Gaelic literature

“ The Gaelic poetry of the last two centuries is the most sensuous attempt to convey music in words ever made by man. It is absolutely impossible to convey the lusciousness of sound, richness of rhythm, and perfection of harmony in another language."
Discounting what we will in the natural enthusiasm of one who has devoted himself heart and soul to the cause of the Gaelic tongue and of Irish literature, quite enough remains to carry the contention for the continuing interest of native Irish poetry after so many centuries. ”

“ In talking once of the emotional element of the Celtic nature, an enthusiastic Irish scholar jocularly remarked to the writer that the Gael was dying away in song. If this turns out to be true, it is evident that his remains will be examined with pious and scientific care.
It is interesting to find that, meagre as Gaelic literature is—and the great wonder is that what we have should have been produced in so unpromising a field—it extends over sixteen centuries. ”

“ Apart from a well-meant but wholly inadequate version of Schiller’s Tell, the only non-religious work which can be termed literature existing in a Gaelic translation is a portion of the Arabian Nights, though fragments of other classics such as Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare have appeared in magazines. The one-sided character of Gaelic literature, in addition to exercising a baneful influence on Highland character, has in the long run of necessity proved adverse to the vitality of the language. The best standard of Gaelic is by common consent the language of the Scriptures. ”

“ Towards the close of the eighteenth century, when translations of Gaelic poetry brought the genius of the Celtic spirit in contact with the intellectual forces of modern Europe, many who hitherto despised our Gaelic literature, began to look into this neglected field. ”

“ On the other hand, Irish qualities of temperament and mind bear such fair fruit in literature and art as might be imagined springing from the Gallic stem but for the Roman graft. [148]
No trustworthy story can be put together from the myth, tradition, and conscious fiction which record the unprogressive [Pg 128] turbulence of pre-Christian Ireland. But the Irish character and capacities are clearly mirrored in this enormous Gaelic literature. Truculence and vanity pervade it, and a passion for hyperbole. A weak sense of fact and a lack of steady rational purpose are also conspicuous. ”

“ There would be Gaelic games, Gaelic songs, Gaelic dances and a Gaelic literature. "I don't see why we shouldn't have a theatre in every village, with village actors and village plays.... There must be a great deal of talent hidden away in these houses that never comes out because there is no one to bring it out.... I wish you were older, Henry, and were quit of Trinity. You and I ... and Galway ... of course, we must have Galway ... might start the Movement on a swifter course than it has now!..." He broke off and made a gesture of impatience. "Oh, my God, why can't a man do more!" ”

“ Up to the time of the Union the Gaelic language had preserved intact, in spite of Penal Laws and the instruments of repression, all that was most vital in the national spirit. Tales of warriors and heroes, of the long wars of the Gael with the stranger, the sighs of love and the aspirations of devotion, satire and encomium, all the literature and song of a people were enshrined in the native tongue. ”

“ But we must pass on now to the later period of Gaelic literature, in which the modern developments have their beginning. The Scots Gael entered on a new phase, we are told, with Mary MacLeod (Mairi ni'n Alastair Ruaidh) , who was born at Harris in 1569, and died a centenarian in Skye in 1674. Mairi was as perfect an example of the folk-minstrel as Celtic literature can provide; for she could not even write, although her prosody is elaborate, and her metres often intricate and original to a degree. ”

“ Mr Hector MacLean, of Ballygrant, Islay, an able Gaelic scholar, and a man of real culture and literary talent, helped him in transcribing the Gaelic, while he himself transferred the tales into literal idiomatic English. It has been fortunate for our limited Gaelic literature that Mr Campbell has left us so much of our popular prose in these goodly four volumes, and so much of genuine ballad poetry in his “Leabhar na Féinne.” I give a specimen of these tales in translation. Space will not admit of giving the sgeulachd complete ”

