names. It seemed as if the people were possessed with a mania for changing
them to something--anything at all, only to get rid of the Milesian sound.
"Why," said O'Connell, once talking to a mass-meeting of Lord Chancellor
Sugden, "you wouldn't call a decent pig Sugden." Yet he never uttered a
word of remonstrance at the O'Lahiffs, O'Brollahans, and MacRorys becoming
under his eyes Guthrys, Bradleys, and Rogerses. It is more than a little
curious, and a very bad augury for the future independence of Ireland,
that men of education and intelligence like Carleton the novelist, or
Hardiman, author of the "History of Galway" and the "Irish Minstrelsy,"
should have changed their Milesian names, one from that of O'Cairellan,
who was ancient chief of Clandermot, the other from the well-known name of
O'Hargadain. In Connacht alone I know scores of Gatelys, Sextons,
Baldwins, Foxes, Coxes, Footes, Greenes, Keatings, who are really
O'Gatlies, O'Sesnans, O'Mulligans, O'Shanahans, MacGillacullys, O'Trehys,
O'Honeens, and O'Keateys. The O'Hennesys are Harringtons, the
O'Kinsellaghs, Kingsleys and Tinslys, the O'Feehillys Pickleys, and so on.
O'Donovan, writing in 1862, gives a list of names which had recently been
changed in the neighbourhood of Cootehill, Co. Cavan. These Irish names of
MacNebo, MacIntyre, MacGilroy, MacTernan, MacCorry, MacOscar, MacBrehon,
O'Clery, Murtagh, O'Drum, &c., were becoming, or had become, Victory,
Victoria, Callwell, Freeman, King, Nugent, Gilman, Leonard, Godwin,
Goodwin, Smyth, Golderich, Golding, Masterton, Lind, Crosby, Grosby,
Crosse, Corry, Cosgrove, Judge, Brabacy, Brabazon, Clarke, Clerkin,
Cunningham, Drummond, Tackit, Sexton, and Mortimer[20]--not a bad attempt
at West-Britonising for one little town!
Numbers of people, again, like Mr. Davitt or Mr. Hennessy, drop the O and
Mac which properly belong to their names; others, without actually
changing them, metamorphose their names, as we have seen, into every
possible form. I was told in America that the first Chauncey who ever
came out there was an O'Shaughnessy, who went to, I think, Maryland, in
the middle of the last century, and who had twelve sons, who called
themselves Chauncey, and from whom most of or all the Chaunceys in America
are descended. I know people who have translated their names within the
last ten years. This vile habit is going on with almost unabated vigour,
and nobody has ever raised a protest against it. Out of the many hundreds
of O'Byrnes--offshoots of the great Wicklow chieftains--in the city of New
York, only four have retained that name; all the rest have taken the
Scotch name of Burns. I have this information from two of the remaining
four, both friends of my own, and both splendid Gaelic scholars, though
from opposite ends of Ireland, Donegal and Waterford. Of two brothers of
whom I was lately told, though I do not know them personally, one is an
O'Gara, and still condescends to remain connected with the patron of the
Four Masters and a thousand years of a glorious past, whilst the other
(through some etymological confusion with the word Caraim, which means "I
love") calls himself Mr. Love! Another brother remains a Brehony, thus
showing his descent from one of the very highest and most honourable
titles in Ireland--a Brehon, law-giver and poet; the other brother is John
Judge. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Irishmen prefer to drop their
honourable Milesian names, and call themselves Groggins or Duggan, or
Higgins or Guthry, or any other beastly name, in preference to the
surnames of warriors, saints, and poets; and the melancholy part of it is,
that not one single word of warning or remonstrance has been raised, as
far as I am aware, against this colossal cringing either by the Irish
public press or public men.
With our Irish Christian names the case is nearly as bad. Where are now
all the fine old Irish Christian names of both men and women which were in
vogue even a hundred years ago? They have been discarded as unclean
things, not because they were ugly in themselves or inharmonious, but
simply because they were not English. No man is now christened by a Gaelic
name, "nor no woman neither." Such common Irish Christian names as Conn,
Cairbre, Farfeasa, Teig, Diarmuid, Kian, Cuan, Ae, Art, Mahon, Eochaidh,
Fearflatha, Cathan, Rory, Coll, Lochlainn, Cathal, Lughaidh, Turlough,
Éamon, Randal, Niall, Sorley, and Conor, are now extinct or nearly so.
