THE INFLUENCE OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE
From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893
Page 57
THE INFLUENCE OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE
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Shakespeare; and most of the old Irish romances date as far back as Chaucer or earlier. Let them rather begin with Dr. Douglas Hyde's fascinating Leabar Sgeulaigeacta, which places you at once in sympathy with the living Gaelic world around you, which catches the spirit of the spoken language with humour, with simplicity, and with a helpful sprinkling of more or less familiar Anglo-Irishisms, and, as it were, welcomes the new-comer without ceremony to a corner beside an old Irish fireside where the good old fairy hosts, and the one-eyed giants, and beautiful princesses of our childhood rise up merrily out of the comfortable winter blaze. To acquire such proficiency in the Gaelic language as would create the desire to learn more, demands no greater labour than is required to learn French, or to learn the fiddle, or to learn swimming, or to master any of the other accomplishments in which quite naturally and properly cur Irish youth never grudge to expend time and enthusiasm.
The question remains: Is the acquirement of our ancient mother-tongue—the tongue of bards and chiefs, of piety and love and war, which shines upon us throughout our ages of glory, which remained with us through the centuries of our unspeakable captivity—worth even this modest exertion in the eyes of a young Irish Nationalist? The very question imports a reproach from which none of us can altogether escape. To know that one of the best approaches to an Irish dictionary is a translation from the German; that famous French and German scholars find in our despised tongue priceless intimations as to the early history of languages and races, and law codes as rich in interest for the student of human institutions as the Pandects of Justinian; that the antiquarians of Scotland or Wales or Brittany would give their eyes for written … continue reading »
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