The National Language by Eugene O'Growney

Note: This is something a bit different for this blog. I've mentioned that I've been trying to improve my knowledge of the Irish language in recent months. I've taken to reading back issues of An Sagart [The Priest], an Irish Catholic journal, on some of my tea-breaks during work. Today I read an article about Eugene O'Growney (Eoghan Ó Gromhnaigh), an Irish priest who was one of the true pioneers of the Irish language revival at the beginning of the twentieth century. He personally taught Irish to thousands of Irish people, through his massively popular newspaper lessons.

I was intrigued to learn that he wrote an article-- the very article here transcribed-- which influenced Dr. Douglas Hyde's The Necessity of De-Anglicising Ireland, a lecture which is very often taken as the trigger of the Gaelic Revival, and is sometimes even suggested as one of the catalysts of the Irish Revolution which led to independence. Seeing O'Growney's article had been published in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record in 1890, I found the relevant volume of that journal (working in a university library has its benefits), photocopied it, and read it on the bus home. I checked to see if it was available online, and, finding it was not, decided to spend the evening typing it out myself. I hope it might be of use to some researchers. I think it may also be of interest to regular readers, especially as I often blog on matters of Irish cultural identity and the preservation of tradition here.

I stayed up quite late typing this, and discovered quite a few errors (and even omissions) the next morning. I have now corrected these.

Fr. Eugene O'Growney

The death of Cardinal Newman brings to mind various events in his chequered life. It reminds the present writer of one characteristic incident, mentioned by O'Curry in the preface to those Lectures delivered by him to the students of the Catholic University, of which Newman was then rector. O'Curry had spent his life labouring in the neglected field of Irish literature. He had searched the piles of manuscripts mouldering on the shelves of libraries, public and private, throughout Ireland; he had visited the great English collection; he had visited the great English collections; manuscripts had been sent from abroad, from Belgium and from Rome, for his inspection; he had studied volumes unopened for centuries; and he had thus attained a knowledge of the native language, literature and archeology never before approached and very probably unrivalled since.

Chiefly at the instance of Newman, a Celtic chair was established in the new Catholic University; and the appointment of O'Curry as the first professor, and the constant encouragement which that great scholar received from the rector, were all characteristic of the late Cardinal. The Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Irish History, in reality sketches of Irish literature, were the outcome of O'Curry's connection with the University. Of the circumstances attending their delivery and publication we read in the preface:--

"Little did it occur to me on the occasion of my first timid appearance in that chair, that the efforts of my feeble pen would pass beyond the walls within which those lectures were delivered. There was, however, amongst my varying audiences one constant attendant, whose presence was borth embarrassing and encouraging to me...whose kindly sympathy practically showed itself... At the conclusion of the course, this great scholar and pious priest (for to whom can I allude but our late illustrious lecture, the Rev. Dr. Newman?) astonished me by announcing to me, on the part of the University, that my poor lectures were deemed worthy to be published at its expense."

The lectures were published in due course, and no one who has ever even glanced through them will assert that Irish literature is either non-existent, or scanty, or worthless. One object of Newman and of O'Curry has been gained.

But they had another object in view, as O'Curry plainly states. It was to convince the Irish Catholic public, and more especially the educated class, that to them first and of all belonged the duty of becoming acquainted with, and of learning to appreciate at their proper value, the language and literature of their ancestors. Has that end been reached? Do Irish Catholics to any extent know their native language today, or are they at all acquainted with the character of their native literature? Thirty-five years have passed since those lectures were delivered. In that time Irish Catholic education has made great strides. Yet, the number of those who can write our native language passably, or who have the slightest knowledge of our literature, is shamefully small. In whose hands do we now find those lectures, delivered in the National Catholic University, and treating of the most Catholic literature in the world? Chiefly in the hands of foreigners, and almost exclusively in the hands of non-Catholics. Those precious ecclesiastical manuscripts, first studied by O'Curry, have been published in facsimile after great toil and labour, mostly by the exertions of Dr. Atkinson of Trinity College, an Englishman and a Protestant. Two centuries ago a Tipperary priest, a fugitive in the glen of Aherlow, with a price on his head, composed valuable and beautiful works-- some ascetical, others historical. After that lapse of time, the most important of these has just been set forth, not by a priest, nor by an Irishman, nor by a Catholic, but by the same Dr. Atkinson. An immense body of medieval sermons, Catholic of course to the core, have been given to Celtic students, again by Dr. Atkinson. The calendar of saints composed by the monk Aengus has been printed by Whitley Stokes, an Irishman indeed, and of distinguished family, but not a Catholic. To him, too, has been left the honour of preparing the first edition of the famous Irish life of St. Patrick, and of publishing the lives of the early saints from The Book of Lismore, writings which throw so much light on the faith and usages of the old Irish Church. We find a Protestant clergyman preparing a dictionary of the words used by the monks who in a Donegal convent arranged the old Irish annals. We see Max Nettlau, a German, preparing the text of our great epic, the Táin Bó. Dr. Kuno Meyer and others spend year studying the glowing, romantic, and poetic literature of ancient Erin, and of the early Christian period-- a literature which carries us back thousands of years, giving us charming glimses of old Celtic life. Even the organ of workers [i.e., scholars] in the old and middle Irish is published and supported at Paris; articles on Gaelic subjects are frequent in foreign periodicals, far more so than in papers written for Irishmen; and our standard grammars are drawn up by German scholars. Again, it is a German and Dr. Stokes who are prepared to print, at their own expense, that great collection of words collected by O'Curry, and thought to have been lost until recently discovered among the manuscripts in Clonliffe College.