“ The question, Gaelic or no Gaelic, has, we fear, been too long treated in a sentimental point of view. For example, we see it fervently argued that Highlanders should be able to understand and relish the ancient Gaelic poetry, as if an acquaintanceship with a few old songs and ballads were a primary concern in life. Poor people nailed to a sterile soil by their hereditary ignorance of English, are to be congratulated for their knowledge of some poem which the world at large never heard of, and does not care about! ”

“ It is premature yet to judge what position she may take among the Gaelic bards. Her songs, superior as some of them are, have not yet been accorded much popularity. There is a sort of straining—an occasional abstruse Browning element in her Gaelic pieces—which is probably the cause of this and which has evidently resulted from too close a following of the abstract conceptions of modern English poets, the natural utterance of which Gaelic is somewhat unfitted for. She possesses keen and nervous sensibilities, and looks at nature with a warm, sympathetic, and observant eye. ”

“ There is no dry-as-dust. The extracts comprise mythology, legend, folklore, poems, songs, street-ballads, essays, oratory, history, science, memoirs, fiction, travel, drama, wit, and humour. The vast majority are chosen as being specially expressive of Irish nationality. Choice is made both from the Gaelic and the Anglo-Irish literatures, but the ancient Gaelic literature is given solely in translation. ”

“ All these are genuine productions of the Gaelic popular mind. No stigma or suspicion attaches to them. Some of them are at least as ancient as the time of Dean Macgregor—400 years ago; and they were regarded as ancient then. In character and spirit they resemble—are in many cases only Scottish versions of—the kindred literature of the Gael of Ireland; and possess much definite value to the student of social life and the philologist. ”

“ The homogeneity which is so marked a feature of Gaelic is lacking in Welsh literature, and whilst the one community has preserved the traditional romance with marvellous fulness and accuracy, the other has allowed it to perish almost utterly. ”

“ The conditions under which Gaelic traditional literature has come into being are precisely those I have previously indicated. The professional literary class was strong, and very well organised; it elaborated and handed down extremely rigid literary conventions; it effected a compromise with the representatives of Christian classic culture which enabled the preservation in large measure of the traditional romantic material, and it remained for some fifteen hundred years, at least, in close touch with every section of the community whose emotions and imaginings it faithfully interpreted. ”

“ Others whom we cannot mention here are known as the authors of one or more songs which have become popular. It is natural to compare the state of affairs at the beginning of the 20th century with that obtaining in 1800. In the dawn of the 19th century every district in the Highlands had its native poet, whilst a century later not a single Gaelic bard of known reputation existed anywhere within its borders. It is only too evident that the new writers prefer English to Gaelic as a medium of literature, partly because they know it better, but also because in it they appeal to a far wider public. ”

“ As previously stated, the use of Gaelic as the only known vernacular, keeps large numbers of poor people ignorant, it usually fixes them to their place of birth, and accordingly excludes them from earning their bread in the general competition of the world. It is very easy for enthusiasts living at a respectful distance to write in glowing terms about the antiquity of Gaelic, about the wonderful beauty of Gaelic poetry, about the philological value of Gaelic phraseology, about the satisfaction of being able to speak Gaelic as well as English. ”

“ English thought and culture also reach the people through the hundreds of University-bred ministers who preach Gaelic in Highland pulpits.
These important changes in the Celtic world are not effected without many venerable regrets being uttered by sentimentalists both in Ireland and Scotland. If we look across the channel we find that the Irish Gael indulges in the same unpractical wail over an irrevocable past, that we find so prevalent with his brother of Albin. The cry of the sentimentalist there is even more intense, more persistent. ”

“ By fostering the Gaelic they have awakened in the people themselves a sense of the dignity of their own language and literature. By the translation of saga and romance, the patient gathering of folk-tale and fairy-lore, the search for and interpretation of old manuscripts, they have given to native poets a mass of material which is peculiarly suited to their genius. ”

