
such is the fact. Peasant men and women they
were, born and bred in the middle of a bog,
perchance, or in a mud-cabin on a mountainside.
Poor they were, the poorest of the poor;
ignorant, too, if you will—ignorant, that is, of
reading and writing, ignorant of the English
language; but POETS they were, poets taught by
nature herself. Someone has said that poetry
is the language of the soul. If this is true, then
must our Gaelic folk-poets be poets of the
highest order—for their songs come straight
from the soul: they are the simple, artless,
poetic, outpourings of the souls of a simple,
artless poetic people. The folk-poets of our race
have left us songs which would do honour to
Burns—songs which, considering the circumstances
under which they were written, rank,
aesthetically, higher than the songs of Burns.
And one great merit the folk-songs of Ireland
possess—a merit possessed by the folk-poetry of
few nations, a merit possessed by the love-poetry of fewer still. Even Burns himself, true
poet as he was, occasionally introduces into his
most beautiful love-songs allusions and comparisons
which shock all fastidious ears. Never
do we find this in our Gaelic folk-songs. Pure
they are and spotless as the driven snow, like
the souls and lives of those who sing them;
sweet they are as the scent of the wild mountain-flowers which grow in their native homes;
musical they are as the ripple of the streamlet,
as the note of the blackbird, as the laugh of a
happy and innocent girl; grand they are and
time-honoured as the Gaelic race itself. May
they never die away on the hillside and in the
valley, may they continue to be sung by the
hearthside of our people for many a day to
come. They are going from us—we feel it, we
see it, we know it; let us save them ere it be
too late, and it is not too late yet. Save the
language, and the folk-tale, and the folk-song,
and all the treasures accumulated in the folk-mind during three thousand years will be saved
also. The cause is a holy one—God grant it
may succeed! May our language, and our
literature, and our folk-lore live; and if they
live, then, too, will our race live Go bruinn an bhrátha.
THE INTELLECTUAL FUTURE OF THE GAEL Delivered as Inaugural Address of the Session, '97-'98 (October, '97).
Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen—
Though the duties of an Auditor practically
begin and end with the delivery of the Inaugural
Address, yet the position is, from one
point of view, a far from enviable one. Like
most posts of honour it is also a post of danger,
as on the success or failure of the Inaugural
Address depends, to some extent, the success or
failure of the Session. The members of the
Society have done me the honour of re-electing
me to the position of Auditor, and, whilst
deeply sensible of this honour, particularly
as I know better than anyone how wholly unmerited
it is on my part, I cannot but reflect
with misgiving that I run the risk of losing any
little degree of credit I may have gained by my
Inaugural Address last Session. However, I am
not given to making excuses: if the Address
please you no excuses will be necessary; and if,
as is more probable, it fail to do so, all the
excuses I could possibly make would not tend
to mend matters in the slightest degree. I
prefer, then, to trust to your generosity; and I
shall meekly bear whatever criticisms it may
please you to make.
The Intellectual Future of the Gael is a
subject which must, from its very nature, be of
the deepest interest to us; a subject which must
be fascinating not only to men and women of
Gaelic race, but to all who have at heart the
great causes of civilization, education, and
progress; to all who bow before the might of
mind,
the majesty of intellect; to all, in short,
who take an interest in the intellectual life of
mankind—and this is, after all, the true life, for
life without intellect is death. To all these,
then, but especially to us—to us, Irishmen,
young, ardent, enthusiastic, trying to grope amid
the darkness for a path to higher things—no
question can be of more absorbing interest than
this: What has destiny in store for this ancient
race of ours? Is our noonday of glory gone by
for ever? Or have we still a future before us
more glorious than we have ever dreamt of in
our moments of wildest enthusiasm? I shall
try this evening, Mr. Chairman, to find an
answer to this question; and if my ideas on the
subject do not exactly coincide with those to
which we are accustomed, it is because I believe
that the ends which, as a nation, we have
hitherto striven to attain are ignes fatui which
are fated to elude us for ever.
Others have been struck before now by the
fact that hundreds of noble men and true have
fought and bled for the emancipation of the
Gaelic race, and yet have all failed. Surely, if
ever cause was worthy of success, it was the
cause for which Laurence prayed, for which
Hugh of Dungannon planned, for which Hugh
Roe and Owen Roe fought, for which Wolfe
Tone and Lord Edward and Robert Emmet
gave their lives, for which Grattan pleaded, for
which Moore and Davis sang, for which
O'Connell wore himself out with toil. Yet
these men prayed and planned, and fought and
bled, and pleaded and wrote, and toiled in vain.
