Bourke Ulick J. Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
480
A SENSIBLE
WRITER.
compilers by
whom
the
histories,
annals,
records,
or even
legends,
had
been
penned.
It is
certain
that
the
Kelts
were
wonderfully
conservative of
ancient
rights
and
laws.
It
is
certain
that
the
written
works,
particularly
of
a
historic
character,
were under
strict
supervision
;
and
that
customs,
even
such
as are known in
fairy mythology
at
present,
have been handed
down
in the
same form for
two
thousand
years.
The
most sensible
writer,
perhaps,
because
the
most
learned
amongst
moderns,
is
Professor
Blackie.
He
writes
in
his Homer and
the
Iliad,
vol.
i. :
"
To me it
appears
that
in
the
present
ago
there
is
a
tendency
to
fling
away
honest
old
traditions of
this
stamp
as
utterly
worthless,
and to
substitute
ingenious speculations
in
their
stead.
But
before we
allow ourselves
to be carried
:v\vay
by
such a fashion
of
sweeping
negation,
it were
wise
to make a
large
and
cautious
survey
of the character
of
the
ground
on
which we stand. It
may
be,
after
all,
that
there is
more
solidity
at the
root of
old,
venerable,
popular
belief than in
the
ingenious theory
of our
recent
ypeculator.
The
thinking
of
the
multitude is not
always
wrong.
When a man with
a
large display
of
reading
rejects
as a
figment,
what
all
other
men for centuries had
received as a
fact,
there
is
an air
of
knowledge
about
this,
before which
the
man
of
less,
or
of no
reading,
is oiU'ii
willing
to surrender without
enquiry."
"
The
soul and
substance of
all
popular
tradition is
true,
and the
facts
also,
for tho most
part
if
not
in all
llu-ir
limbs and
flourishes,
at
least
in
their
framework."
Again
he
writes
:
"
The
ingenuity
of
those who revel
in
this
extreme
(of
doubting)
is
admirable,
but their
wisdom
is
doubtful
;
and a sober historical
estimate
such
as
belongs peculiarly
to the cultivated
intellect,
must
bring-
us
back
to the
point
of view from
which the
:.
TRADITION
RESTS
OX
FACTS .
Koman
historian
started,
when
he
said,
that
while
we
willingly
grant
the
privilege
to
antiquity
of
mingling
human
things
with
divine,
we can in
nowise
allow
the
systematic
subtraction,
of
that
human
element
for the
glorification
of which
this
confusion took
place.
"
Popular
tradition
embodies
facts and
persons
of
great
national
significance.
All
great
social
changes
take
place
through
the
instrumentality
of
great
men."
If
the
writer
in the
magazine
takes
away
* 4
Daunaii"
as
a
myth,
and
"
fear-boilg,"
what
name does
he substitute
for
these
mythical
titles ?
for,
as a
fact,
the
migrations
came
to
Ireland
call
them
by
any
name
he
pic;
One
other
passage
from
Blackie's
pages
:
f
"
Common
sense
understands
how
much
exaggerated
embellishments
are
consistent
with
the
most
solid
nucleus
of
fact
;
but
there
is
a certain
school of
Germans not
without
imitators
in
this
country
who,
when
they
meet
with
marvellous
descriptions,
deny
the
historical
reality
of
the
hero
described,
register
him with
myths,
degrade
him
into
a
symbol,
or
elevate
him
into a
god.
Scotch-
men
need
not
travel
abroad
for
illustrations
of
the
impor-
tant
proposition
that
all tradition is
founded on
reality,
and that
all
popular
poetry
and
national
epic
is
only
na-
tional
history
moulded
into
rhymithical shape
by
the
passion
and
imagination
of
the
people.
. . And
even
in the
remote
misty
antiquity
of
our
ancient
Gaelic
poetry,
a
region
where
some
dogmatical
critics asserted
that
only
fictitious
bards and
heroes were
floating,
as
bodiless
and bloodless
as
the mists
that
trail their
skirts
rbund the
grey
granite
cones
of
the
West
Highlands,
even in that
unclear
element,
the
brawny
forms of real
men and
women,
fighting,
and
loving,
and
sinking
like
ourselves,
are now
being
distinctly recognised,
Who
Iho
FEINX
were,
and on what
ground,
Irish
or
Scotch,
or
2a
482 ST.
PAUL'S CHUHCH
TELLS WHAT
ST.
