II


Consider first the literature of Irishmen in English. From the attitude
commonly taken on the question of literary values, it is clear that the
primary significance of expression in writing is often lost. What is
said, and the purpose for which it is said, take precedence of the
medium through which it is said. But from our national awakening to the
significance of the medium so long ignored we have grown so excited that
we frequently forget the greater significance of the thing. The
utterance of the man is of first importance, and, where his utterance
has weight, the vital need is to secure it through some medium, the
medium becoming important when one more than another is found to have a
wider and more intimate appeal; and then we do well to become insistent
for a particular medium when it is in anxiety for full delivery of the
writer's thought and a wide knowledge of its truth. But we are losing
sight of this natural order of things. It is well, then, the unconvinced
Gall should hear why he should accept the Irish language; not simply to
defer to the Gael, but to quicken the mind and defend the territory of
what is now the common country of the Gael and Gall. Davis caught up the
great significance of the language when he said: "Tis a surer barrier,
and more important frontier, than fortress or river." The language is at
once our frontier and our first fortress, and behind it all Irishmen
should stand, not because a particular branch of our people evolved it,
but because it is the common heritage of all. One who has a knowledge of
Irish can easily get evidence of its quickening power on the Irish mind.
Travel in an Irish-speaking district and hail one of its old people in
English, and you get in response a dull "Good-day, Sir." Salute him in