Donough and Murrough survive in the O'Brien family. Angus, Manus, Fergal,
and Felim are now hardly known. The man whom you call Diarmuid when you
speak Irish, a low, pernicious, un-Irish, detestable custom, begot by
slavery, propagated by cringing, and fostered by flunkeyism, forces you to
call Jeremiah when you speak English, or as a concession, Darby. In like
manner, the indigenous Teig is West-Britonised into Thaddeus or Thady, for
no earthly reason than that both begin with a T. Donough is Denis, Cahal
is Charles, Murtagh and Murough are Mortimer, Dómhnall is Daniel,
Partholan, the name of the earliest coloniser of Ireland, is Bartholomew
or Batty,[21] Eoghan (Owen) is frequently Eugene, and our own O'Curry,
though he plucked up courage to prefix the O to his name in later life,
never discarded the Eugene, which, however, is far from being a
monstrosity like most of our West-Britonised names; Félim is Felix,
Finghin (Finneen) is Florence, Conor is Corney, Turlough is Terence,
Éamon is Edmond or Neddy, and so on. In fact, of the great wealth of
Gaelic Christian names in use a century or two ago, only Owen, Brian,
Cormac, and Patrick seem to have survived in general use.
Nor have our female names fared one bit better; we have discarded them
even more ruthlessly than those of our men. Surely Sadhbh (Sive) is a
prettier name than Sabina or Sibby, and Nóra than Onny, Honny, or Honour
(so translated simply because Nóra sounds like _onóir_, the Irish for
"honour"); surely Una is prettier than Winny, which it becomes when
West-Britonised. Mève, the great name of the Queen of Connacht who led the
famous cattle spoiling of Cuailgne, celebrated in the greatest Irish epic,
is at least as pretty as Maud, which it becomes when Anglicised, and
Eibhlin (Eileen) is prettier than Ellen or Elinor. Aoife (Eefy), Sighle
(Sheela), Móirin (Moreen), Nuala and Fionnuala (Finnoola), are all
beautiful names which were in use until quite recently. Maurya and Anya
are still common, but are not indigenous Irish names at all, so that I do
not mind their rejection, whilst three other very common ones, Suraha,
Shinéad, and Shuwaun, sound so bad in English that I do not very much
regret their being translated into Sarah, Jane, and Joan respectively; but
I must put in a plea for the retention of such beautiful words as Eefee,
Oona, Eileen, Mève, Sive, and Nuala. Of all the beautiful Christian names
of women which were in use a century or two ago Brighid (Breed), under the
ugly form of Bridget, or still worse, of Biddy, and Eiblin under the form
of Eveleen, and perhaps Norah, seem to be the only survivals, and they are
becoming rarer. I _do_ think that the time has now come to make a vigorous
protest against this continued West-Britonising of ourselves, and that our
people ought to have a word in season addressed to them by their leaders
which will stop them from translating their Milesian surnames into hideous
Saxon, and help to introduce Irish instead of English Christian names. As
long as the Irish nation goes on as it is doing I cannot have much hope of
its ultimately taking its place amongst the nations of the earth, for if
it does, it will have proceeded upon different lines from every other
nationality that God ever created. I hope that we shall never be
satisfied either as individuals or as a society as long as the Brehonys
call themselves Judges, the Clan Govern call themselves Smiths, and the
O'Reardons Salmons, as long as our boys are called Dan and Jeremiah
instead of Donal and Diarmuid, and our girls Honny, Winny, and Ellen
instead of Nóra, Una, and Eileen.