“ It is hard to run counter to long-cherished and in the main amiable feelings. It is hard to find fault with persons and institutions whose motives in encouraging Gaelic have been alike pious and benevolent. But circumstances oblige us to be candid in a matter so momentous to public welfare. The Gaelic language may be as copious and energetic as the Greek; it may be not less suitable for poetry than the Italian; it has strong archæological claims as a relic of the tongue which in its various forms was at one time spoken all over the British Islands, if not over all Europe ”

“ It is the oldest and most influential of the learned societies of Ireland, and possesses a large number of ancient manuscripts in the Gaelic tongue, most of them, despite their great age, beautifully clear and legible. The academy, according to its charter, was founded “for the encouragement of science, polite literature, and antiquities.” There is a good deal of interest in the attempt to revive the Gaelic tongue, but the bitter partisanship of politics renders polite literature quite useless. ”

“ The literary activity of even the eighteenth century among the Gaels was very great, not in the South alone, but also in Ulster—the number of poets it produced was something astonishing. It did not, however, produce many works in Gaelic prose, but it propagated translations of many pieces from the French, Latin, Spanish, and English. Every well-to-do farmer could read and write Irish, and many of them could understand even archaic Irish. I have myself heard persons reciting the poems of Donogha More O’Daly, Abbot of Boyle, in Roscommon, who died sixty years before Chaucer was born. ”

“ Chiefly through the great labours of Zeuss, the distinguished Bavarian, the Gael is now, as already remarked, universally admitted to belong to the Aryan family. No student of the science of language will now contend that he has any special affinity to the Semitic race. The Keltae of the Greek, the Galli of the Roman, and the Gàidheil of Scotland and Ireland, are the same people. In the east and in the west Galatia, or in Gaelic [Gaidhealtachd, contracted] and pronounced Gaeltachd, is the Celtica, or land of the Celts or Gaels. ”

“ We, therefore, find traces of English reading and culture in all the Gaelic poetry that has been produced since the commencement of this era. Even very early last century there is evidence that English thought began to exercise some influence on the compositions of the Highland poets. As already pointed out, English literature contributed not a little to the development of Dugald Buchanan’s sacred muse. The chief Gaelic poets of this period were fairly well educated, and knew the English language well. ”

“ The fact that so many of these poems are fathered upon well-known saints emphasises the friendly attitude of the native clergy towards vernacular poetry.
In Nature poetry the Gaelic muse may vie with that of any other nation. Indeed, these poems occupy a unique position in the literature of the world. To seek out and watch and love Nature, in its tiniest phenomena as in its grandest, was given to no people so early and so fully as to the Celt. Many hundreds of Gaelic and Welsh poems testify to this fact. ”

“ The third is that a Gaelic King has given us the line of monarchs which we have still represented in the present sovereign of the British Empire. To these another fact might be added—that the earliest modern literature is to be found among the Scoto-Irish Gael. After the decadence of Greece and Rome the Celts were the first of the European tribes to cultivate letters. While the Germans and the Northmen were yet roving heathen tribes the Gael in Ireland and in Scotland had their seminaries of learning, where literature was loved and cherished. ”

“ At present the Church of Scotland’s own organ of “Life and Work” has a Gaelic Supplement. The Free Church issues The Gaelic Record. Gaelic articles have also appeared in the newspapers of Inverness and Oban, editors having discovered of late years that the insertion of Gaelic articles is not inimical to the circulation of their journals. The Celtic Magazine, ably carried on for some years by Mr Alexander Mackenzie, and the Highland Monthly at present, though not written in Gaelic, have helped forward Gaelic scholarship. ”

“ It cannot be ascertained from any official Reports what is the exact number of persons—men, women, and children—whose language is wholly confined to Gaelic. In the second Report of the Education Commission published in 1867, it is said to be 'probable that the population of the parishes within which Gaelic continues to be the only language which is understood by the majority of the people cannot exceed a hundred and fifty thousand ”