^lUBRARYOc^ 
 
 
 ^OFCAUFOR^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^5»EUNIVER% 
 
 
 ^IDSANCEl^^ 
 
 ^<?;Uwaan-# ^omm^ ^tawsoi^ 
 
 
 «^i;S«lJNIVER%. 
 
 
 
 %fflAINrti\ft^ 
 
 -5^-UBRARYa^ ^^tUBRARYQ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 <53AEUNIVBK/^ 
 
 '^oiaawsoi'^ 
 
 § ^ — ^% 
 
 "dmmi^ 
 
 ^OFCAUFOff^ ^OFCAUFOS^ 
 
 85* ^"^ "^ '^^ ^"^ 
 
 
 ^^•UBRARYOc^ 
 
 ^0FCAUF(M5^ 
 
 ^l-UBRARYQ^ 
 
 ^OFCAUFOM^ 
 
 ^<?Aavi«in-u^ 
 
 
 
 <^ 
 
 
 
 •%3AIM»^^ 
 
 .5ja!0NIVER% AjclDSANCn^ ^t-UBIlARY<7/\ ^^•lIBRARYa^, 
 
 O iZ. 
 
 i
 
 
 
 UIFOlKjj^ ^OFCAUFOR^ 
 
 ^ i 
 
 
 
 .t5^UNIVER%. v^-lOS 
 
 I 
 
 
 O 
 
 ;J3 
 
 J* 
 
 :3 
 
 1/ 
 
 iv 
 
 JIVER% A>:lOSANCntn> 
 
 «VSO# %a3y^ 
 
 
 :Y<?A 
 
 <IVERS/A avIDSANCEUTa 
 
 
 -" 
 
 
 
 
 c V s u- ^ 
 
 
 
 
 -•—"-- 
 
 
 RARY(?/^ -^UBRARYQc. 
 
 ■^^/% 
 
 4 
 
 irrl ii 1(7 
 
 ^ ^. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ( 1 S/U'^ 
 
 
 
 5^1 iC- 
 
 
 
 IVDJO'^ \v...,^3- 
 
 
 
 MIFO% ^OFC 
 
 
 
 r^^? ^' 
 
 
 
 YO^. 
 
 L 
 
 <4%/ J 1 1 f «if < 
 
 

 
 f 
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE GAEL
 
 A LITERARY HISTORY OF 
 
 IRELAND 
 
 By Douglas Hyde, LL.D. With a Photogravure 
 Frontispiece. Demy 8vo, cloth. 
 
 12/6 net. 
 IRELAND. (Story of the Nations.) 
 
 By the Hon. Emily Lawless. With some addition 
 
 by Mrs. Arthur Bronson. 58 Illustrations and Maps. 
 
 Large Crown 8vo, cloth. 
 
 5/- 
 LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
 
 THE GENIUS OF 
 THE GAEL 
 
 A STUDY IN CELTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
 AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 SOPHIE BRYANT, D.Sc, Litt.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CELTIC IRELAND," ETC. 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN 
 LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE 
 LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20
 
 First Published in igis 
 
 {All rights reserved.)
 
 Thou over whom thy immortahty 
 Broods like the day. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 20G0966
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 The Genius of the Gael is the subject pro- 
 posed for study in this Httle book. The first 
 chapter deals with the composite Irish people 
 of to-day and their character as resting largely 
 on kinship and foster-kinship with the Gael. 
 The last chapter is a study of that educative 
 influence, here called the Gaelic Ethos, by 
 which a race of people may be said to foster 
 — in the spiritual sense — the strangers cast 
 upon their shores. The second chapter deals 
 with the main thesis : it is an imperfect but 
 faithful attempt to analyse the psychology of 
 the Celt as one of many varieties in human 
 kindred. The Gael is distinguished from the 
 Celt as the species best known in Ireland, and 
 for the most part it is the Celt as Gael who 
 is under consideration in these pages. 
 
 The method of procedure is : ( i ) to study 
 
 7
 
 Foreword 
 
 the Gael through his manifestations in Irish 
 character as we know it to-day, noting the 
 influences under which that character has 
 evolved historically, and keeping in view the 
 characteristics of other peoples in whom also 
 the Celtic element is presumably strong ; 
 (2) to show how the observed characteristics 
 of Irishmen, in so far as they differ from 
 others, may be explained by the prevalence 
 in them of a certain psychological variety, 
 structural, or functional, or temperamental, 
 which is the fundamental quality of the Celtic 
 mind. The effects of this quality are traced 
 through its outward manifestations in social 
 genius, political ability, development of in- 
 stitutions, literature, religion. Each of these 
 is the topic of a separate chapter. 
 
 8
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 Foreword 
 
 I. The Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 II. The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 III. The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 IV. The Gael in Politics 
 
 PAGE 
 
 7 
 
 II 
 29 
 
 83 
 123 
 
 V. Evolution of Social Institutions under 
 
 the Ancient Gael . 
 
 159 
 
 VI. The Gael in Literature 
 
 . 181 
 
 VII. The Celt in Respect of Spiritual Insight 219 
 
 VIII. The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 . 267 
 
 9
 
 I 
 
 THE 
 
 COMPOSITE 
 IRISH NATION 
 OF TO-DAY
 
 It must contain and represent the races of Ireland. It 
 must not be Celtic, it must not be Saxon. The Brehon 
 Law and the maxims of Westminster, the cloudy and 
 lightning genius of the Gael, the placid strength of the 
 Sassenach, the marshalling insight of the Norman — 
 these are the components of such a nationality. 
 
 Thomas Davis.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE COMPOSITE IRISH NATION OF TO-DAY 
 
 The wonderful variety of human nature is a 
 constant source of stimulus and delight. We 
 are exactly like each other in so many ways 
 and yet in others so strangely different. The 
 multiplicity of these likenesses and differences 
 divides us into natural groups, as, for example, 
 political parties, religious communities, racial 
 units, composite nations. The members of 
 each group have some common characteristics 
 the causes of which lie deep in heredity, far 
 back in history, or near by in the idiosyn- 
 crasies of the individual and the special in- 
 fluences amid which he moves. For a political 
 party the characteristic turns ostensibly on the 
 deliberate adoption of a certain social ideal 
 
 13
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 to be realized. With religious bodies it is 
 much the same, in so far as the difference goes 
 deep. But race distinctions and national 
 characteristics elude concise description and 
 baffle explanation for the most part. It is 
 with Race and Nationality, however, that we 
 have to do in these pages. 
 
