THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
IRISH ECLOGUES
IRISH ECLOGUES
BY EDWARD E. LYSAGHT
MAUNSEL & COMPANY, LTD. DUBLIN AND LONDON
1915
-p/e
DEDICATION
J2EAUTT I meet with everywhere :
A rounded bosom partly bare, A maiden's errant lock of hair
Tossed in the balmy southern air, Eyes of 'violet deep as rare, Eyes that challenge the bold to dare^ Beauty that needs no craftsman's care ; But none I see that is half so fair As the girl at home who is pledged to share My life with me.
Her beauty is not for all to see Like a rainbow's obvious brilliancy r, It is traced with a delicate subtlety For I do not Jind a treasury Of perfect features, perfectly
85SSO
DEDICATION
Planned with a sculptor s symmetry^ But a face that is full of energy^ Yet soft like an old time melody In the haunting Celtic minor key And an eye suffused with a sympathy That blends the whole into harmony ', ^ our arms entwined^ she looks at me In the firelight glow.
Marseilles, 1913.
CONTENTS
1 HEARD A LONE CALF CALLING 9 A RECOLLECTION OF A COLD WET NIGHT IN 1909 II
CAITILIN'S FIELD 16
THE MARCH FAIR 20
THE JOY OF PERMANENCE 24
THE RIVER MEADOW 26
PALES AND CERES 28
SOME OF MY WORKMEN 3O
THE GREY HORSE 38
THE ASS 39
THE SHEEP DOG 40
TO MY DOG 41
LOUGH DERG 43
DO YOU NEVER WANT TO BE ALONE 54
A DROWSY WINTER'S DAY 55
FURZE 57
xSstnffti 59
FOOTNOTE 62
vii
I HEARD A LONE CALF CALLING
I HEARD a lone calf calling Plaintively, drearily, for the mother it
had lost. I stood and watched the hungry cows around
me
Picking the scanty grass of early March. 1 leant awhile upon the four-pronged fork The day's work chanced to make my tool, And as I stood and gave my thoughts their
liberty
They came upon a way yet unexplored. Ah ! many a day I'd worked and stood Where I now idled a brief spell, But never seen the beauty of the life I led, Or felt how much the life of every day could
show
To one who cared to read.
9
I HEARD A LONE CALF CALLING
'Twas like the sudden glorious discovery A man makes when he finds he loves a
woman ;
Her features which he saw and knew before Change wondrously, as by some weird
enchantment of the gods., And as I went on working till the twilight
came My brain, awakened in its gladness, wildly
sped its way In mad and formless song.
10
A RECOLLECTION OF A COLD WET NIGHT IN 1909
MY smoky lantern throws its flickering ray Now on the cobbles, now upon the
walls ;
I hear the log chains rattling in the stalls, I hear the chestnut whinnying to the grey ; Below the gate the fragrant scent of hay, Saved on a pleasant summer's day, Despite the cold raw wind and sleet recalls My shivering mind to thoughts of summer
zephyrs.
There in the lower yard the thirty heifers, The calves we knew last year, Sleek-coated, placid, mild-faced animals, Warm bedded, care not whether snow flake
falls
ii
A COLD WET NIGHT IN 1909
Or midnight skies are clear,
But in one long unceasing chorus,
A duotone sonorous,
They munch and champ, and chew the
fragrant fodder.
Their calm contentment throws on me a spell, Their peaceful mood floods me — and all
seems well.
A minute since the cold incessant rain Beating in gusts against my lonely shutter, The big bleak empty barrack's ghostly
sounds,
The icy draughts that made my candle gutter, The four bare walls that were the gloomy
bounds
Of my inhabited domain, The narrow bed with blankets still untended, The nail where hung the rags that no one
mended,
12
A COLD WET NIGHT IN 1909
Had filled my heart with something near to
pain.