May it not be that there is some reason for this?
May it not be that the ends they struggled for
were ends never intended for the Gael? Surely,
Mr. Chairman, it would seem so. The Gael
is a splendid soldier; yet it is extremely problematic
whether we shall ever be a great
military nation like Germany or France. The
Gael is, and always has been, a cunning
artificer, a subtle mechanic; yet it is almost
certain that we shall never be a great manufacturing
or commercial nation like England.
Does it not seem that a nobler destiny than
either of these awaits us? We have struggled
as no other nation has struggled; we have
bled as no other nation has bled; we have
endured an agony compared with which the
agonies of other nations have been as child's
play. Time after time have we lifted the
chalice of victory to our lips; time after time
have we essayed to quaff its delicious contents;
yet time after time has it been dashed to the
ground. To-day, after a continuous fight
lasting for eight long centuries, we are, Heaven
knows, farther off than ever from the goal
towards which we have struggled. Who can
look at our political and national life at the
present moment, and continue to hope? The
men whom we call our leaders are engaged in
tearing out one another's vitals, and there is no
prospect that they will ever stop. The people
are listlessly looking on—for the first time in
Irish History they seem to be sunk in apathy.
We are tempted to cry aloud in our despair,
O God! will the morning never come?
Yes, the morning will come, and its dawn
is not far off. But it will be a morning
different from the morning we have looked for.
The Gael is not like other men; the spade, and
the loom, and the sword are not for him. But
a destiny more glorious than that of Rome,
more glorious than that of Britain awaits
him: to become the saviour of idealism in
modern intellectual and social life, the regenerator
and rejuvenator of the literature of the
world, the instructor of the nations, the preacher
of the gospel of nature-worship, hero-worship,
God-worship—such, Mr. Chairman, is the destiny
of the Gael.
Before I proceed to fill in this outline, it may
be well if I digress for a few moments, to consider
what races have, up to the present, contributed
most to the intellectual advancement of
mankind. First of all occurs to every mind the
name of the Greeks—the pioneers of intellectual
progress in Europe. Who can refuse his admiration
to the nation which poured forth a stream
of fire which to day, after a lapse of three
thousand years, is still enlightening and elevating
mankind? Mighty changes have passed over
the earth during those three thousand years; but
the epic sung so long ago by The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle,
still instructs, and benefits, and delights us.
The world's greatest epic poet, the world's
greatest orator, several of the world's greatest
lyric poets, dramatists, and philosophers—these
has Greece given to the human race. Next
came the Roman: but the Roman directed his
splendid energies towards other ends, and,
beyond the work accomplished by one or two
great men, his influence on intellectual history
has not been great—has not, by any means,
been proportional to what he might have done.
Amongst modern nations those which have
contributed most to the intellectual welfare of
mankind are undoubtedly Italy, England and
Germany. It is the great men of these nations
along with those of Greece that have made the
literature of the world.
But is it not unquestionable that the influence
of these men—the Homers, and Dantes, and
Shakespeares, and Miltons—is gradually growing
less and less? Is it not unquestionable
also that, at the present moment no literature is
being produced in Europe, or in the world,
worthy of the name? The vigorous minds of
the day are engaged in producing writings
which must, from their nature, be purely emphemeral—
criticisms reviews, magazine articles
—things which, however excellent and highly-finished in themselves, are, as a rule, forgotten
as soon as read. Two or three writers are
making desperate efforts to achieve fame by
selecting the most outré and absolutely startling
subjects to write of which even their prolific
brains can devise. Nowadays no author can
hope for popularity unless, like one popular
novelist, he goes to Hell for a hero, or, like
another, he makes a practice of libelling all that
is sacred and sublime under pretence of zeal
for liberty and truth. One novel has Satan
for its hero, another has God for its villain.