Our topographical nomenclature too--as we may now be prepared to
expect--has been also shamefully corrupted to suit English ears; but
unfortunately the difficulties attendant upon a realteration of our
place-names to their proper forms are very great, nor do I mean to go into
this question now, for it is one so long and so difficult that it would
require a lecture, or rather a series of lectures to itself. Suffice it to
say, that many of the best-known names in our history and annals have
become almost wholly unrecognisable, through the ignorant West-Britonising
of them. The unfortunate natives of the eighteenth century allowed all
kinds of havoc to be played with even their best-known names. For example
the river Feóir they allowed to be turned permanently into the Nore, which
happened this way. Some Englishman, asking the name of the river, was
told that it was _An Fheóir_, pronounced In n'yore, because the F when
preceded by the definite article _an_ is not sounded, so that in his
ignorance he mistook the word Feóir for Neóir, and the name has been thus
perpetuated. In the same way the great Connacht lake, Loch Corrib, is
really Loch Orrib, or rather Loch Orbsen, some Englishman having mistaken
the C at the end of loch for the beginning of the next word. Sometimes the
Ordnance Survey people make a rough guess at the Irish name and jot down
certain English letters almost on chance. Sometimes again they make an
Irish word resemble an English one, as in the celebrated Tailtin in Meath,
where the great gathering of the nation was held, and, which, to make sure
that no national memories should stick to it, has been West-Britonised
Telltown.[22] On the whole, our place names have been treated with about
the same respect as if they were the names of a savage tribe which had
never before been reduced to writing, and with about the same
intelligence and contempt as vulgar English squatters treat the
topographical nomenclature of the Red Indians. These things are now to a
certain extent stereotyped, and are difficult at this hour to change,
especially where Irish names have been translated into English, like
Swinford and Strokestown, or ignored as in Charleville or Midleton. But
though it would take the strength and goodwill of an united nation to put
our topographical nomenclature on a rational basis like that of Wales and
the Scotch Highlands, there is one thing which our Society can do, and
that is to insist upon pronouncing our Irish names properly. Why will a
certain class of people insist upon getting as far away from the
pronunciation of the natives as possible? I remember a Galway gentleman
pulling me up severely for speaking of Athenree. "It's not Athenree," he
said, "it's called Athenrye." Yet in saying this he simply went out of his
way to mispronounce the historic name, which means the "King's ford," and
which all the natives call -_ree_, not -_rye_.[23] Another instance out of
many thousands is my own market town, Ballagh-a-derreen, literally,
"the way of the oak-wood." Ballach is the same word as in the phrase _Fág
a' bealach_, "clear the way," and "derreen" is the diminutive of Derry, an
oak-wood. Yet the more "civilised" of the population, perhaps one in
fifty, offend one's ears with the frightful jargon Bálla-hád-her-een. Thus
Lord Iveagh (Ee-vah) becomes Lord Ivy, and Seana-guala, the old sholder,
becomes Shanagolden, and leads you to expect a mine, or at least a
furze-covered hill.
I shall not give any more examples of deliberate carelessness, ineptitude,
and West-Britonising in our Irish topography, for the instances may be
numbered by thousands and thousands. I hope and trust that where it may be
done without any great inconvenience a native Irish Government will be
induced to provide for the restoration of our place-names on something
like a rational basis.
* * * * *
Our music, too, has become Anglicised to an alarming extent. Not only has
the national instrument, the harp--which efforts are now being made to
revive in the Highlands--become extinct, but even the Irish pipes are
threatened with the same fate. In place of the pipers and fiddlers who,
even twenty years ago, were comparatively common, we are now in many
places menaced by the German band and the barrel organ. Something should
be done to keep the native pipes and the native airs amongst us still. If
Ireland loses her music she loses what is, after her Gaelic language and
literature, her most valuable and most characteristic possession. And she
is rapidly losing it. A few years ago all our travelling fiddlers and
pipers could play the old airs which were then constantly called for, the
_Cúis d'á pléidh_, _Drinaun Dunn_, _Roseen Dubh_, _Gamhan Geal Bán_,
_Eileen-a-roon_, _Shawn O'Dwyer in Glanna_, and the rest, whether gay or
plaintive, which have for so many centuries entranced the Gael. But now
English music-hall ballads and Scotch songs have gained an enormous place
in the repertoire of the wandering minstrel, and the minstrels themselves
are becoming fewer and fewer, and I fear worse and worse. It is difficult
to find a remedy for this. I am afraid in this practical age to go so far
as to advocate the establishment in Cork or Galway of a small institution
in which young and promising pipers might be trained to play all the
Irish airs and sent forth to delight our population; for I shall be told
that this is not a matter for even an Irish Government to stir in, though
it is certain that many a Government has lavished money on schemes less
pleasant and less useful. For the present, then, I must be content with
hoping that the revival of our Irish music may go hand in hand with the
revival of Irish ideas and Celtic modes of thought which our Society is
seeking to bring about, and that people may be brought to love the purity
of _Siúbhail Siúbhail_, or the fun of the _Moddereen Ruadh_ in preference
to "Get Your Hair Cut," or "Over the Garden Wall," or, even if it is not
asking too much, of "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay."
Our games, too, were in a most grievous condition until the brave and
patriotic men who started the Gaelic Athletic Association took in hand
their revival. I confess that the instantaneous and extraordinary success
which attended their efforts when working upon national lines has filled
me with more hope for the future of Ireland than everything else put
together. I consider the work of the association in reviving our ancient
national game of +caman+, or hurling, and Gaelic football, has done more
for Ireland than all the speeches of politicians for the last five years.
And it is not alone that that splendid association revived for a time with
vigour our national sports, but it revived also our national
recollections, and the names of the various clubs through the country have
perpetuated the memory of the great and good men and martyrs of Ireland.