 The race had some common pair of 
 ancestors, who varied as individuals some- 
 what from their fellows. Their descendants 
 tend more or less to perpetuate such variations 
 and to vary farther from each other and from 
 ancestral type. In this process of variation 
 at any stage marriage with outsiders plays a 
 part. Also variation of habitat counts for 
 much. Moreover, through ideas, sympathy, 
 and conduct, the members of the group react 
 one on the other in each generation and from 
 generation to generation throughout the cen- 
 turies. From this process of mixed heredity 
 and education the race emerges. In the 
 course of the process ideals of character are 
 developed, and operate to the formation of 
 
 14
 
 Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 character in all those who come within their 
 sphere of influence — not only members of the 
 race but aliens entering into humane associa- 
 tion with it. The race hands down its 
 character to its children in the flesh. To its 
 foster-children and natural children alike it 
 hands down its ideas of that which it gives out 
 to itself that it ought to be. Also it backs 
 these ideas in each generation to the best of 
 that generation's ability — practical, logical, 
 and literary ability — by stimulus to reason, 
 imagination, religious instinct, sympathy — by 
 personal influence, discipline, custom, and law. 
 Given a mixture of races living together 
 and dominated by ideals distinctive enough to 
 confer idiosyncrasy on normal members of the 
 group, and in due course a well-blended com- 
 posite people emerges. It is a people, not by 
 unity of race but by community of spirit, a 
 community that makes itself felt in a deep 
 consciousness of moral affinity, mutual intel- 
 ligibility beneath particular difl"crences of 
 opinion, a similarity of view in matters of 
 
 15
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 homely common sense, humour, and social 
 instinct. Its degree of national unity is quite 
 a different thing from that of a people recently 
 drawn in from many sources, living together 
 in amity and with common interests, but 
 separated by manifold diversity in traditional 
 culture. Such a people we have in the United 
 States of America : it has a real unity based 
 on broad principles of universal humanity, but 
 it is not a composite nation yet in the intimate 
 quasi-racial sense, 
 
 France, with striking variety of race, is 
 emphatically a nation in the more complete 
 sense. The differences are great and they 
 are localized, but Norman, Breton, Gascon, 
 Cevennois, and Provengal all are French to 
 the core, whatever else besides. Of Great 
 Britain and of Germany the same may be 
 said, though not perhaps to the same extent. 
 
 Ireland is in many respects the most notable 
 
 example of a composite people, with much 
 
 individual and sectional variety, consolidated 
 
 in a subtle community of spirit, under extra- 
 
 i6
 
 Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 ordinary historical difficulties. Geography has 
 been on her side, but history since the twelfth 
 century has worked steadily against her. On 
 the other hand, much has been done for her 
 unity by the early development of a native 
 literature and popular literary habit, and, there- 
 fore, of an Irish " Ethos," attractive and con- 
 vincing. The Irishry of Ireland and its 
 remarkable power of absorbing into itself the 
 strangers settled as superior persons in its 
 midst passed into a proverb — " More Irish than 
 the Irish " — in those old sad days when the 
 doings of the " degenerate English " in Ireland 
 roused the wrath of kings. In later days more 
 success was attained in keeping the English 
 colonists to themselves : a considerable section 
 is divided by religion from the rest of Ireland 
 to-day, and a section of this section has its 
 hand against the hand of Ireland in respect 
 of Irish Nationality. England in our day has 
 disowned the Irish garrison, but there it is. 
 Long may it stay : there is no call for it to 
 surrender. It is wanted by the Ireland, which 
 
 17 B
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 after all it loves, to stay within the fort and 
 take honourable part in its administration. But 
 be this as it may, certain it is that the members 
 of the Irish garrison as a whole have not 
 escaped the infection of the Irish turn of mind. 
 Least of all have the stalwarts within its circle. 
 I have seen something of Irishmen in all 
 quarters of Ireland, and I was brought up in 
 Ulster among the Anglo-Irish people of Lough 
 Erne's river-valley, near the noted Orange town 
 of Enniskillen. Everywhere, if one enters into 
 social contact with the people, one finds the 
 Irish touch, a liveliness of mind, individuality, 
 a personal interest in other people, and 
 courteous manners. The quality is too subtly 
 compounded to be briefly described, but it is 
 unmistakable : of course it is not complete 
 or equally deep in all, and there are excep- 
 tions ; but the form of it at least prevails 
 throughout the island. An Irishman is Irish 
 in his view of social life and his ideal of manly 
 behaviour even though his origin be English 
 
 or Lowland Scotch and his temperament racy 
 
 i8
 
 Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 of the original soil. And so the fiery Ulster 
 Unionist and the hot Home Ruler from Con- 
 naught have a delicate freemasonry that makes 
 them socially more intelligible to each other 
 than either is to his own political friend. The 
 mutual intelligibility of Sir Edward Carson and 
 Mr. Timothy Healy is a thing of which one 
 feels assured as a psychological necessity. 
 Neither would, I think, deny it. Kinship in 
 spirit is a very different thing from political 
 or any other form of intellectual agreement. 
 It is consistent with prejudice and marked 
 antagonism of opinion in mundane matters. 
 But it makes people able to get on with each 
 other whether they agree or not. 
 
 Many hidden causes have no doubt worked 
 together for good in the development of this 
 overlying or underlying quality which makes 
 all Irish kin. Ireland herself is a training- 
 ground : she counts for much with her soft, 
 variable climate, her unexpected mingling of 
 mountains, lake, and plain, her matchless 
 beauty spots — so they seem to us — her ring of 
 
 19
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 varying seas, her rock-bound coasts, and the 
 clean sweet air that sweeps across her. Nor 
 can we think of Ireland without calling to 
 mind a delightful sense of the people living on 
 her soil. One could hardly be in Ireland and 
 escape that influence. The type of the born 
 teacher meets you on every hand, the person 
 with interesting ideas, sympathy, and power of 
 expression. Something of race there seems 
 to be, and something of traditional culture 
 wJiich makes for this result : its effect on other 
 people, and especially on the young, is cer- 
 tainly towards the development in them of 
 similar characteristics. Thus in modern times, 
 for centuries past, the Irish of each generation 
 have fostered the new-comers and added them 
 in spirit to the Gaelic race. For the Gaelic 
 race it is — a branch of the Celt — which forms 
 the nucleus of the Irish nation and breathes 
 into Irish nationality its all-pervading and most 
 expressive spirit. 
 
 Mere sociability effects much wherever the 
 racial currents meet. Nevertheless it is true 
 
 20
 
 Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 that, in the deeper things of mind and hfe, the 
 full influence of this spirit throughout the com- 
 posite people has begun only in our time to 
 make itself felt. The English in Ireland 
 during the last quarter century have been 
 learning what old Irish history and literature 
 have to teach. The Irish Renaissance affects 
 all classes of society. The President of the 
 Irish Literary Society is of typical Anglo-Irish 
 Unionist family, non-Gaelic and Protestant. 
 All its present officers and a good moiety of 
 its lecturers appear, so far as their names go, 
 to be also of the alien race. There are many 
 Unionists among its members : it taboos 
 politics, but talks about Irish things every 
 Saturday night for seven months in the year. 
 This is in London, which is honeycombed also 
 by branches of the Gaelic League. In Ireland 
 the Gaelic League is a popular educational 
 movement, a rousing mental tonic, bringing 
 in the language and literature, casting out in- 
 tellectual stagnation and sordid life-habits of 
 all kinds wherever it goes. Gaelic studies 
 
 21
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 have made their way into University circles, 
 and promise to hold high place. The Irish 
 Texts Society published its first volume in 
 1899: now there are twelve such issues of 
 Gaelic texts with scholarly introductions, com- 
 mentary, and translations. Nor have skilful 
 writers been slow to collect, rearrange, and 
 sometimes rewrite the old stories in popular 
 and attractive forms, preserving the fine style 
 and racy spirit by faithful adherence to the 
 original so far as possible. Historians, too, 
 have been at work dealing " faithfully " with 
 their department of the literature. In a word, 
 the Gaelic literature is being given to the 
 world, and for the Irish of every race the 
 gift is too rich in local colour, too good to be 
 neglected or overlooked. In one form or 
 another it will be read from end to end of 
 Ireland, and like a magnet to iron filings, it 
 will draw together and set in rank the divers 
 members of the Irish people, divided as they 
 are to-day by a political controversy that will 
 
 soon be set at rest. 
 