It was, therefore, with a feeling of shame that a distinguished Irish-American noted, the other day,

"Two puzzling facts in recent Irish history.  First, the interest that Protestants and foreigners take in the language and literature of that country; a language and a literature not only full of the spirit and teachings of Irish Catholicity, but which contain in themselves the seeds of the strongest and most aggressive Catholic tradition in the world. The other fact, no less puzzling, is the callous indifference or open hostility of the clergy and politicians to the native speech and literature."

These are, indeed, puzzling facts, and bitter to think on; but we do not think on them, and so we avoid their bitterness. They are facts, certainly; for what are the great names among Celtic scholars of today? In addition to those already mentioned, those of Ascoli, Ebel, Gaidoz, de Jubainville, Nigra, Rhys, Thurneysen, Windisch, Zimmer, Zimmerman, occur to anyone interested in Celtic research. All these are foreigners; and nearly all non-Catholics. On the other hand, if we search among Irish Catholics, we find no layman of eminence, no one able to fill the place of Sullivan or Hennessy. Dr. Joyce and Mr. Flannery of London appear but seldom. Then in the clerygy, we shall meet with very few Irish scholars. There are eight or nine in the regular orders. The secular clergy are represented by Dr. McCarthy, and one or two others rarely en evidence, and by a handful of the younger priests, willing, it may be, and earnest, but without influences or opportunities. Now, many of the priests in Irish-speaking districts are fine speakers. It was often my privilege to listen to eloquent sermons in beautiful Gaelic, almost rivalling the language of Keating himself, and as often had I to regret that those speakers could not, through want of some acquaintance with the written language, contribute, as they were otherwise qualified to do, to our modern Gaelic literature, as our brother Celts, the Welsh clergy, do for their own prose and poetry.

It is in a humbler class of society that the lovers of our ancient speech are to be looked for-- among the ranks of the school-teachers. Some of those devote their evenings, after their hard day's works, and their well-earned leisure time, to committing to writing, as well as they can teach themselves to do, some of that great body of folk-lore handed down orally from one generation to another, which is yet to be met with in those parts of Ireland where the vernacular is the language chiefly used. Better still, some, with the encouragement of their managers, qualify themselves to teach the native language to their pupils, with the happy result that the children speak, read, and write, both English and Irish. And, as the Bishop of Waterford noticed, the children who were thus taught their own language first, and through it learned other things , had a far better knowledge, of their religious duties especially, than the children sent to schools where Irish is not recognised as not worth teaching.

It must be confessed, however, that the number of Irish-teaching schools, although increasing, is very small. Out of the thousands of schools in which the children of the nation are educated, but forty-five encourage the national language; out of the tens of thousands of Irish boys and girls growing up in those schools, only eight hundred and twenty-six were examined last year in Irish. Only about three or four hundred people in Ireland have a respectable knoweldge of the written language. In those days of education we are forced, then, to ask ourselves does education mean Anglicisation? Can education, which ought to be a development of the power of the mind, have anything in common with a system which neglects and practically scorns that great power of speaking a magnificent language which children have in the Irish-speaking counties-- a power which our foreign friends, after years of study, are glad to obtain even imperfectly? Besides, it is not right to encourage a regard for national characteristics? If so, let me set down some of the many anomalies which present themselves to anyone, especially a foreigner, interested in the Irish language.

I. As to the position of the language in the elementary schools of the country, something has been already said. The school-teachers cannot be blamed so much as the system which forbids Irish to be taught to children until they have reached the fifth class, just when many other eligible extra subjects present themselves, and when youth, the proper time for learning a language, is to a great extent passed. Moreover, it insists that Irish, if taught at all, shall be taught outside schools hours. Now, who could expect that children would like to learn anything, when doing so would mean spending even a short time extra in school? And as for the teachers, they have no inducement to teach Irish when they can more easily present pupils for examination in other extra subjects which will procure equally great, or grater, results fees. And, in fact, it is not the slight fees held out by the National system that attract teachers to establish Irish classes, so much as the prizes offered by a generous Protestant clergyman living in Wales, the Rev. E. Cleaver.

