Our Ideal

"Set before yourselves a high Ideal and never lower that Ideal"; so spoke once a noble French teacher to his pupils, and his words have found an echo in many a generous heart, especially in Ireland. High indeed and radiantly beautiful was the Ideal which Irish Ireland set out to realise, and never has that Ideal been deliberately lowered. But although we never consciously lower our standard, do not some of us lose sight from time to time of the true goal of our hopes, and grow engrossed with narrower, pettier issues?

The true philosopher "sees life steadily and sees it whole," and the philosophic Irish Irelander must likewise see clearly and steadily the whole of his "movement," not a part of it only, or a distorted or mutilated presentment of it. An Craoibhin, speaking recently in the United States, said truthfully : "The movement in which we are engaged is much, very much more than a last struggle for the preservation of Ireland's language. It is the last struggle to save Ireland's nationality."

This is a fact which 99 per cent. of Gaelic Leaguers recognise in their hearts, but they often shrink from declaring so much openly because they fear to offend or alienate the one odd individual here and there who has come into the Gaelic League not from national motives. Perhaps he may have come into it from academic motives, studying Irish in the same spirit as he would study Sanscrit, or from a benevolent motive because the Gaelic League fostering temperance and industry, or perhaps from the less praiseworthy motive of hoping that "the Gaelic League will keep the people out of mischief and take their thoughts off those "dreadful politics."

It has often seemed to me that too much deference is paid to the susceptibilities of this very small and usually unreasonable section who think that because they have condescended to join a popular movement the wishes of the populace should be smothered in order to placate them. Certainly the Gaelic League is wise to abstain from identifying itself with party politics, but it has nothing to lose and everything to gain by frankly admitting that the well-spring of its inspiration is nationality, and that the work in which we are engaged, that for which "We think and toil and knowledge strive to glean," is, as An Craoibhin says, a last struggle to assert and preserve Ireland's nationhood.

In seeking to conciliate a few nominal sympathisers to whom the true spirit of the Gaelic League is anathema we should not he led into ignoring our Ideal, which is the restoration of the native Gaelic civilisation of this country and the recreation of Eire i n-a náisiún. Again, there seems to be a lack of the sense of perspective in the mental vision of some Gaels, causing them to magnify to gigantic proportions some trifle and to diminish important issues to vanishing point. Dr. Mahaffy, when Trinity College made its fierce onslaught on the Irish language, which the then infant Gaelic League vigorously repelled, said that the League was broken up into innumerable warring factions, and that not two people could be found to agree on questions of dialect.

"For instance," he said, "one man who uses Chum with the genitive will be looked on by another as a Castle spy!" This was, of course, regarded as a grotesque exaggeration. But really of late some Gaels have gone to almost as great extremes when arguing in defence of their particular idiom or mode of spelling. They hurl scorn, contempt, rage, and unbridled vituperation on the head of some brother Gael because he happens to spell sg whereas they spell sc, or sc if they favour sg. Others, when they hear one does not belong to their own particular parish or is not a member of their own particular Craobh, regard one with as much distrust as they would Dr. Mahaffy's "Castle spy."

A man may have given ten or twelve of the best years of his life to the service of the Gaelic League, he may have slaved for it unselfishly, untiringly, perhaps injured his health as well as sacrificed his leisure and pleasure for the cause, but if he belongs to another part of the country than that of the parochial-minded Irish Irelander he is treated by the latter as a pariah. Another curious type one sometimes comes across — in the League but not of it not impregnated with its true spirit — is the native speaker of Irish who looks on a non-native student of the language as his born enemy, and does all in his power to throw cold water on the student's efforts to master the language.

This type of native speaker will assure you that his dream is to see an Irish-speaking Ireland, but in the next breath he will sneer at some one who is doing his part to make this dream come true by studying the language hard at the cost of considerable personal inconvenience, and he will positively gloat over any blunders the student makes, and be quite disappointed if he does not catch him tripping. Needless to say, all native speakers are not included under this category, and in an Irish-speaking district one never meets with rudeness or rebuffs when prosecuting one's Irish studies.

The Gael is naturally courteous, but there are some unworthy claimants to the kingdom of the Gael. Let us i n-ainm Dé, put aside pettiness and narrowness in the New Year. Let us remember first and foremost that the work we are engaged in is in the truest sense of the word a national one, and secondly that there are tremendous obstacles still in our way, and that if they are to be overcome we must all co-operate with each other loyally, strenuously, steadfastly; there is no bond so strong as that of a common cause when the cause is sacred as ours is.

When we lose sight of the nobility of our cause the bond of comradeship slackens, but it will be drawn close and firm if we keep our ideal before our eyes. Before we enter the Promised Land "many will have fallen and all will have suffered," as Art Ua Gríobhtha has with deep pathos put it; but this thought, though it sobers, does not daunt us, for we reflect : " Happy are you after all, oh youth of Ireland, fortunate did you but know it, for if ever a generation had in hope something worth living for and in sacrifice something worth dying for, the blessed lot is yours."

Máire de Buitléir