PAUL ~u
both,
their
famous
exploits
were
performed
may,
indeed,
be
debated,
because there
is no
authentic
Iliad of
these
early
times
existing
either
in
Irish
or
Gaelic
;
but that
they
were men no one
doubts
;
and
if Keltic
men,
it
would
be
strange,
indeed,
if,
in
the
very
earliest
times,
those
bloody
encounters between the
Gaels
and
the
Scan-
dinivians
of
the
north-west
coast of
Europe,
should
have
failed,
which
flare
out in
such wild
flashes
athwart
the
dark
pages
of Scottish
history
in
the
Middle
Ages.
And
as for
the venerable
old
Scald,
to
whom
the
rhymed
records of
those
earliest,
pictures
of the
chase
and
the
battle-field are ascribed
;
if one
were
so
credulous as
to
set
his
seal
to the title
of
the
sixteenth
century
manu-
script,
in which this
line
occurs
"
THE
AUTHOR
OP
THIS
is
OSSIAN
;
not
less,
in
my
judgment,
were
he to
be
accounted
unreasonably
sceptical
who
should
believe that
this
and other
such verses
went forth
to
the
world
under
the name of
Ossian,
if no
such Keltic
bard
had
ever ex-
isted. If
there is
a
church
of St. Paul in
London,
and
in
almost
in
every
town
of
western
Christendom,
it
is
because
there
was a
St.
Paul,
and
because
he
was
the
great
apostle
of
the
European
gentiles
;
if
there
is
a
church
of St.
Columba
on one
of the
great
treeless
isles
of the
Keltic
Hebrides,
it
is
because
an
adventurous
saint
of
kingly
blood
actually
did
cross
over
from
the North
of
Ireland
to
this
coast
in
the
sixth
century,
and
founded
a school
of
love,
and
gentleness,
and
truth in
the
midst
of
the
wild,
lawless
chieftains who
ruled over
these
wild
regions."
So
far
Blackie.
He
reasons
with
sense,
phi-
losophy,
and
in accord
with
the
truth
of
history.
If
there
were
"Fir-boilg,"
or
"Belgee,"
men
of
rotund
shape,
men
devoted
to
the
god
of
day,
named in
Irish
pagan
annals
;
if the
race
of
the
Tuatha
de
Danann
is
named,
there
must
have
been
a
people
in
reality,
to re-
NEITHER
CREDULITY,
NOR
SCEPTICISM.
483
present
races to whom
those
titles were
applied.
History
and
science
demonstrate
that there were
such,
although
they
do
not
show
that the
people
called
themselves
by
that
name. All that is certain
is,
that
they
were
Keltic
migrations.
The
Greeks were
known
amongst
the Grecian
States
as
Hellenes
;
as Greeks
to those
living
in
Italy
and
to
the
north of
Europe.
That
there
was
a
battle
fought
between
two Keltic races on
the
plains
of
Magh
Ttirra
Conya,
or
the Plain of
Towers,
near
Cong,
in
the
county
Galway,
is
a
certainty,
and not a
myth.
The
mounds,
the
cinerary
urn found
by
Sir William
Wilde,
the
name
of
the
locality,
the
written
records,
over
six
hundred
year3
old,
the tradition
from
age
to
age,
combine
to
give
suffi-
cient
satisfactory
testimony
to
the
substantial
truth
of
the battle
fought
over
a
thousand
years
before
the
Chris-
tian
era.
SUMMARY.
Guided
by
the rules
of
scientific
research
;
treading
on
sure
principles
of
knowledge,
the
archaic
paths
which
have,
by
time,
been embedded into
the
national
language
and the
genius
of
the
Irish
race;
comparing
on
the
way
the
signs
of
certainty
which
archaeology
and
palasology
furnish
in
manifold
forms at
one
time in
cyclopean
architecture,
the Round Towers
;
at
another,
in
poetry,
in
painting,
in
law,
and
in
the varied
foot-prints
of
a
by-
gone
civilisation,
ihe writer
has
furnished
to
every
rati-
onal
thinker,
and
to
every
scholar who
wishes
to
steer
.
the middle course between
credulity,
on
the
one
side,
and
scepticism
on
the
"other,
reasons abundant
and
convincing
that the Gaelic
language
and
people
have
come
from
the
cradle-land
of the
Japhetic
race.