II. Looking round the higher schools and colleges we find the native language practically ignored. In all Ireland, only two hundred and seventy-four passed in Irish at the late Intermediate Examinations; of these two hundred and thirty-four came from the Christian Brothers' schools, leaving forty to all the seminaries and colleges of the country. In none of the Irish-speaking counties is the vernacular recognized in the local colleges, except in two. And at the same time French and German pupils are brought over to teach Irish boys and girls the intricacies of foreign languages. Granted that there are, as I believe there are, more today than there have been for the last two centuries who can write and read Irish, there are surely far more who can write and read French, German and Italian-- languages almost useless after four years to the vast majority; while a magnificent language, which it ought to be our pride, as it is our duty, to foster and cultivate, is despised and allowed to die.

III. Few of us have been taught to look upon the loss of a language linked with the fate of this country for three thousand years, as a sudden calamity, or to regard its preservation as a national duty. And so even private students, with rare exceptions, see it decay with indifference. In the periodicals we read articles over Irish names, upon all subjects except history, language and literature of Ireland.

IV. It cannot be denied that the trusted political leaders of the people, and many priests in Irish-speaking districts, are unable or unwilling to speak to their audiences in the language the latter best understand, and which the speakers, if consistent, should encourage.

V. Foreign scholars-- German, French, English, Danish-- become enamoured of our language-- peculiar in itself, valuable to the ethnologist and philologist, powerful, and delicate as a medium for conveying thought, sweet, and musical when correctly spoken-- and of our rich and varied literature. They come from Paris, Berlin, and Leipzig to spend their leisure time working in the Dublin libraries, or in Oxford, or the British Museum, studying dusty scrolls and envying us our better opportunities of seeing the manuscripts which are, they assure us, most precious, and which we in our ignorance look upon as waste paper. Naturally, they are surprised that the learned of the Island of Saints and Scholars, of which they have heard so much, should be blind to the treasures which lie at their own doors; and then, they say, where is the much-vaunted patriotism of Ireland, whoen they ignore the greatest proof of their nationhood?

And here is a question we may put ourselves. Granted that many of the richest and subtlest Irish Catholic minds are engrossed with professional studies and duties, with political questions, with those great social problems which now-a-days present themselves at every turn, or with special studies for which there may be a special apttitude that one should encourage; granted all this, do there not still remain many who intend to read or study something, and who can choose their subject? And if so, have not the native language and literature, a claim prior to that of foreign studies?

At the Welsh Eistedfood [cultural festival], held in Bangor a few weeks ago, Canon Farrar made use of the following eloquent words:--

"When a language has such a history and such a literature as the Welsh, it is a possession which men ought not readily to let die; and when God has created a nationality, and has surrounded it with rivers, with hills, and with the sea of its rampart and its girdle, the world is all the poorer when such nationality disappears."

The words, coming from a distinguished English scholar, may be applied, and with tenfold force, in favour of our own language, literature and nationality. Are the thoughts of generations of Irishmen, enshrined in their own natural language, to be forgotten? or is Ireland, after three thousand years, to throw away her ancient tongue, a bond which connects her with such a past history as hers is, and which would be for aye [forever] a proof of her distinct nationhood?

"But what use is the Irish? This wailing over the language is all sentimentality." This is a common objection. Well, it is sentimentality, and patriotism is but a sentiment also, and the two sentimentalities are closely connected. Yes, it is sentimentality to long for the revival of the national language, and to wish to see the national history and literature in their due place of honour; but it is true patriotism as well. Witness Archbishop MacHale, a great and consistent patriot, who during his life did all he could to encourage his people to use their native language, and who understood the translation into Irish of a considerable portion of Holy Scripture (the only authorized Catholic portion of Scripture we have), of Moore's National Melodies, and even of half of the Iliad. Witness again Henry Flood, Grattan's contemporary, who left his large fortune for the encouragement of the native tongue. Again, we can point to Petrie, Todd, Hudson, and to many others.

And yet it is not all sentimentality. Many a mind which might make a stir in Ireland is being left dark and uneducated in the Irish-speaking districts today, as the school inspectors can testify. And not a few people are left without religious instruction through want of one who will teach them in the language they understand. I could mention instances of this myself.

It surely stands to reason that the history, language, and literature of a country are sacred national trusts. It is evident, too, that much of the most interesting portion of Irish history, the earlier part, is as yet only a skeleton, which must be filled up from the study of early literature. Again, take our antiquities. To preserve our historical monuments, and to record their connection with historic events, is a good work; but I cannot help thinking that much labour and energy are uselessly thrown away by the dry-as-dust school of antiquarians in maintaining baseless or doubtful theories, while the great national monuments, our language and literature, are neglected and allowed to perish. Not that the modern Gaelic is a ruin, by any means, in itself; it is sound and vigorous; but it is being sapped from without.

