Romantic Ireland. M. F. Mansfield
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green, and the native is always picturesque. Sometimes, far away from the centres of population, he is dirty, but not offensively so, at least, not more so than the Italian or Spaniard under similar circumstances.
What memories are conjured forth, even to the untravelled, by the mere mention of such places as Killarney, Cork harbour, or Blarney Castle in the south, or Moville, Londonderry, or the Bloody Foreland in the north; and, to specialize for a moment, who among students of history does not give a deservedly high place, among the things of the world beautiful, to the arts of the early builders of Christian edifices in Ireland?
In all manner of building, theirs was an art-expression as far above that of the pagan Britons in the neighbouring isle as is possible to imagine.
Ireland, indeed, in the sixth and seventh centuries, was the chief centre of Christian activity, of Christian missionary work, and of Christian art in the islands. So strong an influence was this that it is recorded that Irish missionaries went not only afield into England, but even to Italy.
The antiquarian and geologist have proved beyond a doubt—what is easy, however, for even the layman to believe—that the Ireland of to-day was originally merely one of the outlying parts of the mainland, and the expression of the customs and arts of the inhabitants of the two at that time did not then differ greatly one from the other. This was maintained, the scholars tell us, through the neolithic and the bronze ages, at which period Ireland came to part company with the mother island.
The transition came when the Romans occupied Britain. Roman towns sprang up which had no counterparts in Ireland, and usage and custom developed an entirely new condition of life.
Thus Ireland retained a crudity of strength and expression which early evinced itself in its Christian art, and which was added to but slowly.
As to what may have been the early religion of the Irish, we are still in the dark. That there were druidical priests seems probable. Legend says that St. Patrick had been a slave in Ireland, having been brought from Scotland, and that even in his days of slavery he formed an affection for the country and its population. The date of St. Patrick’s coming to Ireland, as a bearer of the gospel, is said to have been in the year 430–432, when he returned from Rome after having escaped his bondage. The difficulty is to understand how, at once, Ireland became Christian and, according to the old traditions the “home of Christianity,” and, on that account, called “the Isle of Saints.”
St. Patrick’s birthplace is much in dispute, and Armorica, Gaul, Scotland, Wales, England, and Ireland contend for the honour. Much wordy warfare has left the question still undecided, but it is of little moment, since the main facts in the life of this holy man are known, and his devotion to Ireland recognized by all.
To come to a latter-day aspect of Ireland, in its relation to world affairs, let us pray that there are signs that the night of hatred and the twilight of suspicion are brightening into a new dawn in partnership between Great Britain and Ireland—into a day of mutual understanding, respect, and, in the end, affection.
To realize all that this means, one must understand something of the peculiarities of the Celtic race and their finer traits, even making allowance for their less amiable qualities. To do this, without too great an expenditure of time, one could hardly do better than to digest Justin McCarthy’s recently published book (1903) entitled “Ireland and Her Story.” He will then be, if ever, in a fit mood for appreciation of the lovable and inspiring qualities to be observed in the land itself, no less than in the inhabitants themselves.
Mr. George Moore, in his play, “The Bending of the Bough,” has attempted to draw a comparison between the temperament and characteristics of two distinct classes, one resident in a town in the Celtic north of Ireland, and the other in the Saxon south of Scotland. The work is a satire, no doubt, but it shows how widely dissimilar are the majority of the representatives of the two races, and should do much to throw additional light on the subject of the alliance of the two nations. When all is said and done, one comes naturally to the opinion that it was the Irish race, of tradition, at least, that gave the major portion of the romance and fairy-lore to European literature in general—excepting, of course, the sages of the Northland. As Mr. Yeats says, though with a pardonable bias, “Daily life has fallen, for the most part, among prosaic and ignoble things, but in our dreams (we) remember the enchanted valleys.”
The modern novelists have given us more than our due share of localized Irish. Mr. George Moore, among all their number, spares us the false, perverted language which some are wont to admire, fondly believing it to be of the earth earthy. For not attempting or perpetrating Irish dialect upon us we should all be grateful to Mr. Moore.
In Moore’s books you meet with no such monstrosities as “praste” for priest, “quane” for queen, “belave” for believe, or, worst of all, “yez” for you. Another overworked word in the vocabularies of most writers of Irish fiction or narrative is sure (usually spelt “shure”). Thackeray is supposed to have understood its use better than any other, and as an example one may cite Miss Fotheringay, when she said, “Sure, I made a beefsteak pie.” The “divil” comes frequently to the fore in Irish conversation, or at least there are those who would have us so believe, but its use is more often a perversion than not.
It is well recognized that no one laughs so heartily at the attempt to revive the old Irish language as the modern Celt himself. An anecdote has recently gone the rounds that in literary Dublin, which has for its gods Yeats and George Moore, some one has recently made a printed announcement in Erse, but attached thereto, as a sort of sub-section, is a further admonition in the supposedly much hated Anglo-Saxon.
An intrepid individual once tried his small store of Gaelic on a native, who replied that he did not speak French, though from his appearance, his age, particularly, he was naturally (sic) thought to be one of those who still spoke the venerable tongue of his race.
An Irish automobilist, who had lost his way at a cross-roads because of an enigmatic sign-board, spent much time in roundly cursing the language of his fathers as being entirely worthless and incomprehensible.
Many have taken a grim inquisitorial pleasure in showing to a likely Irishman something written in Erse characters and demanding a translation, which, of course, they could not get.
Occasionally one sees in the Irish daily papers a picturesque Greek-looking inscription, but few know what it means save the perpetrator, who probably copied it from some old phrase-book. “Ceade mille Failthe” we all know, but there our knowledge ends.
All this proclaims loudly the fact that the common people—the middle class, if you like, or what is known elsewhere as the middle class—care and know very little of the motive which inspires the profound scholars of Ireland’s ancient tongue to seek to perpetuate its use.
Since, however, Celtic art is the fad of the day, it is but natural that the Celtic tongue should claim some share of attention; but to expect it to make any serious inroads in the national life, or, indeed, in the lives of the “transplanted Irish” of America and elsewhere, is sheer folly. It were easier to have hoped for the success of Volapuk, which, itself, a dozen or more years ago, died of its own sheer weight of consonants.
Now that Ireland is supposedly prospering at the hands of a solicitous foster-mother, the “Board of Agriculture,” the demand for Irish products and the interest in Irish art and history are undoubtedly increasing. So, too, the interest in Irish literature, in the abstract; but the Irish tongue itself has a poor chance for popularity.
It is well to recall that the mass of the Irish people speak the English tongue alone, a tenth part, perhaps, being able to speak both Gaelic and English, with but a very few who know Gaelic alone. In the south and west the latter is much more spoken than in the north and east, where it is fast disappearing. The Irish Gaelic, or Erse, resembles both the Scottish and the Welsh Gaelic. Some common words frequently met with in travelling about Ireland are:
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Agh, field. Ard, eminence. Ath, ford. Aun, river. Bally, town. Ban or Bane, white or fair. Beg, little. Ben, mountain. Bun, base or bottom. Car or Cahir, city. Carrick, Carrig, Carrow, a rock. Cork, Corcagh, marsh. Clar, plain. Croagh, Croghan, peak. Clogh, Clough, stone. Curragh, |