atmosphere of culture, of which we have just spoken, has disappeared.  We thus reach an Ireland which, in a sense, has neither culture nor language, a country in which the Gaelic spoken by a people humiliated and deeply demoralized by an anti-Catholic legislation, which was both savage and degrading, tended to coalesce with an English already condemned to death.  It is from the moment when the Catholics had finally triumphed over persecution that we must date the beginning of that political struggle with which we are familiar, a struggle which has resulted in absorbing all the energies of a great part of the population.  That is why this tremendous problem presents itself to us, at the very time when we should be justified in feeling ourselves elated by triumph because of our victories in parliament.  And let not England rejoice too much at our dilemma.  If we are doomed to die, she will die with us, for before disappearing we shall prove to be a great destructive force, and out of the ruins of the British power we shall raise such a monument that future generations will know what it costs to murder a nation.

But, if possible, we must live and let live.  The elements of reconstruction are always at hand.  Anglo-Irish culture is indeed dead, but Gaelic culture is only seriously sick, and on that side there is always room for hope.  Sooth to say, its sickness consists above all in the fact that the Irish language is no longer spoken in a great part of the country.  But, on the other hand, where it is preserved, that same language is spoken in all its purity.  By going there to find it all Ireland will gradually become Gaelic.

But, it will be objected, what a loss of time and energy!  If it is a question of languages, why not learn one of the more useful ones?  To this we may reply that, while English deforms the mouth and makes it incapable of pronouncing any language which is not spoken from the tip of the lips, Gaelic, on the contrary, so exercises the organs of speech that it renders easy the acquisition and the practice of most European idioms.  Let us add, by way of example, that French, which is usually difficult for strangers, is much more within the compass of Irishmen who speak Irish, no less because of certain linguistic customs than from the original relationship between the two languages.

This remark brings us to another objection which is often lodged against our movement.  It is urged that Ireland is already isolated enough, and that by making it a Gaelic-speaking nation, we shall make that state of affairs still worse.  English, say the objectors, is spoken more or less everywhere, while Gaelic will never be able to claim the position of a quasi-universal language.  To this line of reasoning it might be answered, for one thing, that no one can tell how far Gaelic will go, in case our movement is a success, and that many a language formerly “universal” is today as dead as a door-nail.  But we must look at the question from another point