The language has no literature. This ridiculous objection has been met a hundred times, but I suppose it will continue to be brought forward as long as people neglect to inquire into the facts before pronouncing their judgement. No one who has read O'Curry's book, or De Jubainville's catalogue of our epic literature, or even O'Reilly's meagre list of writers, or who has seen those tomes in the Royal Irish Academy, which contains but an index to the one thousand four hundred volumes onf manuscripts preserved there, can deny the extent, at least, of Gaelic literature. As for the character of this literature, we find Mr. Alfred Nutt, a recognised authority on ethnology and early history, record hs opinion--

"That except the Hellenic, the Irish sagas are the only considerable mass of Aryan epic tradition. As evidence of the most archaic side of Aryan civilization, the Táin Bó Cuailgne [Cattle Raid of Cooley] is inferior only to the Iliad or the Odyssey."

And we may be sure that there is something valuable in the literature, to study which foreign scholars come to the Dublin libraries, collate various manuscripts with much toil, and rough it in the coast villages and islands, as we see them do, in order to acquire a better insight into the structure of the spoken Gaelic, and so obtain a key to the difficulties of the older language. Those scholars, who are acquainted with all European literatures, assure us that the Irish medieval and earlier literature stands unrivalled, except by a portion of the classics.

One reason why so little is generally known of Irish literature is found in the fact that much of it is anonymous-- copied by scribes from older manuscripts. There are some promininent names, however, but these are seldom heard of; whilst the names and works of even obscure English and Contintental writers are familiar to Irish boys and girls. It is to be regretted that we have no handy manual of Irish literature, Dr. Windisch's article ("Keltische Sprachen") in the new German encyclopedia would make an excellent little book, if translated and printed separately, as it gives in a small compass a reliable account of all the Cletic languages and literatures.

Upon the Irish Catholics the study of Irish literature has a special claim. We maintain that the faith we hold is identical with that taught by St. Patrick and his successors; that they were, as we are, Roman Catholic. It has been the aim of Protestant Irishmen to persuade their co-religionists that they alone hold the pure patrician teaching, now, as always uninfluenced by Rome. Strong articles by good writers have appeared quite recently in support of their contention, and, very probably this historic-religious question will be discussed warmly in a short time, when present burning questions shall have been settled. If this discussion were put upon us tomorrow, how many have we competent to support our claim by arguments drawn from our extensive ecclesiastical literature? Newman had experience of the value of such arguments, and no wonder he was so much interested in O'Curry's works. The study of  Irish literature is but in its infancy; many things must occur in a literature so extensive and so thoroughly Catholic to throw light on the exact belief of the early Celtic Church. It has been shown that those who study the literature are practically non-Catholics, and such men might not see, or might be tempted to slur over, a point in favour of our position.

So that even if Irish were to perish as a spoken language, the literature would remain valuable from the pure literature point of view, and still more valuable from the Catholic standpoint. And now we come to the question; Is the national language really fated to perish? According to the last census, eight hundred thousand people in Ireland can speak Irish; sixty thousand can speak no other language. More than two million in America can speak in Irish. And yet, if things do not change, it is certain that in another century the spoken language will have disappeared for ever. Things are changing. For the last five centuries the history of the language has been a history, first of active repression by penal laws, then of a more fatal and more shameful neglect, and until very recently, ill-concealed adversity to the language, on the part of influential Irishmen. Not one Irishman having control or influence in the education of the country has ever spoken or done anything worth mentioning for the national language. And when the Irish has lived through all this, when better days are dawning, public opinion becoming more and more national, and prominent Irishmen beginning to take an active interest in the old tongue, have we not every reason to hope and to look forward to its revival, to some extent, at least? Already it is creeping into the schools, if not into the colleges. No one is found to disparage it, as it used to be disparaged a few years ago; and even this is something. A century since, the Welsh was in as bad a state as our language is in at present, until by the exertions of a few patriotic clergymen, public opinion was aroused in its favour. The result is, that Welsh is now a popular, say, a fashionable language, as is evidenced from the fact that at the last Eisteddfod the Bishop of Bangor opened the proceedings by reciting a Welsh ode composed by himself for the occasion, and that other eminent Welshmen, lay and clerical, recited various compositions in prose and poetry. I wonder shall we ever see the like in Ireland. Another result is that the children are taught the two languages concurrently; the schoolbooks have Welsh and English on opposite pages, and the children know English better than those in the neighbouring English schools. They have twenty-four newspapers-- daily, weekly, and monthly, and a vigorous, living and racy literature.