I thought with longing of the idle days I spent at college, of the cheery room Where to sit single brought no lonely gloom Upon the brain,
Remembered enviously the jovial friends Who came to share a glass, a rowdy song, And went their ways Without a care, a harum-scarum throng —
But now the sounds and smells around me
From my obsession have unbound me,
No more a prey to dull misgiving
I feel again the joy of living,
Though by the storm my sense is staggered,
Though I have felt forlorn and friendless
Drifting upon an ocean endless,
A single old familiar greeting
Can send my morbid fancies fleeting.
A COLD WET NIGHT IN 1909
A single perfume from the haggard, The subtle scent of sheltered cattle, A startled rooster's tittle-tattle, The champ of horses in the stable, The windcock creaking on the gable, Even a new calved heifer's moan, Her plaintive yearning monotone, Makes me feel less alone.
Oh, ye Poets who have sung
Praises of our country life,
When ye hymned your tuneful words
What knew ye of midnight work ;
Of the cares that daily lurk
Round a farmer's flocks and herds ;
Had ye ever used the knife
While a life in balance hung ;
Had ye ever left your beds
To tend a suffering horse's colic :
H
A COLD WET NIGHT IN 1909
Had ye sat all night and shivered Till a heifer was delivered Of a stubborn first born calf ? Farmers cannot always laugh, Life is not all fun and frolic, Poetry her fancy sheds On reality bucolic.
Yet for all your ignorance Ye have sung the truth by chance. Though the seasons may not favour, Though the cows are short of milk, Though disease attack my fold And my bullocks are unsold, Though my farm's remote and far From the towns where pleasures are, Though I go not clothed in silk Yet my fealty will not waver ; I still find the world's romance Here in my inheritance.
15
CAITILIN'S FIELD
I SING the song of the man who hi sweated and toiled
All day at the saving of hay and th making of tramps *
On a day when his work is well spent, an the crop is not spoiled
By the rain that he damns.
When the dew has gone off of the groun<
and the heat of the sun Is very near able to melt the prong of h
fork, When already the small little breeze the tas
has begun,
Then man sets to work.
* Local word for wynds or tramp-cocks, pronounce tram.
16
CAITILIN'S FIELD
Five acres of good meadow hay is in Caitilin's
field, In windrows we have it made up, 'twill not
rain, we've no fear, 'Tis only the fools who make cocks when
the clouds are concealed And the sky is all clear.
Ten men there are with me as well as
myself, and a boy To ride on the horse that draws in the hay
from the rows ; We'll easily tramp it by night, and we'll
count it a joy
To do it, God knows.
Three tramps are kept going at once, for the
meadow is flat And the skeeter works smoothly, and quickly
its loads are upturned,
17 B
CAITILIN'S FIELD
Till the sweat runs off us in streams, and the man that is fat
His wage will have earned.
There's skill in the work, for it isn't mere
ignorant labouring To build up a tramp while two men are
forking their best, And not have it turn when its made, to be
for the neighbouring Farmers a jest.
There's skill in the skeeting, there's skill in
the pulling, there's skill In the way that the hay is forked off of
the ground, for you'll see When a man comes out of a town, though
he work with a will, What a fool he does be.
18
CAITILIN'S FIELD
Tired we may be when at night we have
forked the last sop, The last sugan is tied, and we put on our
coats to go home, But we wouldn't change place with the
King in his Parliament shop,
Or the Pope that's in Rome.
*»
For what do the dwellers in palaces know
of the feel Of the arm that is wearied with work, yet
ready for more, Or the appetite simple and keen a man
brings to the meal
His house has in store ?
THE MARCH FAIR
THREE o'clock, and with a start I waken, cursing fair and mart. And the bullocks, if they knew, Surely would be cursing too ; Seven English miles have they, Long before the dawn of day, Seven English miles to tramp.
(Where the divil is the lamp ?) Bullocks ! In your innocence Yours a day of abstinence. It will take two hours and more For us to go to Killimor. Then when we're there we'll stand forlorn Like long wooled sheep that have been shorn,
Too early in the summer.
