(JANUARY 1914)
“Mughdhorn” has challenged my psychology as un-Irish. At least, he has
challenged as un-Irish the psychology of any man that holds the view
that it has not been merely for the sake of saving the Irish language we
Leaguers have been working all these years. That is a view which I hold
and have promulgated. Hence I take it there is question here of my
psychology. It is a little embarrassing to a shy person to have his
psychology discussed in public. One feels inclined to protest
indignantly with the old lady whom the doctor suspected of appendicitis,
explaining to her that it meant inflammation of the appendix. “Why, I
haven’t _got_ such a thing!” She thought he meant a kind of tail. I
really shrink from a public investigation into my psychology. Let me see
how “Mughdhorn” will like a very tender examination of _his_.
I formally challenge as not only un-Irish, but as diseased, the
psychology of the man who holds that Parnell’s declaration to the people
of Connacht “that he would not have taken off his coat to the land
question but that he saw in it a means to rouse the people of Ireland to
assert their right to self-government,” betrayed the “Palesman
addressing the mere Gael,” and that it was “supercilious” at that. The
declaration in question was one of those four or five illuminating and
unforgettable sentences of Parnell’s which prove him to have been the
one really great Nationalist of his time: the true successor of Tone and
Mitchel, though working with such different means. The sentence betrays
not the Palesman (whatever that may mean) but the Irish Nationalist. I
hold its Nationalism to be authentic, and, further, that there is no
other Nationalism than the Nationalism therein implied, _i.e._, that the
nation is more important than any part of the nation. A national leader
in a struggle for self-government could not have turned aside from the
main issue in order to take up even temporarily any other issue, however
important, than the national one, except with the object of
strengthening his forces for the main fight--the fight for nationhood.
Parnell, as leader of the Irish in their struggle for nationhood, would
not have been justified in devoting one hour of his time or one penny of
his funds to the land war except as a means to an end. Had Parnell had
his way the land war would not have been fought out until the national
war had been won; and it is a pity that Parnell had not his way, as we
and our children may realise full soon.
I challenge again the Irish psychology of the man who sets up the Gael
and the Palesman as opposing forces, with conflicting outlooks. We are
all Irish, Leinster-reared or Connacht-reared; your native Irish speaker
of Iveragh or Erris is more fully in touch with the spiritual past of
Ireland than your Wexfordman or your Kildareman, but your Wexfordman or
your Kildareman has other Irish traditions which your Iveraghman or your
Errisman has lost. It is a great thing to have heard in childhood the
songs of a Tadhg Gaedhealach or to have seen a Raftery or a Colm
Wallace; it is an equally great thing to have known old men who fought
in Wexford in ’98, or to have been nursed by a woman who made bullets
for the Fenians. All such memories, old and new, are part of Irish
history, and he who would segregate Irish history and Irish men into two
sections--Irish-speaking and English-speaking--is not helping toward
achieving Ireland a Nation.
Am I a Palesman and is Lord O’Brien of Kilfenora a Gael? I propose that
in future we reserve the term Palesman for those who uphold the
domination of the English in Ireland. I propose also that we substitute
for the denominations Gael, Gall, and Gall-Gael the common name of
Irishman.
I do not know who among the Gaelic Leaguers that have joined the
Volunteers has been foolish enough to suggest that he “cares for the
language merely as a sort of stimulant in the fight for nationhood.”
Certainly not I: I have spent the best fifteen years of my life teaching
and working for the idea that the language is an essential part of the
nation. I have not modified my attitude in anything that I have recently
said or written; I have only confessed (and not for the first time) that
in the Gaelic League I have all along been working not for the language
merely, but for the nation. I now go further, and say that anyone who
has been working for the language merely (if there be any such) has
never had the true Gaelic League spirit at all, and though in the Gaelic
League has never really been of it. I protest that it was not philology,
not folklore, not literature, we went into the Gaelic League to serve,
but: Ireland a Nation.
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