In my translation
you won't find a foot or a syllable that's not in the English, yet
I've put down all his words mean, and nothing but it. Archbishop
MacHale's work is a most miserable production.'
From the verses he cited his judgment seemed perfectly justified,
and even if he was wrong, it is interesting to note that this poor
sailor and night-watchman was ready to rise up and criticise an
eminent dignitary and scholar on rather delicate points of
versification and the finer distinctions between old words of
Gaelic.
In spite of his singular intelligence and minute observation his
reasoning was medieval.
I asked him what he thought about the future of the language on
these islands.
'It can never die out,' said he, 'because there's no family in the
place can live without a bit of a field for potatoes, and they have
only the Irish words for all that they do in the fields. They sail
their new boats--their hookers--in English, but they sail a curagh
oftener in Irish, and in the fields they have the Irish alone. It
can never die out, and when the people begin to see it fallen very
low, it will rise up again like the phoenix from its own ashes.'
'And the Gaelic League?' I asked him.
'The Gaelic League! Didn't they come down here with their organisers
and their secretaries, and their meetings and their speechifyings,
and start a branch of it, and teach a power of Irish for five weeks
and a half!' [a]
'What do we want here with their teaching Irish?' said the man in
the corner; 'haven't we Irish enough?'
'You have not,' said the old man; 'there's not a soul in Aran can
count up to nine hundred and ninety-nine without using an English
word but myself.
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