20
'Tis eight o'clock and ne'er a bid :
What fools to come1 — yet well we did,
For out from yonder caravan,
Where Mrs. Browne wields her tin-can
And serves cold herrings, tea and bread
To Michael, Paddy, Tom and Ned,
There comes a man who's slep' it out :
He's a shipper, there's no doubt.
I know him, sure, 'tis Johnny Curtin,
He'll buy our cattle now for certain.
I ask a hundred for the ten,
He scans them slightingly and then
He turns away without a word.
I wink my eye to Mick, the herd.
" Come here, I want you, Sir," cries he,
" What is the bullocks' price to be ? "
— "They're not worth nine." But Jim
Molony (We all know Jim, the poor old crony)
21
THE MARCH FAIR
Puts in his word without a smile : " I don't care which, but wait awhile Ask nine fifteen and cut a crown." — " Is that the way you'd beat me down ? " John strikes my hand and goes away. And then comes back again to say He'll not break Jim Molony's word. (We all say that, we're so absurd) And so at last the bargain's struck ; It's left to me about the luck. " Begob ! " says Mick, " for all his tricks They're dear enough at nine twelve six." So later on when we've been paid, We'll drink their health in lemonade. (The divil sweep those pledges)
Herdted with others, scores and scores, Our bullocks, mixed with cows and stores,
22
THE MARCH FAIR
Are driven through the thronging fair Out to the railway station, where Numbers of trucks, all just the same, Swallow the beasts we knew by name, Which lose in leaving Mick and me Their individuality. God ! On what venture ye embark, To feed at length some city clerk Whose widest world is Blackpool.
THE JOY OF PERMANENCE
OLD John with his plough may turn a scrape
As true as the flight of an arrow, But well he knows that it can't escape The levelling stroke of the harrow.
Danny has built a faultless rick,
I never saw one to beat it ;
But his work is not made with stone or
brick — Later on the cattle will -eat it.
I have shaken oats from year to year,
But at heart I have laboured sadly,
For it all looks the same when the fields are
clear, Though I scatter it never so badly.
24
THE JOY OF PERMANENCE
But here is a work that 1 feel is worth
The full of our human endeavour,
For we're leaving our mark on the face of
the earth, A mark that will stay for ever.
We are battling with ancient barren land,
Boulders and straggling heather ;
We have worked till the tan on our arms is
tanned Double deep by the cut of the weather.
Rocks and stones we have raised and moved
Till a great wide wall has risen
Round the bounds of a field that no man
loved And the goats used to count a prison.
And now it is levelled and limed and
ploughed :
The brown earth calls for the sower. In six months this will be one of a crowd When it falls to the scythe of the mower.
25
THE RIVER MEADOW
G
RACEFULLY, steadily, easily
Three men are mowing Bending and rising they capture the
Rhythm of rowing.
Swish goes the cut of the scythes as they
Glide all together Through the cool stems of the river hay
In the hot weather.
Then at the end of the swath comes the
Sound of the honing Grating but ringing melodiously
Like a bee droning.
26
THE RIVER MEADOW
Morning and noon time and evening
Comes a young maiden Porter and buttermilk carrying
Willingly laden.
And while they drink under shadowy
Willows eternal The meadow distils for them heavenly
Scent of sweet-vernal.*
* It may not be generally known that sweet-vernal is the name of the grass which gives the characteristic scent to freshly cut hay.
27
PALES AND CERES
PALES
I AM the goddess of the Golden Vale, I rule the downs and the fat plains of
Meath,
And to my devotees I can bequeath The rich sleek ox, the overflowing pail, The cool of summer dairies in the dale, Where lies the homestead, girdled with a
wreath
Of prying creepers groping underneath The thatch, the dingy beams within to scale.
And in the luscious pastures stand my kine, Some suckle calves, some plod home to the
byre,
Bullocks knee deep in pasture graze their fill, Or seek the shallows in a careless line, Or under shady branches lie quite still Chewing the cud with jaws that never tire.