This, too, is what those interested in Irish aim at. It is not to banish English-- that would be, first of all, impossible, and also absurd. Listen, again, to the words of Canon Farrar:-- "Neither I, nor any man in his senses, dream for a moment of doing anything to hinder the universal prevalence of English. But the prevalence of English is something very different from the exclusive dominance of it. We wish that every child should speak English perfectly, and should also speak...its native language perfectly." That this state of education is a possible one is proved by its success in Wales and in other countries. That it is desirable is evident, if the only aim of education be not to make us more English than the English themselves. It is clear, too, that if the language is to be saved, immediate steps must be resolutely taken by those who have control of educational establishments of all kinds.

E. GROWNEY.  

Fine Article on the Maltese Bishops' Green Light to Adultery by Madelaine Teahan

Here.

When prelates such as the Maltese bishops speculate about when “living ‘as brothers and sisters’ becomes humanly impossible”, we can infer that they are referring to [situations where a husband has left his wife and she has married another man, and where she fears being abandoned if she asks to live as brother and sister]. But whom should the Church side with in these situations? The Catholic woman who wants to remain abstinent, or the husband who puts his sexual frustration above his wife’s principles?

Theological problems aside, surely Catholic women deserve a more pastoral response than “Sorry, but you’d better give him what he wants.” If the Church were to adopt these guidelines across the world, it is women who would suffer most, with the Church cravenly looking the other way.

The wife of EWTN host Raymond Arroyo (as Mr. Arroyo himself mentioned on air) described the proposal of granting Communion to some divorced and remarried people, without an annullment or sexual abstinence, as "open season on first wives."

I agree that this change in pastoral practice (in those diocese where it is introduced) will hurt women especially. But I've also felt irritated on behalf of my own sex when I read some of the things written by its apologists. In all cases we are presented with the example of a woman abandoned by her husband and frightened to refuse her new husband sexual relations for fear he will leave her. 

First of all, it's not unknown for wives to abandon husbands, not all of whom are furniture-throwing drunks.

But, more pertinently-- what a dismal view of men! What a low standard to hold them to! The male libido may be a fairly crude drive, comparatively speaking, but social history alone should tell us that it is perfectly capable of being restrained. Unfortunately we live in a culture where men are encouraged to think of their sexual urges as implacable demands, and their masculinity as validated through their satisfaction. It seems to me that the Church is bowing to this assumption, rather than fulfilling its traditional role of holding us all (and not simply 'inviting' us all) to a higher standard.

Interesting Links About Amoris Laetita from Edward Feser.

Here.

The fact that the Maltese bishops ae now effectively sanctioning adultery makes it clear, I think, that clarification is necessary.

I read the document attentively and with docility. I believe (as one of the four cardinals who issued the duba said) that the problem lies not in the text of the document itself, but in the way it has been interpreted.

What I Believe In

I had the idea today to include a "featured post" permanently on my sidebar, in order to explain in reasonable detail what I believe in, and what I care about. I've noticed that this is always the thing I look for when I visit blogs myself, so it seems only courteous to include one here.

First and last, I am a Catholic. I was born and baptised a Catholic, and raised in a Catholic home, but it was only in my thirties that I came to accept the faith intellectually, and to practice it. Before that I was somewhere between atheism and agnosticism. I believe all that the Church authoritatively teaches, from the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist to the evil of contraception.

I have no problem calling myself a conservative Catholic. (Labels are useful.) I believe the Catholic Chuch should be more assertive, not less so. I'm dismayed by the prevalence of left-wing politics and political correctness even amongst orthodox Catholics, from laymen to bishops. However, I also believe that all my fellow Catholics are my brothers and sisters, and I listen with respect to the pastors God has ordained me. I agree with Lord Acton that "Communion with Rome is dearer than life". Reading the history of the Catholic Church fills me with pride, not shame. My faith is everything to me.

Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, has called for "a humble and listening Church." With all due respect to His Grace, I believe that the Church has been too "humble and listening" in recent decades, greatly to its detriment and to the detriment of society in general. I do not believe that what today's men and women need most from the Church is that it should "walk with them", listen to them, or validate them. They can get that from any talk show host, New Age guru, or therapist. I believe that today's men and women need the Church to speak the truth of Christ to them, in a loving but firm way. The idea that the Church is suffering from excessive rigourism seems frankly bizarre to me. I believe that mainstream society will respect the Church more if it proclaims its message more confidently and less apologetically.

Nor do I have any problem calling myself a conservative in general. The particular conservatism I embrace is traditionalist conservatism. (I'm also happy to call myself a romantic conservative.) I have not read a great deal of Edmund Burke, but I think I can call myself a Burkean conservative. I cherish the web of traditions that society has woven over generations and centuries, and it grieves my heart to see it injured or torn down. I do not consider "backward-looking" to be an insult. I believe a country that ceases to cherish its history and traditions has lost its soul and faces inevitable alienation.