 22
 
 Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 Of this potent influence the men and women 
 of our generation knew, for the most part, 
 nothing when they were growing up. In the 
 old days, before the slow-coming, long-lasting 
 eclipse of Gaelic and the Gaelic literature, it 
 must have been a potent influence indeed. No 
 doubt the old stories themselves — more par- 
 ticularly the stories of Finn and the Fiana of 
 Erin — lingered long, and here and there still 
 survive for recital by the peasant's fireside : 
 but the tradition itself survived more uni- 
 versally and in a more important sense. It 
 lives in the common Irishman's idea of what 
 a true man is, and what, therefore, every 
 " decent " Irishman should expect himself to 
 be. Every man has some such idea : if he 
 be a Christian man the Christian ideal of 
 humanity enters largely into it ; but in most 
 strong men there is, underlying the Christian 
 conscience, something more primitive, derived 
 from an older ancestral past or acquired from 
 early pagan literary influences, and if that 
 more primitive influence is dignified, tender, 
 
 23
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 and true, it reinforces and is reinforced by the 
 Christian ideal accordingly. The land that 
 grows heroes will yield a good crop of saints. 
 So it did in the Irish case. 
 
 We may take it that the " decent " Irish- 
 man's idea of what he ought to be has a good 
 deal to do with the ideal of a hero presented 
 in Gaelic literature. I quote from Mr. 
 Standish O'Grady this fine estimate of its 
 worth. 
 
 " Those heroes and heroines were the ideals 
 of our ancestors, their conduct and character 
 were to them a religion, the bardic literature 
 was their Bible. It was a poor substitute, one 
 may say, for that which found its way into the 
 island in the fifth century. That is so, yet, 
 such as it was, under its nurture, the imagina- 
 tion and spiritual susceptibilities of our 
 ancestors were made capable of that tremen- 
 dous outburst of religious fervour and exalta- 
 tion which characterized the centuries that 
 succeeded the fifth, and whose effect was felt 
 
 throughout a great portion of Europe. It was 
 
 24
 
 Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 the Irish bards and that heroic age of theirs 
 which nourished the Imagination, Intellect, and 
 Idealism of the country to such an Issue. 
 Patrick did not create these qualities. They 
 may not be created. He found them, and 
 directed them Into a new channel." ^ 
 
 It was indeed to them as a crude pagan 
 Bible, undeveloped but their own, teaching 
 them religion, morals, manners, literature, 
 history. Thus, more greatly and beyond all 
 comparison more deeply, the Hebrew Bible 
 in its earlier unfinished forms taught the Jews. 
 The Irish Texts Society might be likened, 
 with all reverence and in great humility, to 
 those exiled Hebrew scholars of Babylonian 
 times, whose literary labour laid the foundation 
 of the old Testament Canon .2 Out of their 
 
 ■^ Bardic History of Ireland, InivodViCiion^ vii. Standish 
 O'Grady. The italics are mine. 
 
 =^ It raises a side-issue here, but I venture to think that 
 if the Protestant minority had not had the English Bible 
 and read it so diligently, they would be more distinct from 
 their countrymen than they are in the kind of literary 
 sense which characterizes both races in Ireland. The 
 
 25
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 labours will presently emerge a select body 
 of story, adventure, legend, vision, and song, 
 showing forth in its first volume the heroic 
 ideal of the pagan Gael, and in its second the 
 beginning of Irish history, the dawn of Chris- 
 tianity, and the development of the Gaelic 
 State and Church. The well -purposed, though 
 partly fictitious Milesian history should be 
 there, no less than the Brehon laws. First 
 rank would I give to the Colloquy of Patrick 
 with the old men of the pagan past, fine parable 
 as it is of the genial intelligent spirit which 
 is the clue to Ireland's magnificent record of 
 tolerance and mutual respect in sacred matters. 
 In the development of the ancient Irish State 
 it appears that pains were taken by the 
 dominant Milesian race under Christian in- 
 fluence to bring all tribes by all means into 
 the common cause as " Men of Erin." In 
 law, as in literature, the subject peoples were 
 
 English language in Ireland keeps its original Elizabethan 
 lines ; it is characterized further and enriched by drafts 
 on Gaelic idiom and metaphor. 
 
 26
 
 Composite Irish Nation of To-day 
 
 recognized, provision was even made for the 
 absorption of individual aliens into the full 
 tribal life. The Milesians' own contribution 
 to literature consists mainly in a " skeleton of 
 artificial history pieced together by the schools : 
 upon this structure were overlaid various 
 patches of the traditions of the older races." ' 
 By the tenth century this history, dealing 
 largely in genealogies, had taken on the theory 
 of racial unity, i.e., of one common descent 
 for all the free peoples. Later the distinc- 
 tion between free and unfree was lost ; but 
 before that time race-prejudices had died out 
 among the Irish-speaking Irish, though tribal 
 feuds in the form of faction lingered long. 
 
 The old Milesians had some political genius 
 behind their pious fiction. What they did in 
 the tenth century for practical advantage and 
 human comradeship and love of country, the 
 Irish of our day, with wider views, larger ex- 
 perience, and a more potent ideal of united 
 
 ' Irish Texts Society, vol. vii : The Book of the Lays 
 Fionn^ Introduction, p. xxxv. Eoin MacNeil. 
 
 27
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Ireland as the object of patriotic love, will 
 surely effect and develop more completely in 
 a people much less divided as to status and 
 prospects than were the people of the Irish 
 Pentarchy ten centuries ago. 
 
 There will be a swift cure for all political 
 heartaches in work for the good of Ireland, 
 and her increase in wealth, health, happiness, 
 and beauty. The old Milesian genius will 
 again prevail, but on a larger scale, to build 
 up an Ireland of the future " in which all her 
 sons of every race and creed within her 
 shores will bring their tributes, great or 
 small, to the great temple of national enter- 
 prise and national statesmanship and national 
 happiness." ^ 
 
 * Speech on the Third Reading of the Home Rule 
 Bill, 1913, by Mr. John Redmond. 
 
 28
 
 II 
 
 THE 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 OF THE 
 CELT
 
 To its own impulse every creature stirs ; 
 Live by thy light, and earth will live by hers. 
 