Now, this may be modern, and up-to-date,
and all that; but, I ask, is it pure, good
healthy, natural literature? Is it literature
which tends to exalt the souls, to make us better
holier, happier? No, Mr. Chairman, emphatically
no. The truth of the matter is that
the intellectual and literary tastes of the world
have been carried away by a craving for the unreal,
for the extravagant, for the monstrous, for
the immoral. Men's tastes have become
vitiated. There is no healthy out-of-door
atmosphere in modern literature. Literature
has arrived, in short, at a state of unnatural
senility, and the time seems not far off when
either of two things must happen—either
intellect and literature must disappear from
modern life, and with them everything that
makes life worth living, or some new and
unpolluted source must be opened up, some
new blood must be infused into the intellectual
system of the world, which has become prematurely
worn out. Now, whence is this new
blood to come? The answer is plain: there is
but one race, among the races of to-day, which
possesses a literature natural and uncontaminated;
there is but one race which possesses an
intellectual wealth which, though as old as
history, is yet young and vigorous and healthy,
and has a future before it rich with undeveloped
possibilities. Needless to say, Mr. Chairman,
this race is the Gaelic race—a race whose literature
is as different from the unnatural literature
of to-day as the pure radiance of the sun is
different from the hideous glare of the electric
light, as the free breath of heaven is different
from the stifling atmosphere of a crowded
theatre or music hall.
I have indicated, then, Mr. Chairman, what
seems to me to be the true mission of the Gael,
and it will be seen that in this mission the
creation, or rather the propagation, of a nature-literature plays a most important part. I do
not say the creation of a nature-literature, for
the excellent reason that it has not to be created:
as a matter of fact, it already exists, and only
wants to be developed, to be matured, to be
expanded. Now, this literature is totally different
from every other literature in the world,
and this is one of the reasons why it proves so
entrancing to everyone who makes a study of it.
Gaelic literature, we should remember, has
grown up among and been developed by the
Gael alone. Its sources of inspiration have
been entirely native, and in this one point, at
least, it can claim superiority even to Greek
literature itself. As regards manner and style,
it has been absolutely uninfluenced by the
literature of any other nation. This is why
it is so unique, so peculiar, so unlike everything
else we are accustomed to, so refreshing—
that is the proper word to apply to it. It has a
quaint, old-world magic, and charm, and
glamour that mark it as peculiarly fit to accomplish
the reformation we have seen to
be so necessary.
To give a more accurate idea of the form this
reformation is to take, and of its effects, I would
draw special attention to two points in the
temperament of the Gael: his love for nature,
and his veneration for his heroes. The intellectual
life and atmosphere of the present day are,
as I have said, nothing if not unnatural. The
Gael, on the other hand, like all the Celts, is
distinguished by an intense and passionate love
for nature. The Gael is the high-priest of
nature. He loves nature not merely as something
grand, and beautiful, and wonderful, but
as something possessing a mystic connection
with and influence over man. In the cry of
the seagull as he winged his solitary flight over
the Atlantic waves, in the shriek of the eagle as
he wheeled around the heights of the Kerry
Mountains, in the note of the throstle as she
sang her evening lay in the woods of Slieve
Grot, in the roar of the cataract as it foamed
and splashed down the rocky ravine, in the sob
of the ocean as it beat unceasingly against the
cliffs of Achill, in the sigh of the wind as it
moved, ghostlike, through the oaks of Derrybawn
—in all these sounds the ancient Gael
heard a music unheard by other men, all these
sounds spoke to his inmost heart in whispers
mysterious and but half understood: they spoke
to him as the voice of his ancestors urging him
to be noble and true—as the voices of the
glorious dead calling to him across the waters
from Tír na n-Og.
The Gael, believed, too, that the earth and,
the air, and the sea were filled with strange
beings that exerted a mysterious but potent
influence over him. Everyone who has the
slightest acquaintance with Gaelic literature
knows how this belief appears and reappears on
every page; how the creatures of the upper
air and the beast of the forest are represented
as sympathizing with the changing fortunes of
men; how, during a battle, the blackbird wails
in the wood, the sea chatters telling of the
slaughter, the rough hills creak with terror at
the assault; and how, when anything remarkable
occurs, such as the death of a hero, or the
overwhelming of a favourite champion by unequal
odds, the three great waves of Eire cry
out—the furious red Wave of Rudhraighe, the
foam-stormy, ship-sinking Wave of Cloidhna,
and the flood-high, bank-swollen Wave of
Tuagh.