Emund Burke. I hear he's very good.

I'm even happy to accept the label "right wing". I like "right wing" because it implies a healthy intolerance, a healthy combativeness. Don't get me wrong. Tolerance and open-mindedness are good things in themselves. But there are some ideas and attitudes which deserve only ridicule, and still others which deserve only the fiercest opposition. (We must always bear in mind the human element, of course. An insecure teenager should not receive the same reaction as a mature man or woman who should know better. Context matters.)

You will encounter the word "tradition" over and over again on this blog. I think the importance of tradition to the human spirit can hardly be exaggerated. By this I mean all traditions; national traditions, local traditions, family traditions, artistic traditions, sporting traditions, and every other kind. Tradition, paradoxically, gives us both a sense of home, and a horizon-- it opens up a horizon through time and it opens up a horizon in the realm of imagination.

I also cherish the idea of difference-- the difference between national cultures, the difference between men and women, the difference between children and adults, the difference between private and public, and so on. The imagination of our age is one that is fired by the obliteration of boundaries, the fusion of opposites, the deconstruction of stable identities. I find that very dull. I think insularism is much more exciting than multiculturalism, provincialism much more exciting than cosmopolitanism, masculinity and femininity much more exciting than gender-bending, and so on.

I am an Irish nationalist. My Irish nationalism is not really concerned with the 'national question' of whether Northern Ireland remains part of the UK or joins the Republic of Ireland. I grew up with the horrors of The Troubles, and have no desire to see them re-ignited. My Irish nationalism is, rather, cultural and social in nature. I cherish the ideals of the Gaelic Revival, perhaps best expressed in Douglas Hyde's 1892 lecture "The Necessity of De-Anglicizing Ireland." (Not that I am anti-English. I love England and Englishness. I am as eager to see England embrace its Englishness as I am to see Ireland embrace its Irishness.)

This means I am a revivalist, as well as a conservative. The Gaelic Revival achieved a great deal, especially in the field of reviving native sports and music. However, the Irish people abandoned it, as a concerted programme, a few decades after independence for no better reason (in my opinion) than fickleness, and an infatuation with international pop culture as seen on TV.

After decades of being annoyed by Irish language enthusiasts, I have come to agree with them that the revival of the Irish language is by far and away the most important element of Irish national revival. "Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam"-- a country without a language is a country without a soul. Although I attended an Irish language school (for which I have come to be immensely grateful to my parents), I never attained fluency. In the last year or so I have made a huge effort to read more Irish and to speak in Irish where possible. My beloved wife Michelle, an American, encouraged me in this.

I have little patience for the pedants who question the 'authenticity' of the Gaelic Revival's vision of Gaelicness. Creativity and invention play a part in revival. I have no problem with "creative anachronism". It's the Gaelic sublime which matters, not the reconstruction of some particular way of life. Gaelic Ireland is a land of the imagination.

I am strongly opposed to globalization, and I would like to see every country in the world protect its sovereignty, borders and national identity. I would like to see the European Union dissolve. In America, I sympathise with "states' righters"'. The day the UK voted to leave the EU was one of the happiest days of my life. None of this means that I am opposed to international cooperation and friendship, reasonable migration, and humanitarian assitance. I want a world of nations, not a global village.

Nigel Farage, hero

I am a democrat. Not because I think the majority are always right, but because I agree with Churchill that democracy is the worst system that has ever been devised, apart from all the others. The tyranny of the majority can be bad, but I can't think of any case where it's been as bad as the tyranny of a Stalin or Hitler or Elizabeth the First. Not only this, but I think that elections and politics are an important part of forging a national consciousness and public spirit.

However, my democracy goes somewhat deeper. I don't think people are "sheeple", even when I disagree with the majority. I don't think I'm any better than the next man. I don't think the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. I think the ordinary is beautiful.

Because I am a traditionalist, I am also a monarchist-- not an absolute monarchist, but a constitutional monarchist. I believe in a monarch as a figurehead, a personification of national unity and continuity.

When it comes to economics, I am pretty agnostic. I find the sort of people who attribute every social ill to "capitalism" to be tiresome, especially when they are Catholic. I am only slightly less irritated by the kind of bullish right-winger who sees "government" as the source of all social ills. If they spent one day writing down all the things they did that relied on the existence of a functioning government, usually to provide some good that would never be provided by market forces alone, they might stop saying such silly things.

Capitalism is just another word for economic reality.  What sort of capitalism should we have? That's the question. I think Catholic social doctrine admits of many possible answers to that question. I think economics is less important than culture.

Dirk Benedict. Another hero.