 Matthew Arnold.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CELT 
 
 In the title of this chapter there is a tacit 
 assumption to which the cautious thinker may 
 well take exception. It implies that some- 
 thing, going to the root of the matter, may 
 be said about average Celtic nature that is 
 not true of human nature generally — not true, 
 in particular, of some other human nature with 
 which we compare it. A thoughtful friend 
 states the objection thus : " You speak of the 
 Celt, by which you mean practically the Irish," 
 he says, " as if the Irishman had characteristics 
 exceptional in human nature. Now, in fact, 
 he is very like other Europeans ; is it not the 
 Englishman rather than the Irishman who is 
 so odd? ■' 
 
 31
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 This criticism contains a truth which should 
 not escape us. The Englishman, however, 
 has been characterized and explained by that 
 master of literature, Matthew Arnold. His 
 oddness, such as it is, has been traced to his 
 genesis from the mixture of two strong racial 
 currents, each carrying on a perpetual dialectic 
 with the other. It costs one an effort not to 
 digress further on this delightful theme, the 
 weaving of Celt with Teuton to produce the 
 Englishman. What chiefly concerns us here, 
 however, is that he is not the typical Teuton, 
 though more Teuton than Celt. 
 
 Behind, and overtopping the Englishman, 
 we must place the German, who, as compared 
 with the Celt, is much more non-Celtic. In 
 short, we must include in our purview all those 
 nations in which the Teutonic race-element 
 preponderates. These may be contrasted with 
 the nations to the west and south of them, 
 and one might frame a theory on the 
 psychology of the Teuton — that marked variety 
 of the human species. We know the Teuton 
 
 32
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 by his divergence from the Celt, and the Celt 
 by his divergence from the Teuton. When 
 both are present we pick each out from the 
 other, much as one picks out the fair men 
 from the dark men in a crowd. 
 
 It is not without interest to inquire into the 
 psychological ground of the characteristics by 
 which such selection is made. In a Saxon 
 assembly we do easily recognize the presence 
 of a stray Celt, and this apart from accent or 
 physique, and even after a long course of 
 naturalization in England. I, for one, have 
 recognized him at first sight times out of mind, 
 by his gesture in every minute detail, the curves 
 of his wrinkles, the movements of his eye, by 
 his turn of phrase, by the tone of his feeling, 
 by the form of his thought. 
 
 I speak mainly of the Gaelic Irishman, 
 though not of him alone. I have met the 
 replica of an Irish waiter in one of the Italian 
 valleys of Monte Rosa. I have seen a High- 
 lander and an Irishman look like brothers on 
 a platform, and I have discovered Irish 
 
 33 c
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 affinities in Welshmen at first sight. Within 
 limits the type stands out plainly in all its 
 varieties. We are concerned here, not with the 
 varieties, but with the type. We must re- 
 member, too, that though the Irish Gael stands 
 fairly for the type, it is not every Irishman 
 who is an Irish Gael. Nor need this cross- 
 multiplicity of Irish types confuse us seriously, 
 because, after all, as we shall see later, it is 
 the Irish Gael that has given a " character " 
 to the Irish people. 
 
 Apart from various other racial differences 
 the nations of Europe differ to-day, as they 
 have throughout the historic period, by a 
 larger or smaller infusion of the Celtic stock. 
 In Europe, as a whole, and in each of the 
 more western nations of Europe treated as a 
 separate unit, the Celtic element increases from 
 east to west. The most Celtic nation is this 
 nation of ours in Ireland. In it there is so 
 much Gaelic blood, and such a preponderance 
 of Gaelic influence, that it is ethnologically 
 reasonable, as well as politically and socially 
 
 34
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 inevitable, to describe it as a Gaelic nation, 
 though not wholly Gael. Ireland is, in fact, 
 much more truthfully Gael-land than England 
 is Angle-land ; but the ancient Gael was wise 
 in his generation, and for all generations, in 
 this — he never imposed a tribe name or a race 
 name on the land of his conquest. From the 
 dawn of history, it has been known by the 
 name of the goddess — nay, as itself the goddess 
 — motherland of all its sons, conferring on 
 them alike that title of the men of Eire, in 
 which all race distinctions are submerged. 
 
 The clearest type of the Celt we can find is, 
 what we know and the world generally with 
 more or less accuracy knows, as the typical 
 Irishman. We think of him specially as the 
 Irishman of the West. It is a fact that he 
 personally stands out in contrast to the typical 
 Englishman so-called, who is, however, much 
 less clearly characterized racially, and perhaps 
 in these days more characterized by his habits 
 and traditions than by his real mental type. 
 For a contrast of type it is better to compare 
 
 35
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 the Irishman as Ceh with the German — the 
 most obviously German German — as Teuton. 
 Thus the special influences of the time in 
 England, the cosmopolitan race-mixture and 
 abnormal development of town life may be 
 eliminated in the contrast. The English, even 
 apart from these later influences, are, as 
 has already been said, a mixed race, and now 
 they are a mixed race in which the elements 
 are much mixed up. 
 
 Let this sufhce as prologue to the statement 
 of the problem. Our inquiry assumes that we 
 know whom we mean by the Gael — the Con- 
 naughtman perhaps would be the most typical 
 representative — and we ask for a description 
 of his characteristics, and, if possible, for a 
 definition of the essential characteristic which 
 lies at the root of him, and by which he is 
 differentiated from his fellows. Common 
 sayings on the subject abound. Friends of 
 the Gael, and his detractors no less, delight 
 to sum him up in a sentence or a chapter. 
 
 He is the dreamer in Europe, says one — the 
 
 36
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 visionary idealist, whose life is in the force and 
 intensity of his imagination, and whose deeds 
 are as naught. Artistic by temperament, he 
 is ineffective in execution — unpractical essen- 
 tially. 'His life is in his own mind apart from 
 interest in material conditions. He lives in a 
 house much out of repair, with broken china, 
 in untidy rooms, of which the doors do not 
 shut. But that time of which the poet speaks 
 is with him always. 
 
 In the same strain another explains the 
 economic condition of the country now, and 
 its political unsuccess throughout the centuries, 
 by the well-known incapacity of this dreamer 
 for practical life — his lack of executive 
 industry in material things. 
 
 On the other hand, I have heard it well 
 argued that practical genius is the special 
 mark of the Celt in history, and that the Gaelic 
 Irishman all over the world is showing himself 
 to-day, by contrast with the Teuton, as the 
 man who does things, whose resourceful mind 
 is most frequently at its best in devising means 
 
 37
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 to ends, and accomplishing the ends, while 
 the Teuton feels and dreams and thinks as 
 poet and philosopher. It is easy to illustrate 
 this view of the case. The sentimentalist of 
 Europe is the German. He is the poet, the 
 Frenchman is the artist. Irishmen have left 
 the marks of their executive genius all over 
 the history of the British Empire, and else- 
 where as well. There is no lack of practical 
 effectiveness in the Irish immigrant across 
 the seas. 
 
