THE INFLUENCE OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 51

THE INFLUENCE OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE

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human history, we can follow back the fortunes of every great Celtic family, through the varied scenery of our island story, until it is lost in the romantic mists which float about the yellow-haired Milesians landing in Kerry in days before Athens won her violet crown—in days, perhaps, when the towers of Ilium were still standing. Nor is there in this sense of national good breeding aught that could affront the most democratic claim of equality for all the sons of men. There are few or none of us who can trace that unbroken line of ancestors which is the envy of modern vulgarians. The peculiar prerogative of our race is that, while it has been purified by centuries of equality in obscure poverty, and braced by the most copious and diversified mixture of blood, it has been at the same time preserved, with all its energies and aspirations, intact, for a renaissance in which it has all that heralds can rake from the most aristocratic lineage to elevate and ennoble men's ambitions—all that is comprehended in the descent from a nation of heroes, and the consecrative stamp of a nation of saints. And we have this further safeguard against mere pride of birth in the tuft-hunting sense of the term—that while the confusion of the last three centuries has left little or nothing to distinguish the child of the chief from the child of the lowliest clansman, the course of our history gives to the Irish poor the consolation of thinking that the more complete their present poverty, the more probably it was earned by some heroic ancestor who preferred a bold dash for liberty against Carew or Cromwell to broad lands and apostate English titles.

This is no inconsiderable heritage for a nation. Fancy a dumb yokel in the fens of Lincolnshire being able to pick out his progenitor among the squadrons at the battle of … continue reading »

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