Other
important
questions
connected
with
the
main
subject
of
the volume
have
been introduced
subjects
484 VALUE OF GAELIC
PHONES1S
NEW.
which
have
for centuries
engaged
the
attention
of
some
of the
most
learned
men
in
Ireland
; these,
too,
have
had
a
full
share
of
historical and
assthetical
consideration
bestowed
upon
them;
and the
conclusions
drawn
have
been,
in
these
pages, quite
in
conformity
with
the
spirit
of our national
annals
;
with
the
dictates of
sense
and
science.
The
phonesis
of
Irish
Gaelic
at
present
and in
pagan
times,
is
a
subject
quite
new to the
public,
but
very
im-
portant,
for it
comes
in,
to confirm
the
views
already
arrived at
in
England
regarding
the
correct
sounds of
the vowels
and
consonants. Irish-Gaelic
pronunciation
is
the fountain
from
which
the
classic
languages
of
Europe
have
drawn
the flood of full and
open
sounds
which
con-
stitutes
the
beauty
of
Italian,
and
which
gave
to
the
national
pronunciation
its ore
rotundo,
fullness and
power,
amongst
the
Romans,
rerum dominos
gentemque
togatam.
Irish
phonetic
laws
are in accord with
Jacob
Grimm's
law
of
lingual
interchange
;
and the
bardic
beauties
of
Irish
song
are the
source
from which
the
poetic
children
of
modern
literary
Europe
have
drawn the
grace
which
gives
to versification
its charm
Rhyme.
Few
persons
care
to admit that
pagan
Ireland
was
civilised
;
yet,
it is
a
fact,
that
the
Gaelic-speaking
tribes
of
pagan
times
enjoyed
in
the western
isle
an
advanced
state
of
material
civilisation
long
before
Rome
or
Car-
thage,
or
Corinth,
or Priam's
city
had
been
built.
The
first
people
who
came
to
the
"
Island of
Destiny"
were
descended
of
an
enlightened
and
a
highly
civilised
parent
stock.
The
knowledge
of the
natives
in
the
art
of
writing,
of
dyeing,
painting, illuminating,
smelting
metals,
of
coining
money,
and
making
ornaments
in
gold
and
brass
;
of
cyclopeau
architecture,
of
which
the
Round
Towers
are a
standing,
and to
this
hour
an
abid-
PHILOLOGY USEFUL
TO CLE11GY.MEX.
485
nig proof, point
out
clearly
the archaic
civilisation
and
primitive
refinement of
the
pagan
Irish race.
A
knowledge
of
philology
as
a
science
supports
the
truth of
history.
This branch
of
study
is
therefore
especially
useful,
at
the
present
time,
to
every
intelligent
believer
of
the
Christian
religion,
and
to Catholic
clergy-
men,
who in an
age
of
growing infidelity,
must
neces-
sarily
meet
from time
to time
those
who
will^ oppose
not
alone
Catholic
teaching,
but
Christian truth
;
and
who
therefore will
be called
upon
to
shew
that the words
of
the
mosaic
narrative
are
truthful,
and
to
point
out from
scientific
data
that
man,
in
pagan
times,
had
not
been
progressive,
but
that on
the
contrary
he
had been
in
mental
power
and
in
knowledge retrogressive,
until the
coming
of
Christ, who,
as
God-man,
not alone redeemed
mankind, but ennobled
them,
and
raised
human
nature
in
dignity
above
the
angelic.
For the historian
the
Irish- Gaelic is
useful,
showing
the
value
and
significancy
of names of
persons
and
places
connected with
ancient
European
history.
The
Gaelic-language
is,
in
the words of
Geddes,
for
scholars,
"
a
great
field of
investigation,
as
yet
compara-
tively
unexplored
;
and for
Irishmen it is their
own
tongue
lying
before them
at
their
doors,
an
El-dorado for
the
winning.
'
A thousand
volumes of
Irish-Gaelic
lie
still
unpub-
lished
in
manuscript.
There are at
present
only
a
few
texts
books
the
Easy
Lessons in
Irish,
composed
and
published by
the
writer
;
and
the
College
Grammar.
The writer has a
Dictionary
ready
for
press,
but
in the
present
state
of
public
apathy,
he
is
unwilling
to risk
publication
he cannot afford
to
lose
money,
and
time,
and labour.
There
is,
at
times,
a
spurt
of
patriotic
spirit
made
486
NOBLE
'SOULS.
manifest
here
and
there,
but
there
is
nothing per-
manent
or
fixed
nothing
calculated
to
support
Irish
publications.
