La Fheile Padraic

The Gael is re-asserting himself. Of the vigour with which he is doing so there is not the slightest doubt. There is scarcely a department of national life in which he has not given notice, and that in strenuous and unmistakeable tones, of the fact not merely that he is present, but that he claims predominance.

Already he has gained a foothold in about one-third of the schools of the country. He has attacked the political platform with some little success. He has carried his standard into half the public boardrooms, and won his first skirmishes with railway directorates, banks, and commercial corporations. He has invaded the press and if he has not annexed it has at least compelled it to acknowledge his suzerainty.

There remains an important vantage ground which of late years he has been striving might and main to occupy, realising its supreme importance. We refer to the pulpit. La Fheile Padraic is a day on which we can, to a certain extent, measure how far he has advanced towards the attainment of this great object. The festival that has just passed shows that, in the cities and towns at all events, his progress has been rapid. In Dublin five years ago we thought it a wonderful thing to have one Irish sermon on St. Patrick's Day : this year we had at least six, —five in Catholic churches and one in a Protestant church.

An tAthair Proinnsias Mac an Airchinnigh's fine discourse at the High Mass in the Pro-Cathedral, in the presence of the Archbishop and Chapter, was, of course, the most important in a sense, though the special service at St. Andrew's had a Gaelic distinctiveness almost unique in the history of Irish celebrations. Irish was the only language used, neither Latin nor English being heard. A children's procession formed a feature, the little ones singing the processional hymns sweetly and bravely in Irish. An tAthair Liam de Lunndra was the eloquent preacher. Two members of the Redemptorist Order preached in Irish at St. Colm Cille's, Drom Chonnrach, morning and evening, and the Passionists at Mount Argus had, as usual, an Irish sermon.

The Rev. Mr. O Seaghdha was the Irish preacher at St. Caoimlighin's. In Cork the Irish sermons were three in number. In Waterford, Galway, Tuam, Ballina, and a number of other provincial towns and cities there were also Irish sermons, and wherever there is a really live branch of the Gaelic League there were at least the Paidrin Pairteach and some Irish hymns. At Maynooth there were Irish sermons morning and evening. Out on Rathlin—the League's uttermost rampart in the North-East—the island congregation listened in rapt attention to An tAthair Mac Gabhann's Irish sermon and joined with fervour in the Irish Rosary and Hymns.

Over the sea in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and the other centres of the League in North and South Britain, there was a series of celebrations, large and small, culminating in the London service at Dockhead. The Gaels will, we trust, in future years vindicate their right to the use of the Westminster Cathedral—towards the building of which so much of their money has gone—on at least one day out of the three hundred and sixty-five. At Dockhead, however, they were at home in Father Micheal 0 Maoldhomhnaigh's old church and we may be sure that the thoughts of many turned to the dead priest to whose beautiful life the Irish Religious Service in London will be a perpetual monument nobler than marble or brass.

The week's procession of distinctive Irish celebrations in the churches was brought to a close on Sunday in Belfast by one of the most distinctive of all. Hymn and prayer and setting had the solemnity and simple dignity which might have marked such a celebration at Ard Macha or Beannchar in the days of Ireland's early fervour. An tAthair Gearoid O Nuallain preached the thoughtful and impressive sermon which we have the privilege of printing in our Irish columns this week. He did not fail to pay touching tribute to the memory of the good and patriotic Bishop who had worked so wholeheartedly with the Gaelic League in promoting Belfast's Feile Padraic Celebration. We have heard of several other centres in which there would have been Irish sermons but for the difficulty in procuring preachers;-a hint to Maynooth.