 Again, it is generally held by admirers, and 
 not denied by detractors, that in every nation, 
 and within these islands especially, the Celtic 
 element is anti-materialistic in its influences 
 and aspirations. The mission of the Celt to 
 humanity, it has been said, is to turn attention 
 towards the spiritual significance of life, and 
 that not only in the religious sense, but in 
 every sense. It is his genius to believe, and 
 in practice to teach everywhere and always 
 and in relation to all things, the truth that the 
 goods of the soul are good pier se, and the 
 
 38
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 goods of the body, good merely as a means 
 to them— that " the life is more than meat, 
 and the body than raiment." No one would 
 seriously dispute that the Celt has exceptional 
 gifts for such a mission, though many may 
 deny the value of the mission, or laugh it to 
 scorn. What concerns us now is the charac- 
 teristic alleged of this European race to look 
 through " the things seen," which are part 
 of the means to life, and reach out hands to 
 the " things unseen," which are life itself. 
 We need not pause to dwell upon the evidence, 
 so obvious and abundant is it. The Highland 
 Gael is noted throughout Presbyterian Scotland 
 for his gifts of religious insight and power, 
 and he is famous in literature for the develop- 
 ment of the same gift in that sympathetic 
 appreciation of nature, which is the child of 
 imagination and the parent of poetry. The 
 Irish peasant is known, by those who know 
 him, to maintain through a lifetime of want 
 and suffering a rare capacity for being upheld 
 in cheerfulness, as well as courage, by his grip 
 
 39
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 on the realities of the unseen in his own soul. 
 On the other hand, the prosperous Irishman 
 cares less than another for the heaping up of 
 wealth, gives profusely at an earlier stage in 
 his financial progress, suffers less from 
 pecuniary worries, and in general is less 
 moved by purely materialistic motives. 
 Possessions mean less to him, whatever his par- 
 ticular form of joy may be, whether religion at 
 one extreme, or the spectacle of the circus- 
 show of human life at the other. 
 
 By another common saying, the Irish people 
 — the Gaelic Irish — are declared to be at the 
 bottom one of the most conservative people on 
 earth ; and evidence is not lacking. Another 
 claims their kinship with the French in easily 
 roused revolutionary tendencies ; and it is 
 impossible to study the history of the last 
 twenty-five years without admitting their apt- 
 ness to absorb new ideas and organize move- 
 ments accordingly for the radical alteration 
 of social conditions. If both these sayings 
 
 contain truth, they assert that a people of 
 
 40
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 marked conservative instinct show a highly 
 developed capacity for change in the face of 
 enormous difficulties ; and this, after due 
 allowance has been made for circumstances, 
 remains as an interesting statement concerning 
 national character. 
 
 Probably it is not independent of another 
 less obvious fact which is abundantly evidenced 
 throughout Irish history. I mean the grip 
 on the primitive form of life maintained 
 throughout the development of new forms 
 which marks the native growth of Irish society. 
 The Brehon laws may be called in evidence. 
 The persistence of the primitive type in the 
 civilized type endured till the introduction of 
 the foreign semi -feudal system from England. 
 The movement of the last quarter of a century 
 is to a large extent, though not wholly, a 
 reversion, in effect, if not in form, to the native 
 social type, the instincts corresponding to 
 which have survived the flood of alien ideas 
 and enforced habits. It has taken less than a 
 generation to free the Irish serf from the 
 
 41
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 clinging sense of servility. It would seem 
 this can only be because, the pressure removed, 
 his nature sprang back at once to the expres- 
 sion of that sense of the freeman which the 
 persistence of his primitive nature had pre- 
 served inborn in him throughout the servile 
 times. 
 
 The observations made in this sense might 
 be summed up briefly in the statement that the 
 Gael is conservative in his ideas, and remains 
 primitive in his instincts, while he grows. 
 With all new acquisitions he is unforgetful of 
 the old. 
 
 And that reminds one of other things about 
 him. The unforgetful Gael shows himself as 
 such in the faithfulness of his affections to 
 friend and sweetheart, family and native land. 
 Whether or not he be " wax to receive," he is 
 certainly " marble to retain." As unforgetful, 
 too, in the wider sense of a persistent physical 
 and psychical nature, the civilized Gael of 
 universities, ball-rooms, clubs, parliaments, 
 and commercial syndicates, of manufacturing 
 
 42
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 industries, electric light, daily newspapers, tele- 
 phones, and motor-cars — this civilized Gael is 
 as primitive as his forefathers beneath all this 
 modern embroidery of pleasure and conveni- 
 ence. The great primitive instincts still brace 
 the will and warm the heart of him, linking 
 man to nature and nature to man. Thus the 
 human nature in him is broad and deep, full 
 of possibilities, some evil, no doubt, but to 
 every evil a capacity for self-control corre- 
 sponding. 
 
 It is impossible, however, to dwell on this 
 aspect of character without being driven on to 
 the assertion of some complementary quality ; 
 and we naturally bethink ourselves of that 
 comment on the Gael which is most familiar, 
 most universally admitted. That he is swift 
 of wit and readily moved no one will deny. 
 His admirers praise the ready aptness of his 
 repartee, the quickness of his intellectual up- 
 take, his adaptability of mood, his smartness 
 in resource, his swift and varied imagination. 
 His detractors sneer at the same qualities 
 
 43
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 differently stated, and the epithets excitable, 
 fickle — possibly hysterical — are used. As 
 an outcome of these qualities every one admits 
 accessibility to ideas, with adaptability of 
 feeling and instinct accordingly. In this we 
 have, of course, the making of the liberal or 
 progressive element in the Irishman, and not 
 in him only, since without the Celtic fringe in 
 Great Britain the prospects of the Liberal 
 Party there would be dark indeed. 
 
 Thus the combination of persistent primi- 
 tiveness with congenital adaptability yields the 
 conservative progressiveness which charac- 
 terizes the Irish political atmosphere to-day, 
 and which is, on the other hand, so strikingly 
 exemplified in the old-world wisdom of the 
 Brehon Law. It would not be easy to match 
 this ancient code of lav/ for the skill with 
 which it adapts old ideas to new circumstances, 
 so that the ideals shall be preserved though 
 not unchanged. ' 
 
 It would be easy to add to this list of 
 common sayings descriptive of the Gael, but 
 
 44
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 it is time to take a forward step and seek some 
 true account of that root of character in him 
 which differentiates him racially from his 
 fellows. The external manifestations of 
 difference are so many and various, and so 
 subtly interwoven with universal human traits, 
 that it is impossible to resist the conviction 
 that we have here some deep-seated difference 
 of human kind by which the forms of life and 
 its expression are modified in an infinite variety 
 of ways. The larch-tree differs from the forest 
 oak in ways too many to be counted up. The 
 botanist seeks here for the characteristic differ- 
 ence from which others flow or round which 
 they are grouped. Our task is similar to his. 
 Let us approach it in like manner, seeking 
 for the one or two distinctive qualities which 
 promise to lead down into the heart of the 
 matter. , 
 
 Now, all observers are struck by the fact 
 that Irish personality is essentially positive. 
 'Hence its force and fascination. Hence also 
 its liability to exaggerations. Hence, too, its 
 
 45
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 contradictions, since it insists on being what 
 
 it is, whether self -contradictory or not. 'Hence, 
 
 most important of all, there follows from 
 
 these the moral dialectic by which it sustains 
 
 itself. 
 
 Thus the genuine Irishman of the West has 
 
 little instinctive taste for the pursuit of either 
 
 virtue or truth by the Aristotelian method of 
 
 steering in the mean between two extremes. 
 
 On the contrary, his manner of self -correction 
 
 when he finds himself on one extreme horn 
 
 of argument or mood is to stretch across to 
 
 the other horn, and so raise or lower his being 
 
 on to the ground of a better common sense. 
 