28
PALES AND CERES
CERES
HEED not O Eire, the specious promises
Of idle Pales, hearken unto me, I am the queen of life and energy ; I check the hopeful exile's eagerness ; I keep the life blood in my villages, For when I govern a community There will the pleasant sound of labour be — 1 feel no pride in ranches tenantless.
My beauty lies in sight of human toil,
In the green corn when pastures still are
white,
Or in a yellowing cornfield in the breeze, In the sweet smell when freshly turns the soil, In rows of pointed stooks at glimmering
night, Or thresher's hum like buzz of million bees.
29
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
D
I— DANNY COGHLAN
ANIEL Coghlan, down from the
mountains, Tough hardy Dan, from beyant in the
mountains,
You're the best worksman I know. Thin is your arm, sure, Yerra, what harm, sure, 'Tis you have the go !
You have the knowledge, you have the
strength, too :
Knowledge is great, but men must have strength too,
Each by itself is no good ; Then you are quick, Dan, Some men are thick, Dan, Thicker than wood.
3°
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
Keenly you work ; 'tis hard to get keen men. I love to be watching or working with keen men,
Men who learnt labour at home. You have ten acres, man, Keep it, be Jakers, man, > : Let emigrants roam.
•
You are the right man, one I can trust in, I could never leave home if I'd no one to trust in
And know that my work will be done. The divil a loss, boys, While he is your boss, boys, The divil a one.
You're independent, never obsequious, A man of free birth is never obsequious, He leaves it to schemer and slave. If this poem should live, lad, 'Tis all I've to give, lad, For all that you gave.
31
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
II
I LOOK upon you as a curiosity, you master of excuse
and wile. You clothe your tortuous scheming with
verbosity, But I confess you only make me smile.
You are a part of that still puzzling mystery That English rule bequeathed us from the past,
Your type is simply the result of history, — And into history it's sinking fast.
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
III— JAMESY
WHEN there's a dirty job to do, Or one man has the work of
two,
Nobody ever questions who — Be there many or be there few : 'Tis Jamesy Shaughnessy !
When we are loading posts of oak Upon a high-wheeled one-horse yoke Who has the heavy ends bespoke And lifts till his arms are almost broke But Jamesy Shaughnessy !
33 c
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
Yet there's one man who's always willing No matter if he's in the killing Of pigs, or maybe he'll be filling Dung carts all day, or ridges tilling, Though he may not know a crown from a shilling,
That's Jamesy Shaughnessy !
1Tis equal what or where the place, He always wants to force the pace, At digging spuds he's mad to race, Or hoeing : " Sure, 'tis all a case," Says Jamesy Shaughnessy.
But then at digging spuds or hoeing, And even binding sheaves or mowing, When you're too fond of rapid going The bad results will soon be showing, O, Jamesy Shaughnessy !
34
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
His beard is just a tangled mat, He always wears an old hard hat, And he never stops to smoke or chat — What can I do with a man like that, Eh, Jamesy Shaughnessy ?
If I give him a job that's tasty or neat Sure, his own gossoon will have him beat, All he has is muscle and bone. I must send him off and leave him alone For he'll work his best without deceit, Nor go away till the job's complete,
What do you say, Jamesy ? For I have to get the best that I can Out of every labouring man, I don't care whether he's Jim or Dan
Or Jamesy Shaughnessy.
It is only fair to Jamesy to say that these verses were written some years ago, before I knew him as well as I do now. The hard hat is discarded, the beard neatly trimmed, and Jamesy, who has found his true vocation as yardman, is now one of my most trusted and reliable men.
35
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
IV— THADY ANGLIM (R. I. P.)
THADY, for all your shaggy face And halting crab-like gait, I must accord to you a place Among the verses in this book :
You'll never learn your fate. For all your thoughts, your very look, Told of a purpose undeterred, You had but one delight, You only wept when loss occurred Among the members of our herd, Now, we are weeping you, interred For ever from our sight.