The physique of our youth has been improved in many of our counties; they
have been taught self-restraint, and how to obey their captains; they have
been, in many places, weaned from standing idle in their own roads or
street corners; and not least, they have been introduced to the use of a
thoroughly good and Irish garb. Wherever the warm striped green jersey of
the Gaelic Athletic Association was seen, there Irish manhood and Irish
memories were rapidly reviving. There torn collars and ugly neckties
hanging awry and far better not there at all, and dirty shirts of bad
linen were banished, and our young hurlers were clad like men and
Irishmen, and not in the shoddy second-hand suits of Manchester and London
shop-boys. Could not this alteration be carried still further? Could we
not make that jersey still more popular, and could we not, in places
where both garbs are worn, use our influence against English second-hand
trousers, generally dirty in front, and hanging in muddy tatters at the
heels, and in favour of the cleaner worsted stockings and neat breeches
which many of the older generation still wear? Why have we discarded our
own comfortable frieze? Why does every man in Connemara wear home-made and
home-spun tweed, while in the midland counties we have become too proud
for it, though we are not too proud to buy at every fair and market the
most incongruous cast-off clothes imported from English cities, and to
wear them? Let us, as far as we have any influence, set our faces against
this aping of English dress, and encourage our women to spin and our men
to wear comfortable frieze suits of their own wool, free from shoddy and
humbug. So shall we de-Anglicise Ireland to some purpose, foster a native
spirit and a growth of native custom which will form the strongest barrier
against English influence and be in the end the surest guarantee of Irish
autonomy.
I have now mentioned a few of the principal points on which it would be
desirable for us to move, with a view to de-Anglicising ourselves; but
perhaps the principal point of all I have taken for granted. That is the
necessity for encouraging the use of Anglo-Irish literature instead of
English books, especially instead of English periodicals. We must set our
face sternly against penny dreadfuls, shilling shockers, and still more,
the garbage of vulgar English weeklies like _Bow Bells_ and the _Police
Intelligence_. Every house should have a copy of Moore and Davis. In a
word, we must strive to cultivate everything that is most racial, most
smacking of the soil, most Gaelic, most Irish, because in spite of the
little admixture of Saxon blood in the north-east corner, this island _is_
and will _ever_ remain Celtic at the core, far more Celtic than most
people imagine, because, as I have shown you, the names of our people are
no criterion of their race. On racial lines, then, we shall best develop,
following the bent of our own natures; and, in order to do this, we must
create a strong feeling against West-Britonism, for it--if we give it the
least chance, or show it the smallest quarter--will overwhelm us like a
flood, and we shall find ourselves toiling painfully behind the English at
each step following the same fashions, only six months behind the English
ones; reading the same books, only months behind them: taking up the same
fads, after they have become stale _there_, following _them_ in our dress,
literature, music, games, and ideas, only a long time after them and a
vast way behind. We will become, what, I fear, we are largely at present,
a nation of imitators, the Japanese of Western Europe, lost to the power
of native initiative and alive only to second-hand assimilation. I do not
think I am overrating this danger. We are probably at once the most
assimilative and the most sensitive nation in Europe. A lady in Boston
said to me that the Irish immigrants had become Americanised on the
journey out before ever they landed at Castle Gardens. And when I ventured
to regret it, she said, shrewdly, "If they did not at once become
Americanised they would not be Irish." I knew fifteen Irish workmen who
were working in a haggard in England give up talking Irish amongst
themselves because the English farmer laughed at them. And yet O'Connell
used to call us the "finest peasantry in Europe." Unfortunately, he took
little care that we should remain so. We must teach ourselves to be less
sensitive, we must teach ourselves not to be ashamed of ourselves, because
the Gaelic people can never produce its best before the world as long as
it remains tied to the apron-strings of another race and another island,
waiting for _it_ to move before it will venture to take any step itself.
In conclusion, I would earnestly appeal to every one, whether Unionist or
Nationalist, who wishes to see the Irish nation produce its best--and
surely whatever our politics are we all wish that--to set his face against
this constant running to England for our books, literature, music, games,
fashions, and ideas. I appeal to every one whatever his politics--for this
is no political matter--to do his best to help the Irish race to develop
in future upon Irish lines, even at the risk of encouraging national
aspirations, because upon Irish lines alone can the Irish race once more
become what it was of yore--one of the most original, artistic, literary,
and charming peoples of Europe.
Footnotes:
[1] Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations."
[2] Being the substance of a Lecture delivered at the Opening of the Irish
National Literary Society--in Dublin, Sir C. G. Duffy in the chair.
