THE INFLUENCE OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 69

THE INFLUENCE OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE

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at present acquire French; that strangers from other parts of Ireland make pilgrimages to the Irish-speaking districts as to the holy wells of the old Irish speech, and find its accents as they rush from the peasants' lips possessed of as strong a charm as the breeze upon the mountain crags or the organ voice of the ocean swelling through the caves of Achill or Clare Island; and the shrewd western mountaineer will soon learn to think better of his language and himself. Make him feel by all means that English is and must continue to be the language of intercourse with the outer world—one of the first necessaries of life to his boys and girls in the English harvest fields or the mighty American cities. Let him only learn that there is no disgrace, but, on the contrary, honour and privilege, in yielding to the natural instinct which tells him that his heart throbs with holier and more tender emotions when the pulpit speaks the language of the old saints, and that his winter fireside is all the purer and brighter when it is warmed again with the play of the old Gaelic fancy, and when the deadly taciturnity which the cold English has cast over the Irish cabin dissolves under the spell of the rich accents which were as the distilled honey at the feasts of the hospitable Gael. Once make it clear to those who still know Irish that they possess an enviable gift, one as pleasant and invigorating to the Celtic soul as the game of hurling is to the Celtic thews and sinews, and you have established a firm security against the extinction of the language.

But that is not enough. If the more cultivated masses of the Irish people want the Gaelic-speaking peasantry to adopt a fashion, they must themselves set the fashion. The man who would either decry or laud the Gaelic language must first learn it. It is not for me, in observa- … continue reading »

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