SOME OF MY WORKMEN
V— WILLIAM MORRISSEY (1843-1913)
NO mighty warrior lies in that cold grave,
No king who bears a high illustrious name,
Nor politician with a transient fame, Nor even a singer famous for his stave. You were a simple honest man. No knave Can breathe a scandal, find a tint of shame, Nor for a meanness lay on you the blame, A simple servant always : never a slave.
What can I say of you in greater praise ? A simple honest man — were you here now You would not wish a higher compliment. So when at seventy years you've done your
days,
And to a hostile world have made your bow, I say what I have said before you went.
37
I LOVE the summer months because I eat The fresh green grass, because my tired feet Find soft moist standing in the time of heat.
I love the winter, when my rattling chain Binds me in reach of hay and good plump
grain And a strong roof keeps out the wind and
rain.
THE ASS
ESJG, long ago I was a foal, A happy, shaggy little foal, I used to gallop, graze and roll, And when I thought, I thought the whole World was a meadow.
But now I work and pull a car, A heavy overloaded car ; I smell the meadows from afar : But only once a week they are More than a shadow.
39
THE SHEEP DOG
COPING and barking, madly careering, Nimbly avoiding their kicks, I am steering
The dairy cows home to the byre ; The sluggish cows home.
Working the sheep is my joy of existence, Rounding them into the fold from a distance, Snapping the last as he runs Through the gate of the pen.
Trotting sedately when worktime is finished I follow my master, my keenness diminished, Till I stretch myself out by the fire At the feet of the men.
40
TO MY DOG
OH what do we care for the boasts of the shooters Who prate of their bags and their
battues and drives, Who ride to their moors and their coverts in
motors And chat while they wait to other men's
wives ; Who leave all the work and the fun to the
beaters, All thinking and craft to their headkeeper's
brains, Who dream not of duck but of Darracq two
seaters, Whose joy in the bag is how much it
contains.
TO MY DOG
Eat this bone for you've work before you
to-day ; Now a bite for me and then we'll
away.
LOUGH DERG
A I push out my boat And carelessly float Down the sluggish stream To the beds of reeds And the deep stemmed weeds Where the minnows dream,
Soon a startled Coot With trailing foot Leaves a bubbling wake, As he splashes away To the bosom grey Of the open lake ;
43
LOUGH DERG
And the dabchick strives With his slippery dives To escape unseen ; And the divers swim, At the water's rim, To their rushy screen.
The kittiwakes' white Gives a touch of light To the lough's dull breast, As they rise and dip, Like a faery ship, At the waves' behest.
44
LOUGH DERG II
A CLUMP of high green reeds now yellowing in decay, An island landless and without a shore, I know of such a hiding place in every little
bay Where I can check my boat's drift, where
she and I can stay, And I can learn the lake bird's lore.
First the gulls, the laughing gulls, come
circling round my head, Laughing they pitch on yonder rock, And sometimes with them a tern uncomraded,
45
LOUGH DERG
That child of the breezes in some aery
kingdom bred, Circles still, while below the gulls mock.
Small and unnoticed the dotterel and his
mate Come swinging and darting on their skimming
course, They alight, but to return, or if by chance
they wait Rest never finds them, but an evergoading
fate Drives them on with an unseen force.
With a rushing sound of wings, Like a sudden breeze When it strikes the tops Of an ancient wood,
A flock of wild duck comes,
LOUGH DERG
With unchecked speed
They swish through the air
In a flashing curve Dropping upon the water's face
As lightly as a mayfly ; There they float and idly swim,
Idly paddle in the shallows. Some stand up and stretch a wing, Tired with speed of journeying, One turns back his head to sleep, One — but I have made some sound- They are off and far away Lost among the misty grey I can see them flashing dim
Making for securer shallows.