 And this the healthy Irishman does for the 
 
 most part instinctively. He is in a rage of 
 
 resentment, and recovers himself suddenly by 
 
 the revival of some natural fellow-feeling with 
 
 the person who has offended him. He corrects 
 
 himself, not by s«/7pression, but by some new 
 
 form of expression. His ability for swift 
 
 transition from one mood to the opposite is 
 
 the natural counterpart of his p.ositiveness ; it 
 
 46
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 has developed in him as the necessary alterna- 
 tive to the abstract self-control which is so 
 conspicuous in the Englishman. Thus, being 
 both emphatically positive and easily moved, 
 the Gael makes himself conspicuous by what 
 I have called his moral dialectic, the main- 
 tenance of opposites in mood — of thesis and 
 anti -thesis in meditation. It can hardly be 
 said that he has any characteristic moral trait 
 without the suggestion of its opposite as also 
 characteristic. 
 
 The Irishman is self-assertive : he is also 
 instinct with consideration for the selfness 
 of another. He may talk much, but he seldom 
 loses his power of listening. If he allows 
 himself to boast unduly, his good manners will 
 presently prescribe a pause to let you have 
 your turn. He has a vivid sense of respect 
 due to himself, but it seldom extinguishes his 
 sense of respect as equally due to others. He 
 is self-conscious and easily offended ; he is 
 other-conscious also, and not hard to be 
 reconciled. His quarrelsomeness and his 
 
 47
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 courtesy are a twin growth. He is uncom- 
 promising in his adherence to his opinion while 
 it is his opinion ; but he has a rare accessibility 
 to the ideas of others. He is sensitive and 
 easily hurt ; he is elastic and soon recovers 
 balance. And from this tissue of opposites — 
 his vivid human nature — there bubbles up 
 within him, as from a well-spring, an inex- 
 haustible fund of humour to gladden our toil- 
 worn race. For the basis of humour is the 
 sense of the normal self-contradictoriness of 
 human nature in detail. 
 
 Contrast and transitions come to his nature 
 with ease. Thus his way of going right is 
 by the maintenance of pairs of opposite 
 qualities in him. His way of going wrong is, 
 of course, the universal way, by concentration 
 on one of the two ; only the positiveness of 
 his nature makes him go more wrong than 
 another in the absence of the compensating 
 quality. This is because he has a less- 
 developed instinct for pure negative self- 
 control than other people. Some can be cured 
 
 48
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 of their mischievous tendencies, if not of their 
 inmost faults, by a system of pure repressive 
 education in controlling exaggerations. It is 
 well known that Irish human nature, on the 
 average, does not respond happily to this treat- 
 ment. To merely check exaggerations is to 
 sit on the safety-valve. The more excellent 
 way is in this case also the readier to take 
 effect : it lies in the development of the com- 
 plementary quality. Thus character is not re- 
 pressed but developed. Virtue drives a pair 
 of steeds. Humanity is writ large in the 
 personality of the Gael, and written all over 
 it in a countless variety of characters. 
 
 From this may be inferred, as a con- 
 sequence, the familiar fact that he imprints 
 his likeness on most strangers who come within 
 his social sphere. They also are human 
 through and through, though less positive, 
 i.e., less endowed with the courage of their 
 humanity, than he is. It is natural that. they 
 should accept his leadership in this respect, 
 and develop, for good or for ill, that instinct 
 
 49 D
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 of his to be emphatically whatever he happens 
 to be. 
 
 Positiveness of personality shows itself from 
 another point of view, in that chief incon- 
 venience of Irish human nature its persistent 
 irrepressibility. Check its expression in fifty 
 ways, and, after the immediate occasion of re- 
 pression is past, it reappears in all its multiform 
 humanity as vigorous as ever. In political 
 contests this gives the Irishman a certain 
 advantage which explains some events that 
 happen in our times. 
 
 Gaelic irrepressibility is, however, as unlike 
 the inconvertible stability of the Teuton as 
 can be. It preserves itself by maintaining its 
 essential ends while adapting its means to 
 changing circumstances. The common human 
 lot being indeed what it is, adaptability is a 
 condition to the maintenance of irrepressibility. 
 If the plant does not turn to grow round the 
 stone, then does the stone crush out the plant. 
 On the other hand, irrepressible vitality is a 
 motive to efforts of adaptation. For an ex- 
 
 50
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 amplC;, note how in nineteenth-century politics 
 the Irish people took the British Constitution, 
 which they continued to dislike, but under 
 which they lived, and converted it into an 
 instrument for their purposes, using it with 
 such effectiveness as to astonish the rightful 
 heirs to its traditions. 
 
 Thus irrepressibility and adaptability go 
 together, and are both rooted in the positive- 
 ness or vitality of nature which shows the 
 wrong side of itself in the Gaelic exaggeration 
 of which we often hear so much. A Gael stand- 
 ing outside his social world would, doubtless, 
 exaggerate whatever he had happened to carry 
 with him into his outsidedness. But he is too 
 positive to stand outside more than he is 
 obliged. He needs a sphere of social life in 
 which to express himself. He lives in his 
 world, and it teaches him balance, correcting 
 the emphasis he impresses on it by some other 
 emphasis which it suggests. More than 
 another, however, he requires an adequate 
 world, demanding a completely rounded 
 
 51
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 human nature from him. If such a nature is 
 demanded he is apt to respond to the demand. 
 If not, well the greater natures will escape 
 onesidedness by inventing outlets for them- 
 selves, but the average will yield an endless 
 variety of quaint human oddments, eccen- 
 tricities, limited social types, self-confident in- 
 dividualities of all sorts eager with abounding 
 life. 
 
 Positiveness, irrepressibility, adaptability, 
 with these go of necessity that quality of 
 manner, an assertive personality, taking itself 
 and its audience for granted, which is either 
 the most delightful or the most obnoxious 
 thing, according to its character-context. Con- 
 sequences and the opinion of others are not 
 necessarily disregarded ; but in all cases the 
 Gael expresses himself in his talk and act, 
 even when he is most under external influ- 
 ences. Hence that extraordinary appearance 
 of originality which even most ordinary Irish- 
 men usually display. They are original, even 
 when commonplace, by mere expressiveness of 
 
 52
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 personality. The effect of this is sometimes 
 disagreeable. 
 
 This positiveness of personality, or energetic 
 vitality of expression, showing itself in all these 
 ways, might be said to constitute the warp in 
 the web of Gaelic character. 
 
 But without a woof of vital tenacity not 
 inferior, the web would soon be broken by the 
 disintegrating influences of modern life. The 
 Gaelic woof in the web is evidently that quality, 
 whatever it be, which facilitates the expres- 
 sion of positive personality in adaptation to 
 the demands of a world bristling with com- 
 plexity and antagonism. The adaptability of 
 the irrepressible Gael — the energetic dialectic 
 by which character develops with the minimum 
 of negation— these point to some characteristic 
 other than positiveness, per se, even if only 
 for the preservation of such positiveness. 
 
 " The lightning genius of the Gael," so 
 Thomas Davis named it. As we ponder on 
 the metaphor its truth grows on us : — 
 
 The light breaks out over the sky. 
 