I am pretty much opposed to all forms of modern art, especially when it comes to poetry. I think poetry should (usually) rhyme, scan, make sense, and address itself to the common reader and universal themes. I think radical breaks with artistic tradition are always a bad thing. I think art that concerns itself with form over content is decadent. I think poetry is very important, and that the neglect of poetry by modern society is a very bad thing. I think John Betjeman and Philip Larkin were the last major English-language poets.

I think high culture should draw from folk culture, from folk life. I have no problem (in principle) with censorship of culture on the grounds of indecency, blasphemy or danger to public morals.

Although I'm not a libertarian, I have some libertarian leanings. I think free speech on matters of political and social debate should be untrammeled, and that free speech and freedom of association need to be ardently defended in our time of rampant political correctness. I'm inclined to believe in the right to bear arms (something I once strongly opposed). 

I believe that feminism is a philosophy of hatred, in practice if not in theory, in general if not in every instance. Feminists might reply that feminism is simply about equality for women. My first response to this is that I simply don't believe it's true. I've read plenty of feminist texts and I've heard plenty of feminist speakers in my near-forty years, and most of them were much more intent on demonising men than in cheering for equality. Besides, the word 'equality' means so many different things to different people that "equality for women" doesn't tell me anything. Does the male-only Catholic priesthood, for instance, violate this equality?

I love women to bits. I think men and women need each other. 

I'm a romantic. Everybody is a utilitarian to some extent, but I delight in anything that contradicts utilitarianism, if the consequences are not fatal or tragic or excessive. The Irish law against the sale of alcohol on Good Friday delights me, because it makes no rational sense whatsoever. I like irregularity, mystique, ceremony, ritual, taboo, discrepancy. Curtains make a house a home.

Macy's Thankgiving Parade

I love America. USA! USA! USA! I'm not talking about the "other" America of Allen Ginsberg and Noam Chomsky, either. I mean rootin', tootin', stars-and-stripes, Macy's parade, root beer-drinking, have-a-great-day-y'all America.

I love England-- white cliffs of Dover, Big Ben, Carry On, fish and chips, 221B Baker Street, John Constable England.

I deeply admire the Jewish people, especially their dedication to family and tradition. I mention this because, tragically, there are many conservatives with whom I am in strong agreement on many other subjects, but whose worldview is marred by anti-semitism. I don't get it. Why should we hate the Jews for being, on the whole, so dedicated to the very values we hold dear? If only every people were as loyal to their traditions as the Jewish people are loyal to theirs!

G.K. Chesterton is my great hero and biggest influence. I can't resist reproducing here my two favourite quotations from him, passages which I frequently quote on this blog, and which go to the heart of my own philosophy on so many matters:
  
1) In everything worth having, even in every pleasure, there is a point of pain or tedium that must be survived, so that the pleasure may revive and endure. The joy of battle comes after the first fear of death; the joy of reading Virgil comes after the bore of learning him; the glow of the sea-bather comes after the icy shock of the sea bath; and the success of the marriage comes after the failure of the honeymoon. All human vows, laws, and contracts [I would add traditions!] are so many ways of surviving with success this breaking point, this instant of potential surrender.

2) Nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. 

I don't believe in the death penalty, because the thought of telling a human being that he is going to be killed at a particular time is sickening. I think society has a right to punish wrong-doers, but that the deprivation of liberty is punishment enough for anybody, and that jails should be as humane as we can make them.

I believe everyone is equal in human dignity. I think it's silly to expect equality of outcome in any human activity, and oppressive to legislate for it.

I believe in snow globes, cosy pubs, strong steaming cups of tea, happy endings, cheering for the underdog, sentimentality, morning mists, thick snow, Santa Claus, ghost stories, parlour games, and eccentricity.

I believe in Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, the same yesterday, today and forever.

Remembering my Mother

Today is the sixteenth anniversary of my mother's death. The year 2001 looms large in my memory. Of course, the 9/11 attacks are an important memory for everybody. But it was also the year my mother died, the year I did a training course in the Allen Library archive (now defunct), and the year I began to work in UCD.

It's hard for me to remember my mother, because I feel so guilty for taking her so much for granted. It's hard to think of all the meals made, all the clothes washed, all the limitless work that goes into raising a child for which I never really showed appreciation. I think if she had lived a few years longer I would have shown appreciation. We lost her at the time I was most aimless and lost.

Because I was very withdrawn at this time, I was terrified of being considered a mammy's boy. I wasn't as close to her as I should have been for this reason. (The healthy response to that would have to become more outgoing and extroverted.)

A strange distance and embarrassment had grown up between us in her last years-- on my side, at least-- and I sometimes feel 'stuck' on this. Even when I speak to her in my prayers now, I feel this. I never really spoke to her as an adult, because even though I was in my early twenties when she died, I was more like a teenager-- and a particularly immature one at that.