The
Government
is
at
times
called
upon,
as
it
has,
on a late
occasion,
been,
by
the
hon.
member
for
Louth,
Mr. Alexander M. Sullivan
;
and then
promises
are
made,
and
some
little
good
effected,
but
nothing
of a
permanent
character has
yet
been
done to
keep
alive
all
that is
still
living
of
the
Iiish-Gaelic
speech.
Ger-
mans have
established
at Berlin what
English
Statesmen
and Irishmen
have not
done
in
Dublin.
One
young
man
from the
metropolis
has sent ten
pounds
to
the
present
writer,
with
a
promise
of
ten
more,
to
pen
an
Irish
First
Book,
or
Primer,
as
an
introduction to the
Easy
Lissons.
He
leaves,
besides,
the
profits
of the
pub-
lication,
when
it
shall
have
been
issued,
to
the
writer.
Instances
like this show
the
spirit
of
our
young
men
;
but
they
never
can
produce permanent
results. The
hierarchy
of Ireland
alone,
including
bishops
and
priests,
can,
if
they
wish,
make Irish-Gaelic
a
success
in
Ireland.
It
is not the
business
nor
the
duty
of the
present
writer
to offer
any
suggestions.
However,
it is certain
that
a
slight
encouragement
to the teachers of the Na-
tional
Schools,
who
are
most
anxious
to
help
the
cause,
would
effect much
g@od.
They
have
lately
petitioned
some
of
the
Irish
Hierarchy
his
Grace
the
Archbishop
of Tuam
to
encourage
them in their
earnest
and
prac-
tical
endeavours
to
keep
Gaelic alive
in
Connaught.
Thus
a
great
body
of
National
Teachers,
and
many pri-
vate
literateurs,
are
ready
to
act
;
but
there
is no sound
organisation
for
that
end,
and no
one with
the
power
to
make
it a success
is
found
willing
to make
a
beginning.
As
it
is,
each must
only
do
all
that
time
and
circum-
stances
enable
him to achieve.
The
words
of
the
lamented
Thomas Davis
on the
Ian-
THOMAS
DAVIS'S
AVORD3.
4S7
gnage
of
our fathers
must
not
be
forgotten.
"
The lan-
guage
of a
nation's
youth,"
he
says,
"
is the
only easy
and
full
speech,
for its
manhood and for its
age.
And
when
the
language
of its
cradle
goes,
itself craves
a tomb.
What business
has a Russian
for the
rippling
language
of
Italy
and India ?
How could
a
Greek desert his
organs,
or
his soul
to
speak
Dutch
upon
the
sides of
Hy-
metus,
or the
beach
of
Salamis,
or on the
waste
where
once was
Sparta
? And is
it
befitting
the
fiery
delicate-
organed
Kelt to abandon his beautiful
tongue,
docile
and
spirited
as
an
Arab,
'
Sweet
as
music,
strong
as
the
wave'
;
is
it
befitting
in him to
abandon this mild
liquid
speech
for
that
mongrel
of a
hundred
breeds called
English,
which,
powerful
though
it
be,
creaks
and
bangs
about
the Kelt
who tries to use
it. Even
should the
effort to save
it,
as
the national
language
fail
by
the
attempt,
we
will
rescue
its
old
literature,
and
hand down
to
our descendants
proofs
that we had
a
language
as
fit
for
love,
and
war,
and
business,
and
pleasure,
as
the
world ever
knew,
and that we
had
not
the
spirit
and the
nationality
to
preserve
it."
The
answer
given
to
a
London
citizen'
by
Sein O'Neil's
interpreter,
expresses
the
opinion
of
many
in
days
past, regarding
the lan-
guage
of
the
stranger.
When asked
why
the
Prince
O'Neil
did not
speak English.
"
Think
you,"
was
the
reply,
"
it would
become
the O'Neil
to
writhe
his
mouth
with such barbarous
jargon."
Irishmen
glory
in
their
Keltic names and
origin,
and
why
not hold
the
language
dear,
wound
up
as
it
is
with
the
past
glories
of their
race
?
The
language
of
a
nation
is
the
exponent
of
people's antiquity,
the index
of
their
refinement,
the
mouthpiece
of
their
history,
the
type
of their
freedom,
the
cho
of their
greatness
and
fame.
Shall
Irishmen,
then,
let Irish
fade
and
perish
?
No,
a
thousand
times No
!
483
PROFESSOR BLACKIE.