47
Ill
THEN the swerving plover, that gossiping bird
Who every moment swoops out of his course,
As if some far away music he heard, And he wanted to trace the elusive charm Of the phantom melody down to its source At the brim of the water, nor comes to harm As he falls headlong from a dizzy height, And fluttering down his comrades follow In a mass confused till they reunite With a tern-like grace and the ease of a
swallow
Into a disciplined serried array, One aimless purpose common to all ;
LOUGH DERG
All instantly answering one common whim, They wing their devious voyage away, Hastening still to that unknown call, That will-o'-the-wisp at the water's brim Which they found not there, but seek it now Among the boulders or after the plough, And their wings flash white as they wheel in
the sun, Or gambol and tumble in aery fun.
49
LOUGH DERG
IV
ON MY WAY HOMEWARD AT THE END OF THE DAY
A GENTLE breeze that -has timely veered
From the west to the east, and has made of the sky
An indigo vault of transparent hue, A deep-toned matchless infinite blue, Is helping my boat, as I lazily ply My oars on the course I have oft-times
steered ; But I think tonight there is something
weird
In the change of the sky and the half-risen moon,
50
LOUGH DERG
For the curlew's call seems eerier now As, seeking his mates, he crosses my bow, And the coots who croak in the rushy lagoon,
Where they built their nests and their
nestlings reared,
Or utter that short sharp sound of their own Like the click of a mason chiselling stone, Make the world that I know seem aloof and
unknown.
I come to some rocks in the midst of the
lake Where the pillibeen meeks have found their
rest
Counting their bivouac safe from harm, Till the sentinel sounds the note of alarm, And their chattering stops and the ceaseless
quest
Once more their winnowing wings undertake. Should they sleep the redshank is ever awake;
51
LOUGH DERG
As the watchdog barks when a stranger
appears,
So his shrilling to tardier wild fowl pro- claims
The advent of man who murders and maims (Whom every creature instinctively fears, And only the dog will never forsake) — Though his throat is slender and long his
bill
Those three wild notes quiver piercing shrill, To tell of the enemy out to kill.
The stillness of night settles down once morer Stiller now since the silence was rent by the
whir That the wings of the pillibeens made as
they rose,
Or the rumbling creak of a cart as it goes On its homeward way, or a cottager
52
LOUGH DERG
Sings a snatch of song on a distant shore, And the sound comes clearly travelling o'er The stretch of the tiny rippling waves And makes when it ceases the stillness more
still.
But the quiet has ever a murmuring trill, The faintest of echoes from watery graves, Where naiads forgotten still whisper their
lore, Where the trout and the red-finned perch
evade The grisly king-pike's ambuscade
As they glide through the weeds of a limpid glade
Fathoms down.
53
DO YOU NEVER WANT TO BE ALONE
DO you never want to be alone Away from the octopus — man, To be at one with the pine trees' moan, Where they moan in monotonous monotone As they moaned when the world began; To don the wings of the buzzing drone ; To wander free with the old god Pan ; To ponder awhile on the wondrous plan That governs both saint and courtesan, Their destiny and our own ?
54
A DROWSY WINTER'S DAY
SOMETIMES when on a drowsy winter's day
My hands refuse to work and I am filled
With a mad wish to give my senses play, Or pen the words my fancy has distilled, Then, as by chance, my steps will seek a
path,
Shunning to meet a single shepherd's dog, To some uncharted peaceful solitude. For in this ancient country many a rath And rolling mountain and forsaken bog Offer to share with me my lonely mood.
Oh God ! who made them, what a mastery Of all the arts has your omnipotence, To have created such a symphony Of sound and colour ; my benumbed sense
55
A DROWSY WINTER'S DAY
Dulls ere I find some words to tell of it. Gone are the mists but now that cast a gloom Over the land and the belated sun Shines palely, like a lamp in evening lit While still some daylight strays into a room Before the curtain's drawn and tea's begun.
Palely he shines, yet touching by his glow The madder birch-tops with a tint of rose And purple shadows, as with motion slow The branches sway where'er the light wind
blows,
Marking the hollies in their sombre green (Clothed midst the naked boughs of
migthier trees)
Where they still keep the soft rain's glisten- ing dew ;
Or in the furze that bounds the old bohreen Some bolder blossom than the rest he sees, And lights this tiny speck of golden hue.