She died of an extremely rare disease (in its fatal form, at least) called amyloidosis. She was in an out of hospital for years before she died. I also feel intensely guilty for not being as loving as I should have been in those years.

My mother was from Limerick. She had a rather strange childhood. Her father died young, and her mother remarried, but, although my uncle and aunt lived with their stepfather and my grandmother, my mother didn't. She went to live with an aunt in Blackrock, a well-heeled area of Dublin. I understand that my aunt was quite genteel.

When I was a child, I had an excellent book called How to Hold a Crocodile, full of miscellaneous information. One article explained the different glasses to be used for different alcoholic drinks, and how far each should be filled. "I had to know all that stuff when I was a girl, when we had visitors", she told me. "Did you know how much to fill them?", I asked. "Oh, you always filled them all the way up", she said, laughing. Maybe they weren't that genteel.

I like to think of my mother's rural background. I have never been a very convicted Dubliner. I think the soul of a nation is in its countryside.

Recently, I saw a video clip of her that had been unearthed from a television archive. (She was in various community organisations in Ballymun and was being interviewed by a current affairs programme.) As we have no recordings of her I hadn't heard her voice for over a decade. I was amazed at the difference between the voice on the clip and the voice I remembered. It was much more cultured and much more rural than I remember.

My mother was by no means a snob but she did carry an air of distinction with her in the very working class atmosphere of Ballymun. As Ballymun was full of high-rise apartments at that time, it was common for people to stand at the bottom of the apartment and shout up to someone living in it. I won't say my sister's name, but it's a single-syllable name-- not so easy to shout, so her friends broke it into a diphthong when they shouted for her. "There's only one syllable in that name", my mother called back from our window, on one immortal occasion.

When my mother died, a big crowd gathered for the funeral and I heard her described as a saint over and over. You never think of someone as a saint when they are living in the same home as you.

It was my mother who brought me and my brother to Mass, spasmodically. I hated it, not out of any dislike of Mass or religion itself, but because it meant the end of the weekend. (I liked Christmas Mass, though.) She wasn't ostentatiously pious. The only religious remark I can remember her making was: "Judas was damned for despairing, not for betraying." She may have made others, but I don't remember them.

My father never brought us to Mass that I can remember, but he would take us into the pro-Cathedral when we were in town. On birthdays, we would go into the city centre to buy a present, have fizzy orange and crisps in the Flowing Tide pub, and then light a candle in the Pro-Cathedral. (The Catholic cathedral in Dublin is popularly known as the Pro-Cathedral, short for Provisional Cathedral, because the Protestants commandeered the existing Catholic cathedral at the Reformation, and the Cathedral that was built to replace it was regarded as provisional.)

Other than big ceremonial events like funerals, the only time I can remember my parents and myself in a place of worship together was during one of my mother's many stays in Beaumount Hospital. We went into the oratory to say a prayer. It's one of my oustanding memories-- a "purple notebook" moment. I remember the oratory as being quite modern and strange-looking, and, although I was at least an agnostic and more an atheist at this time, I felt a very strong sense of God's otherness and presence.

One of the reasons I felt distant from her in the last years was because I thought she must have been disappointed in me. After she died, I heard she slept with my poems under her pillow in hospital, which astounded me. I never would have guessed this.

I have no digital pictures of her. Her name was Mary Patricia but she used the name Patricia or Pat-- she told me that every second girl of her generation was called Mary, so most of them used their middle names.

There is a rowan tree planted to her outside the Irish language school, Scoil an tSeachtar Laoch, in Ballymun, in the small sloped field between the back gate and the carpark. It is planted in the name of her brother and sister, who are now both deceased as well, and it has a plaque beside it. Every time I pass it, unless I am in a particular hurry, I stop to say a prayer. Even now I feel remorseful and strangely embarrassed, but I ask her to pray for me.

Former Irish Government Minister Berates Current Irish Government Minister on the Idea of Staffless Libraries

As published in The Irish Times.

"A library is a place of human interaction." Well, not really-- at least, that hardly seems one of its defining characteristics.

I don't like the idea of staffless libraries, but I think it should be (or at least, it will be) the public who decides whether they want or don't want them. Libraries themselves have been cutting their own throats by pushing people towards self-service machines and trying to make every interaction an online interaction, The argument is always that there is more productive, stimulating work to be done behind the scenes and that it is "freeing up staff". But the public is always dubious when they are told about all the important work that goes on behind the scenes, whether it's the police, hospitals, banks or libraries. And can you blame them?

I was arguing passionately against the dehumanisation of libraries seven or eight years ago. Few people in my own library bothered to support me. I can't get very worked up about it now. What will be, will be.