[3] But not now of entire words, as in the _rime riche_ of the French,
where _livre_ (book) rhymes with _livre_ (pound). English "perfect" rhyme
is an incomplete word-echo, which secures some variety.
[4] Sporadic exceptions of course are found in Ovid's occasional leonine
lines. It is suggestive that he lived long and died amidst Scythians, from
whom the Irish Gael deduce their descent.
[5] _E.g._, in its end-words: _tracht_, _eácht_, _fuàcht_, _ruacht_.
[6] These rhymes are more subtly complete than may be supposed, for the
chiming syllables are enriched by this, that the preceding consonants =d=
and =g= (as "soft"), and =t= and =p= (as "hard"), give class-chimes.
Besides this, we have alliteration of two vowels in the first line, and of
two consonants in the second.
[7] Hunt, "History of Bristol, 1884."
[8] In the third line, the letters =v= and =r= are in (imperfect) concord.
They belong to the same class of "light" consonants, from which it might
be inferred that the ancient Irish did not roll the letter _r_.
[9] Thegan; Pithou: Opp. cvii.
[10] Malmesbury is a modification of Mailduff's burg.
[11] _I.e._, Hoved, The Head.
[12] Hr. Sjöden, the eminent Swedish harper, noted several Scandinavian
airs but slightly varied from the Irish.
[13] Messrs. Vigfusson and York Powell in "Corpus Poeticum Boreale," &c.
[14] Vigfusson, Prolegomena to Sturlunga Saga.
[15] From the Irish name, Cormac.
[16] Shakespeare mentions an old Irish air, _Cailin og astor_ (in "Henry
II.", act iv., sc. 4); the air itself is give in Queen Elizabeth's
Virginal Book, so that Irish music must have been admired at her court. It
is curious to see the Irish alliteration still influential in the verses
attributed to her:
"The doubt of =f=uture =f=oes exiles my present joy,
And =w=it me =w=arns to =s=hun =s=uch =s=nares as threaten mine annoy;
For =f=alsehood now doth =f=low and subject =f=aith doth ebb,
Which would not be if =r=eason =r=uled or =w=isdom =w=eaved the =w=eb."
It is most interesting to observe that Shakespeare himself employs
alliteration in his epitaph, and used it in a manner so closely conforming
to the regular Irish system, as to suggest his acquaintance with it,
_e.g._:
"Good =f=riend for Jesus' sake =f=orbeare,
To =d=ig the =d=ust enclosed here,
=B=lesst =b=e he who =s=pares these =s=tones,
And cursed =b=e he who moves my =b=ones."
[17] It has been computed that, in the petty princedom of Tyrconnell (now
Donegall county nearly) the real estate allocated to maintenance of the
_literati_ amounted in value to £2,000 yearly, present currency.
[18] Delivered before the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin,
November 25th, 1892.
[19] As an instance of this, I mention the case of a young man I met on
the road coming from the fair of Tuam, some ten miles away. I saluted him
in Irish, and he answered me in English. "Don't you speak Irish," said I.
"Well, I declare to God, sir," he said, "my father and mother hasn't a
word of English, but still, I don't speak Irish." This was absolutely true
for him. There are thousands upon thousands of houses all over Ireland
to-day where the old people invariably use Irish in addressing the
children, and the children as invariably answer in English, the children
understanding Irish but not speaking it, the parents understanding their
children's English but unable to use it themselves. In a great many cases,
I should almost say most, the children are not conscious of the existence
of two languages. I remember asking a gossoon a couple of miles west of
Ballaghaderreen in the Co. Mayo, some questions in Irish and he answered
them in English. At last I said to him, "_Nach labhrann tu Gaedheilg?_"
(_i.e._, "Don't you speak Irish?") and his answer was, "And isn't it Irish
I'm spaking?" "No _a-chuisle_," said I, "it's not Irish you're speaking,
but English." "Well then," said he, "that's how I spoke it ever"! He was
quite unconscious that I was addressing him in one language and he
answering in another. On a different occasion I spoke Irish to a little
girl in a house near Kilfree Junction, Co. Sligo, into which I went while
waiting for a train. The girl answered me in Irish until her brother came
in. "Arrah now, Mary," said he, with what was intended to be a most bitter
sneer; "and isn't that a credit to you!" And poor Mary--whom I had with
difficulty persuaded to begin--immediately hung her head and changed to
English. This is going on from Malin Head to Galway, and from Galway to
Waterford, with the exception possibly of a few spots in Donegal and
Kerry, where the people are wiser and more national.