56
FURZE
YELLOWER— far— than Meredith's yellow picture,
Golden as no other thing is golden in the earth,
Ireland is golden in spring and early summer: Gold is winter's deathbed, gold is summer's birth.
Big beds of furze, sheets of golden blossom, Stretch gently sloping on every mountain
rise, Hedgerows and ditches are all a mass of
furze bloom, Shining, though no sunlight gilds our opal
skies.
57
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ipeAtinAC p6m gup b'i An A teAngA -ouCCAfAC. CuipeAnn An fipinne feo AtAf m<3|t Aip-feAn, Aguf Aifcuij\eAnn ceme A 4tAif Aif poinnc ^'eAfbA* A AOife leinb. |TtonnAnn -ouine An ffpinne feo T>e ppeib, -ouine eile i n-oiAit) A C6ile ; AC ip iomt>A f.eAp, Aguf beAn, leif, A Aimp$ i, Aguf geibeAnn -ouine 6igin A oigpeACc gAt uile IS f.6m. C4 ATI 5^et)il5e AJ f leAtfmugAT!) Af An n^AetieAlcACc : An CAilleArhAinc optA p6 mAp 6Al«i$eAnn
59
CAilleArhAinc nA tidige Aguf nA bpeA$tAtcA AH tfmAOi — niof luAite optA 'nA Ap S^6*1^ -AtbAn n£ Ap nA t)peAcnACAit5, 6ip mf HA cioptAifc fin ni nAipe leif tiA uAif le A •oceAngA p6m -oo tAttAipc. AC mf An bfonn An CAinnc A tti p6 TbpodrheAf t)'A ^if i n-Aice ceAnjA* nA t)ionn An g^6*'^6 t)'AClop Anoip i n-iomt>A plj:it>e. t)ionn fi Ag nA mACAi&-l6i$inn i
triAj\ ni nArtiAiT) nA h6i|AeAnn tuCc An fin 50 teip, f.6 mAp if "061$ le T>Aoimb 6igm. t)ionn An 5^6*^5® A5 "ooiffedif , AS f Aop, AJ ceA|t- •ouit)e, AS f.iu nA
llf)e AgUf
1 mt)Aite 4tA CtiAt gniT) of cionn lion-cige obAip rh6p Aguf IATJ Ag CAbAipc Ap IIA teAn-
1DO l-AtSAIfC A|\ T)CU1f AgUf
'n-A t)iAit) pn. UA bAttAfhAil An AT>rh4il gup ceAngA C6ip 1o'6i|\eAnnAC An 5Ae>li:)1^5eJ c6 5° nibeit)if f6m n6 fvC-leirgeAriiAiL Cun i ^o$luim. Cim 6 1 mbunieAn
nA CAtpAC AgUf 1AT)f An Ag CUf AintTI 5A®*®^^ &P "A
fp^i'oeACAitt ; T)Atui$teAp cput 5^et>eAtA6 nA n-Ainm Af fruinneOgAiti nA fiopAi Aguf A|\ 6Ai|\citt ;
pul^ip TOO fgoLAipitt nA tiOltfsoile TlAif iunt)A i fro$t tTIA t»ionn bAfArhAil An nAifium mAll bionn f i cumAf AC. 50 -oeirhin CA t)pi CuAtAnn 6<3rfi lAn -oe §Af AnACAf le hAon AIC i n6ipmn. t)iof Aim le T)eit>eAnnAi$e ; •DO t)peAm pAifcT mi' Comnib Aguf tnife AJ
60
An •octtdig. 1f i ngAetMlge At>u&Aip.c AOinne " 'm p4tvoun AJAC " Aguf if 5^et>it5e A trio-OAf. A Aguf iAT>f An AS -oeAnArh f ugtwO Aguf A' 5lAOt)AC A C6ile. 1p 'OdiS tiom gup Annfo AC-d 6ifim An
nA p-Aif ci Agup iAT>rAn 65, t>eit> An
. til beAt) An pfOpblAf ACA, AC t)A
noi$e A tiocjTAt) An CAinnc CUCA, Aguf lAt^dtAi-oip An of iAt)fAn Ag t^* nA vut)A\ Acd tonncA . 1f p^i'oif leif nA pAifdb p6m 4|\ "OceAngA -DO fAO|\At>. CA fuit AgAinn 50 mbeit) 6ipe i n-A cip t)4- . t)e GA^H An t)6A|\lA teAn^AmuiT) Aft 4jx
AgUf Af xXf 5CAlt)f CAHI teif An JCUIT) 6116
•oe'n -oorhAn : come4t)|:AniuiT) An ^Aetnlge •o'^p'ocein- ce^nAiti Aguf tDumn p6m. SAOffAit) An t)6AftA finn 6 tieit oiteAnAt ; fAOppAit) An $Aet)it5e finn 6 Beit
A nA T)4ncA inf An leAttAp fo 6if.eAnnAC, AC ni't 5Ae*eA^AC : n' n~^ mo ^°11' A(^ mo Cr^nn 50
fAn AtfllAlt).