Closely connected with, and, indeed, directly
dependent on this love of the Gael for nature, is
his capacity for worshipping his heroes. Hero-worship, no doubt, is often carried to extremes;
we are prone too frequently to mistake the hero
for the cause, to place the man before the
principle. But there can be no doubt that
hero-worship, in its highest form, is a soul-lifting and an ennobling thing. What would
the world be without its heroes? Greece
without her Hercules and her Achilles, Rome
without her Romulus and her Camillus, England
without her Arthur and her Richard, Ireland
without her Cúchulainn and her Fionn, Christianity
without its Loyolas and its Xaviers?
And what is true of hero-worship in general is
true, in an especial manner, of the hero-worship
of the Gael. When great men die the ancient
Gael did not believe that they had passed away
for ever from human ken—he believed, on the
contrary, that their spirits lingered round the
lonely hills and glens, round old moss-grown
lioses and crumbling dúns, round the haunted
sidhe-brughs and fairy ráths—he believed that
they hovered near their children, watching over
them and taking an interest in their every
action. Now, when a man believes that the
spirits of the mighty dead, the spirits of those
he has loved and venerated, are near him and
watching over him, he cannot but endeavour to
make himself nobler, better, worthier of the
great ones who have preceded him.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of Time.
The spirit of these words of the great modern
American poet was perfectly understood by the
ancient Gael. Fearghus, Conchubhar, Cúchulainn,
Fionn, Oisín, Oscar—these were more
to the Gael than mere names of great
champions and warriors of a former time: they
represented to him men who had gone before,
who had fought the good fight, who had passed
from earth to the mystic Tír na n-Og, who had
become gods,—but whose spirits, heroic and
immortal, still lived after them. And though
well-nigh two thousand years have rolled away
since those mighty heroes trod this land of ours,
yet is their spirit not dead: it lives on in our
poetry, in our music, in our language, and,
above all, in the vague longings which we feel
for a something, we know not what, our irresistible,
overmastering conviction that we, as a
nation, are made for higher things. Oh! that
this hero-spirit were stronger than it is! Oh!
that men could be brought to realize that
they are MEN, not animals,—that they could be
brought to realize that, though of the earth,
earthy,
yet that there is a spark of divinity
within them! And men can be brought to
realize this by the propagation of a literature
like that of the Gael,—a literature to which
nature-love and hero-love shall form the key-words,
a literature which shall glorify all that is
worthy of glory,—beauty, strength, manhood,
intellect, and religion.
The mission of the Gael, however, will not be
confined merely to the propagation of this
literature. The Gael is, in the fullest sense of
the word, an idealist; he is, in fact, the idealist
amongst the nations. All that is beautiful,
noble, true, or grand will always find in him a
devotee. He revels in imagination. He loves
to gaze on what is beautiful, to listen to sweet
and rapturous sounds. Hence, painting, sculpture,
music, oratory, the drama, learning, all
those things which delight and ravish the human
soul, which stir up in it mighty, convulsive
passions, and strange, indefinable yearnings
after the Great Unknown, all those things
which seem, as it were, links between humanity
and Divinity—these will ever find among the
Gael their most ardent and accomplished disciples.
What the Greek was to the ancient
world the Gael will be to the modern; and
in no point will the parallel prove more true
than in the fervent and noble love of learning
which distinguishes both races. The Gael,
like the Greek, loves learning, and like the
Greek, he loves it solely for its own sake.
For centuries, when it was sought by penal legislation
to deprive him of it, when the path to
honour and wealth was closed to him, and when
learning could be of no advantage to him at
least from a worldly point of view, still did he
cling to it. The spirit which animated our
O'Clerys and our Keatings still animated their
humbler successors. The hunted priests and
schoolmasters of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries carried about with them from cave to
cave, and from glen to glen, not only copies of
the Gospels, but copies of the Greek and Latin
classics, and volumes of old Gaelic poetry,
history and romance. Hundreds of young men
are annually turned out of our modern universities
with a classical education far inferior to that
imparted in the hedge-schools of Munster
during the last century. When love of learning
is so deeply implanted in the heart of the Gael
that not even persecution, penury, and degradation
can eradicate it, surely it ought
to blaze forth with ten-fold brilliancy when the
night is past and the morn is come. The
dream of the great English cardinal may yet
come true:—
I contemplate,
says John Henry Newman,
a people which has had a long night and will
have an inevitable day. I am turning my eyes
towards a hundred years to come, and I dimly
see the island I am gazing on become the road
of passage between two hemispheres, and the
centre of the world: I see its inhabitants rival
Belgium in populousness, France in vigour, and
Spain in enthusiasm; and I see England
taught by advancing years to exercise in its
behalf that good sense which is her characteristic
towards everyone else. The capital of
that prosperous and hopeful land is situate
on a beautiful bay, and near a romantic region;
and in it I see a flourishing University…
Thither as to a sacred soil, the home of their
fathers, the fountain-head of their Christianity,
students are flocking from east to west, and
south—from America, from Australia and
India, from Egypt and Asia Minor, with the
ease and rapidity of a locomotion not yet discovered;
and last, though not least, from
England…all owning one faith, all eager
for one large true wisdom; and thence, when
their stay is over, going back again to carry over
all the earth Peace to men of goodwill.