 All things on sky and earth become visible. 
 
 53
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Just so there is a swift illumination in the 
 mind. ' 
 
 It seems almost a crime to analyse the poet's 
 thought. Forgive me if I attempt a task so 
 ungracious. At this moment you are actually 
 conscious of the few matters on which your 
 attention is engaged. You are potentially con- 
 scious of all that you have experienced in 
 mood and in idea hitherto, and you are poten- 
 tially conscious, also, of several other things 
 going on about you, claiming your attention 
 by impressions on eye and ear, to which 
 you pay no heed. Of all these possibilities 
 you are not conscious, but, should occasion 
 arise, you would be made conscious of them 
 with greater or less swiftness and certainty. 
 With greater or less swiftness and certainty 
 — we are all familiar with the many grades 
 of possibility expressed in these words, the 
 reluctance with which the train of thought 
 explodes in some for the reinstatement of 
 matters remote from present attention, the 
 sudden flash with which the subconscious 
 
 54
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 becomes the conscious in others. The con- 
 sequences of this difference are very wide. 
 Grasp of intellect as well as readiness of wit 
 wait on the man whose mental processes are 
 what we call swift. 
 
 Of the Gael as swift-witted I have already 
 spoken. His repartee is the most punctual 
 thing about him, his memory seldom laggard, 
 his imagination far-seeking, his perceptions 
 quick. His claim to the characteristic is suffi- 
 ciently established by these, its direct and 
 obvious signs. Moreover, the mind that acts 
 swiftly is practically a mind that sees many 
 points at once — in a single pulse or circling of 
 attention. Hence it is a mind capable of wide 
 intuitive, not merely logical, grasp. The man 
 who has it can condense all the main points 
 of an elaborate argument, or a complex con- 
 ception, into a circle that can be embraced by 
 one sweep of the attention. His mind tends 
 to react concretely, i.e., as one whole, on the 
 problems that present themselves, whether in 
 art, in literature, in politics, in social life. 
 
 55
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Further, this swift wit tends also to correctness 
 of judgment. Outside the grasp of conscious- 
 ness at any moment He other items still sub- 
 conscious, and if these continue subconscious 
 their neglect is a source of error. They are 
 like the repartees that occur to us the morning 
 after the dinner-party. But the swift mind is 
 swift because it is lively ; all that comes within 
 the circle of possible experiences stimulated 
 by the occasion springs readily into conscious- 
 ness — claims attention. And so, except when 
 the absorption of attention is extreme, no item 
 cognate to the matter in hand is likely to 
 allow itself to be forgotten. The Celt and 
 the Teuton — the German — seem to be at their 
 extreme points of contrast here, the one with 
 his patient genius — it is real genius too — for 
 covering the ground thoroughly step by step, 
 the other with his happy gift for seizing 
 all the salient points in a single organic 
 perception. 
 
 This quality consists of facility in using the 
 mind as a whole on each experience, which 
 
 56
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 implies facility in apprehending all the aspects 
 of an experience. It is an ability, therefore, 
 for experience in the concrete, and for this 
 reason it is here called concreteness. The 
 Gaelic mind is described as concrete, i.e., 
 ready to react as a whole. No one will, I 
 think, deny that our Gaelic peasant, as well 
 as his Gaelic betters, has this gift. I have 
 tried to show its connection with his most 
 familiar trait — the flashing wit. A Kerryman 
 explains to the inspector of beekeeping an 
 ingenious contrivance he had invented. " The 
 idea came into my mind all at once," said he, 
 " just as you see the sun shine out suddenly on 
 the mountain-side." 
 
 Concrete intelligence and flashing wit appear 
 as the manifestations of a fundamental charac- 
 teristic, namely, a high degree of liability in 
 the subconscious to pass into the conscious. 
 Herein lies the essence of this whole matter. 
 In the region of nerve-life transformations of 
 physical energy take place, and there is, doubt- 
 less, some transformation of energy which 
 
 57
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 coincides with the emergence of psychical life 
 or consciousness. It may well be that one 
 person, or one race of persons, differs from 
 another by degree of liability in the nerve- 
 centres to effect this particular transformation ; 
 and the man who is more easily conscious is, 
 therefore, more concrete in intelligence, more 
 flashing in imagination, more quick in wit. 
 Thus it may be that the swiftly moving, easily 
 wakened, concretely reacting mind of the Gael 
 is what it is, because he differs from his con- 
 trasted type in temperament or in the very 
 quality of his nerve-physique. On this hypo- 
 thesis he is built to convert the sum-total of 
 energy available for his organism, so that in 
 him a larger portion of it is the physical 
 correlate of consciousness than in other cases. 
 This difference is of a kind, moreover, which 
 would seem within limits to be susceptible of 
 increase or decrease even in the life of an 
 individual. It is, therefore, easily conceiv- 
 able as the difference between two branches 
 of the same race, slight, probably, in the 
 
 58
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 original divergence, but cumulating under 
 favourable circumstances with the generations. 
 The wide-awakeness of the man in the 
 Dublin street — or, better still, in the streets of 
 Cork — is a direct sign of the lightness with 
 which consciousness slumbers in him. What- 
 ever is in him, or can be in him, awakens on 
 slight provocation, and sits up at once. Hence 
 his peculiar gifts, of which enough has been 
 said; hence also certain weaknesses. He is 
 more easily distracted from the particular work 
 which he has in hand by the myriad life of 
 feeling and thought, ever ready to surge up 
 within him. In a new situation he discovers 
 practical genius (as already noted), because 
 that in him which can master the situation 
 springs to light in time. He is resourceful, 
 swift to see the facts, and no less swift to 
 strike. On the other hand, he is inferior in 
 the Teuton's gift of dogged executive — the 
 German industry whereby 
 
 Tasks in hours of insight will'd, 
 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfiird. 
 
 59
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 The Gael^ it is true, has a persistence of his 
 own ; his ideas persist and thus uphold his 
 activity in resistance to the distracting throng 
 of motives new-born hour by hour. It is by 
 understanding this, which is his strength, that 
 he will hold his own better and better, as 
 there is more demand for vivid life in the 
 world about him. But in routine persistence, 
 as in doing thoroughly one thing at a time, the 
 Teuton — I mean particularly the German — will 
 always score. Moreover, the energy which 
 is not used for consciousness is all to the good 
 to be used otherwise. The English people, 
 for the most part, resemble the Germans in 
 their gifts. 
 
 How shall we name, in brief and popular 
 
 terms, this characteristic of the Gaelic mind to 
 
 become easily whatever it has in it to become. 
 
 You may describe it in metaphor so far as 
 
 metaphor is helpful. The mind of the Gael 
 
 is as a phosphorescent sea, most part obscure, 
 
 but all parts ready to break into radiant light. 
 
 In dry psychological terms the best phrase I 
 
 60
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 can think of is facility of consciousness. 
 " Mobile," " closely knit," and " concrete " are 
 also good descriptive words. 
 