With
a
slight
alteration
in a
few
of the
sentences
taken
from
the
lecture delivered
in
1864,
on the
Gaelic
language
by
Professor
Blackie,
of
the
University
of
Edinburgh,
this
volume is
brought
to
a
close.
"
In conclusion
I
say
that
the death of the Gaelic
language,
whenever
it
may
take
place,
will be
a
dead loss
to
(Scotland)
Ireland,
and therefore we
ought
to
delay
that
catastrophe,
by
every
means
in
our
power,
as
long
as
we
possibly
can.
Let us leave
it
to Prussian
bureau-
cratists,
Parisian
imperialists,
and Eussian
despots
to
ad-
vocate
the flat
monotony
of
a
centralised civilisation.
What
the
instincts
of our British
culture
point
to
as
the
proper
end of
all
social
improvement,
is
local
indepen-
dence,
local
spirit,
and
provincial
variety.
The moment
the
Gaelic
language
dies,
the
Highland
(say
the
Irish)
people,
die
with
it; for,
no
people
survives
the
death of
its
language
and
with
the
Highland
(Irish) people
dies
all
the
glory
of Keltic
chivalry,
and
all
the
wealth
of
Keltic
story
which
the
genius
of
Scott
was
proud
to
sing.
Our
glens
and our isles
which
now
tell
their
own
tale
graphically
in their
own
tongue*
will
baffle
a
corrupted
jargon
which
no man
understands,
and
be
haunted
by
traditions for
which
no man
cares.
.
.
.
The
duty
of
all true
Kelts,
at
least
in this
matter,
seems
to be
quite
plain.
Though
it
were
distinctly
known
on
earth,
as
perhaps
it is
already
registered
in
the
counsels
of
heaven,
that the
last
Gaelic-speaking
man on
Caledonian
(Hiber-
nian)
ground
shall
die in the
year
1964,
as
certainly
as
Cornish
died
with
Mrs.
.Dorothy
Pentreath
in the
year
1778,
that
would
not
alter
in the least
degree
the
duty
of
the
existing
Kelts
to their venerable mother
tongue.
Men
*
The
Keltic
dialects
seem
to excel
in
expressive
names
of
a
topographical
kind.
Their
nomenclatures are
pictures
of
the.
countries
which
they
inhabit."
JAMIESON.
BURSES
FOR GAELIC
WANTED.
489
do not
sleep
in coffins or
turn their shawls
into shrouds
because
they
know their
dust
must
return
to
the dust
from which
we
all
came.
The
Highland (Irish)
students
in
our
colleges
should
not,
in
their
eagerness
to
acquire
the
elements
of
a
few dead
languages,
forget
to cultivate
the
living power
of
their own.
Let
some
rich
Irishman
found
in
our
colleges
some
burses to
give
free
places
to
those
students,
who to the
qualifications
of
respectable
scholarship
still add a
scientific
knowledge
of
the
lan-
guage
of the
Gael,
A
Maynooth
Student
writes in 1862 :
The Keltic
tongue,
then must
it die
?
Say
shall our
language
go?
No
;
by
Ulfadha' s
kingly
soul
;
by
sainted
Lawrence,
No
!
No!
by
the
shades of saints and
chiefs,
of
holy
name on
high,
Whose
deeds,
as
they
have
lived
with
it,
must die
when it
shall
die.
No
!
by
the
memories
of the
past,
that round our
ruins
twine,
No
!
by
our
evening hope
of
suns in
coming days
to
shine,
It
shall
not
go,
it must not
die,
the
language
of our
sires.
While Erin's
glory
glads
our
souls,
or
freedom's
name
inspires,
That
lingering
ray,
from stars
gone
down,
oh ! let its
light
remain,
That
last
bright
link
with
splendours
flown,
oh
!
snap
it
not
in
twain
!
Ay,
build
ye up
the
Keltic
tongue
above
O'Curry's grave
;
Speed
ye
the
good work,
ye patriot
souls,
who
long your
land to
save
Who
long
to
light
tbe
flame
again
on
freedom's altar dead
Who
long
to
call
the
glories
back,
from
hapless
Erin
fled
Who
long
to
gem
her
saddened
brow with
queenly
wreath
again
And
raise
a
warrior
people
up,
a
nation
iu her train.
To
build
up
the
edifice of the Nation's
language
much
is
required.
The
people
must
be
taught
to
cultivate
it.
The
scholar
must
bestow
his
loving
care
on
it. All
must
be
in
earnest.
The
causes
which have
led
to
its