I am aware, Mr. Chairman, that there are
many here who may consider that the picture I
have drawn is a far too rosy one, who may say
that
The Intellectual Future of the Gael is
an excellent theme on which one may wax
eloquent—is a catchy title, perhaps, for the
Inaugural Address of a Literary Society—but
that, beyond this, the talk about nature-literature, about hero-love, and the rest, is
little more than the raving of an enthusiast.
Well, Mr. Chairman, I admit that I am an
enthusiast, and I glory in being one. To those
who would object that the sketch I have
attempted to give of the intellectual future
of our race is a mere ideal picture, I would
reply that it is intended as an ideal picture. If
you wish to accomplish anything great place an
ideal before you, and endeavour to live up to
that ideal.
Now, has the Gael been able to attain the
ideals he has hitherto placed before him or,
does it appear likely that he ever will?
Assuredly not. Nothing seems to me so
certain, nothing seems to me so logical a consequence
of our temperament, of our history
of our present circumstances, as that, if we are
to have any future, it must be an intellectual
future. And is there anyone who would not
prefer such a future? It is, no doubt, a
glorious thing to rule over many subject
peoples, to dictate laws of far-off countries, to
receive every day cargoes of rich merchandise
from every clime beneath the sun; but if to do
these things we must become a soulless,
intellectual, Godless race—and it seems that
one is the natural and necessary consequence
of the other,—then let us have none of them.
Do the millions that make up the population
of modern nations—the millions that toil
and sweat, from year's end to year's end, in
the mines and factories of England, the Continent,
and the United States—live the life
intended for man? Have they intellect?
Have they soul? Are they conscious of man's
dignity, of man's greatness? Do they understand
the grandeur of living, and breathing,
and working out one's destiny on this beautiful
old earth? The sea, with its mighty thunderings,
and its mysterious whisperings, the blue
sky of day, the dark and solemn canopy of
night spangled with its myriad stars, the mountains
and hills steeped in the magic of poetry
and romance—what are these things to them?
What are the hero-memories of the past to
them? Are they one whit the better because
great men have lived, and wrought and died?
Were the destiny of the Gael no higher than
theirs, better for him would it have been, had
he disappeared from the earth centuries ago.
Intellect and soul, a capacity for loving the
beautiful things of nature a capacity for worshipping
what is grand and noble in man, these
things we have yet: let us not cast them from
us in the mad rush of modern life. Let us
cherish them, let us cling to them: they have
come down to us through the storms of centuries
—the bequest of our hero-sires of old;
and when we are a power on earth again, we
shall owe our power, not to fame in war, in
statesmanship, or in commerce, but to those
two precious inheritances, intellect and soul.
Another thousand years will have rolled over
the earth, and the bard, and the seanchaidh,
and the teacher of the Gael, will once more be
held in honour. A better, purer, and happier
world will be listening in rapt amazement to
the grand old epics and time-honoured sgéalta
of our race. Men's gods will no longer be
empire, ambition, and gold: but the homage
that is paid to those things to-day will be paid
in that happy age, as it was in days of yore,
on the hills and in the valleys of Eire, to the
mysterious potencies of nature, the beauty
and virtue of woman, the heroic dignity of
man, the awful and incomprehensible majesty
of the Divinity. This, Mr. Chairman, will be
the gospel of the future; and to preach this
gospel—world-old, yet new, so true, yet so
little realized, so beautiful, and so ennobling—
will be the mission of the children of the Gael.