FOOTNOTE *
LIKE so many others of my race I have become obsessed by my ignorance of what should be my native language. It has gripped me, and so I am a learner : am already able to write haltingly. But think what it means to be taught your mother tongue when for thirty years your com- panions have spoken around you none but a tongue which, however beautiful in itself, however glorious the literature it has produced, is not the language of your forefathers, is not even a modern modification of it, but one whose very essence and genius is completely strange to it ; to learn laboriously as a man what should be absorbed as a child, when the mind is still an unbroken field and the whole being is receptive and impressionable as it can never be again.
Yet something of what is lost by this is regained in the
enthusiasm which pervades each Irishman when he makes
the discovery for himself that Gaelic is the native tongue
of Ireland. To some the discovery comes suddenly, to
some gradually, but many have made it and many are
making it daily. As Gaelic dies out in the Gaeltacht, and
dies there faster than it dies in the Highlands of Scotland
* Translation of x\5tiifin.
62
FOOTNOTE
or the other branch of the Celtic tongue dies in Wales, because our Irish upper classes are dead as such, in the Gaultacht it is reviving and again lifting its once despised head beside its foreign conqueror. In unexpected places you will meet the Gaelic now : students there are in Trinity College who have it (an institution erroneously but not altogether unnaturally believed by many Irish- men to be anti-Irish) ; you will meet a porter on a Dublin railway station, a barber's assistant, a shoemaker, even a policeman who has it ; it is spoken at ceilidhs at night where Gaels foregather ; the superhuman effort has even been made and accomplished by, I believe, over thirty families in Dublin of bringing up their children in their infancy in the Irish language only, without a word of English. Everywhere I see evidences that the Irish public (even if it has not the youth or energy in most cases to carry out its belief to its logical conclusions) is beginning to feel that Gaelic ought to be the national language. Why else do we have a corporation, not very many of whose members are bilingual, posting the names of the streets in Gaelic ; shopkeepers painting the Gaelic form of their names on window and van ; newspapers with their Gaelic columns ; Gaelic a compulsory subject in the new National University ? When public opinion is slow it is generally powerful.
I was in Bray recently, surely as anglicized a place as
63
FOOTNOTE
there is to be found in Ireland, and as I was walking along the esplanade a number of small children ran into me : " 'm pAjvoun AgAC," said one to me, and they ran off playing, and shouting to one another not in English but in Irish. Here it seems to me is the gist of the whole matter. If the children learn the language when they are young, their children in turn will acquire it naturally as native speakers acquire it, if not with the true native speaker's bt^f, at least with the fluency that will make it their natural language of self-expression, and we shall have attained our ideal — which is to be a bilingual nation, keeping English as the language of commerce and inter- course with the outer world, and Irish as the language of our homes and our national life. English will save us from being insular, Irish from being provincial.
The foregoing verses are of Ireland, but they are not Gaelic : it was my fate, not I, decided that.
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