 'Here, then, is the woof of our web. It 
 explains the moral dialectic of the positive 
 personality, the easy adaptability of the irre- 
 pressible. The reaction may be through the 
 intervention of reason, or it may be merely 
 by the suggestion of opposites, but certainly 
 one quality in excess is a stimulus tending to 
 awake its opposite. Now, with facility of 
 consciousness this tendency grows towards a 
 certainty. The mean of reason is easily pre- 
 served by a natural balance of instincts, each 
 of which evokes the other. 
 
 And as regards adaptability to circumstances 
 without repression of personality, it is clear 
 that, except to a person deficient in the raw 
 material of human nature, this same quality 
 makes adaptation easy and, under good con- 
 ditions, tends to the perfect development of 
 the natural human type. For if there be any- 
 thing that can respond to the circumstances it 
 
 6i
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 will declare itself. Education is of prime 
 importance in such case. 
 
 So far we have conceived Gaelic character 
 as the interweaving of two primal charac- 
 teristics. Facility of consciousness Is the woof 
 of the web. Looking closer there seems reason 
 to think that it is the Celtic characteristic per 
 se, and that the positiveness which it throws 
 into such strong relief is just the force of 
 universal human nature preserved in all its 
 primal vitality by the skill of the Gael in 
 making things suit his ends. It is probable 
 that the Boer of the Transvaal and his 
 European brother, the Dutchman of Friesland, 
 are as positive in personality as any Western 
 Gael. They, too, have preserved their primi- 
 tiveness, and have established a claim to irre- 
 pressibility of type. But like the Gael as they 
 actually are in their primal vitality, one smiles 
 at the comparison, so unlike are they as a 
 whole ; and, in particular, the two types are 
 contrasted by their manner of maintaining their 
 
 type in a hostile world. The Boer treks into 
 
 62
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 the wilderness to carve out of it a new world 
 for himself. The Frieslander wins his country 
 by patient labour from the sea, and maintains 
 his freedom by letting in the waters when re- 
 quired. The Dutchman throughout his history 
 stands, indeed, as the type of primal force, 
 masterful to nature, on the defensive to other 
 men. He is essentially not marked by the 
 Gaelic trait of adaptability, as he is certainly 
 not marked by any of the other qualities which 
 we have traced to the same source in facility of 
 consciousness. It is the similarity of a certain 
 section of the English people to the Dutch 
 that has made them the chief builders of new 
 States throughout the world, by the free labour 
 of individual settlers. The Celt, on the con- 
 trary, excels in moulding his social habitat, 
 and seeks more persistently to establish 
 harmony between himself and it. 
 
 In another and even more essential way 
 positive individuality is preserved by that con- 
 creteness of reaction on experience which goes 
 with facility of consciousness. For conhrma- 
 
 63
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 tion let us look to ourselves ; do we not know 
 that positiveness of judgment and unhesitating 
 resolve are, in a reasonably cautious mind, 
 dependent on the sense that we have seen 
 all round the matter — taken a concrete view — 
 and thus are guaranteed against errors of over- 
 sight? Probably the least Celtic of us have 
 had in our lives one experience at least of 
 being absolutely sure that a particular course 
 was the course to take, and have known that 
 this sureness was grounded in the certainty 
 that the whole of us was awake at the instant 
 and concurred in the decision. The conscious- 
 ness of being all there, and with no objection 
 to the course proposed, not only frees the 
 impulse from mental check, but gives that 
 peculiar sense of inner freedom and power 
 which marks to himself all the actions of the 
 positive man. If I have no doubt, and feel 
 myself to be all there, then I have no fear of 
 doubt and am quite sure. Thus, the more 
 concretely — i.e., as one whole — my mind re- 
 acts, the more positive am I, whether right 
 
 64
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 or wrong. Lack of this concreteness shows 
 itself in hesitation without definite grounds, 
 and more sadly in regret after the deed is done, 
 when reasons against it come too late to mind. 
 The concrete mind may also hesitate — must 
 hesitate when contrary reasons present them- 
 selves, for and against, in almost equal force. 
 But it hesitates on definite grounds — it 
 " knows its own mind " — and has the best 
 chance of reaching a decision in accordance 
 with its own whole nature. Concreteness, then 
 — the tendency to react as a whole, is — if not the 
 cause of positiveness, at any rate an auxiliary 
 cause maintaining it. And concreteness of 
 nature is facility of consciousness from a 
 different point of view, since if all parts of a 
 nature come into action on slight stimulus, they 
 will tend to come into action all together—/.^., 
 to mobilize swiftly — in accordance with any 
 objective demand made upon them. All that 
 is relevant begins to turn up at once. All 
 the cognate mental processes are in operation 
 together. 
 
 65 E
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Presently, it will be our task to follow out 
 the consequences of this central quality, in the 
 recognition of which as conformable with 
 observed fact the evidence for the existence of 
 the quality consists. We infer the symptoms 
 from the property, and look to see whether 
 these are our Gaelic Irishman's symptoms. If 
 they are and there is no better hypothesis, this 
 one stands till a better is found. If it stands 
 there still remains the problem of the ultimate 
 physical and psychical fact to which it corre- 
 sponds in the psycho-physical life. The 
 psychological investigator, or school of in- 
 vestigators, who discover the solution of this 
 problem will doubtless make other valuable 
 discoveries on the road. They will also 
 discover some much more accurate statement 
 in popular language of the broad truth that 
 is set forth in these pages. 
 
 The incidents of life, as perceived by a 
 rapidly moving, closely knit nature, must 
 necessarily produce more disturbance of self- 
 consciousness than the same incidents acting 
 
 66
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 on one less susceptible. But an alteration in 
 self-consciousness is an emotion, and so we 
 might expect to find the Celt more emotional 
 than the Teuton. This he is generally believed 
 to be, some esteeming this liability to quick, 
 strong emotion as a grace of nature, while 
 in the eyes of others it is a defect. It may, 
 indeed, be either, but this does not concern us 
 now. Carleton had made his readers familiar 
 with that liability to extraordinarily rapid 
 transitions of emotion which characterized the 
 merry peasantry of his day to an extent that 
 lends itself to grotesque description. And Mr. 
 Villiers Stanford has made skilful use of the 
 same characteristic in his opera of Shamus 
 O'Brien . 
 
 To-day, with an advance in the habit of 
 self-control, it often takes another form. The 
 Irishman, whatever his mood, is conscious or 
 semi-conscious of other moods hanging about 
 him ; hence arises a suggestion of incongruity 
 which, without destroying the balance of his 
 central mood, clothes his ideas generally in a 
 
 67
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 subtle veil of humour. It follows that the 
 Gael is seldom moody — i.e., under the domin- 
 ance of one mere mood for long. He must 
 be hard pressed indeed before he commits 
 suicide or becomes mad. As a matter of 
 fact, there is a less percentage of lunacy 
 in Connaught than in the more anglicized 
 provinces of Munster and Leinster. 
 
 Again, a nature thus endowed is so many 
 other things besides its actual self, not merely 
 in posse, and yet not quite in esse, that other 
 more or less distinct varieties of humanity 
 become easily intelligible to it. The mani- 
 festations of another person's state of mind 
 moves all the potentialities that resemble it 
 in a mind so readily moved. This is sympathy, 
 and the perfection of the sympathy depends 
 on the exactness of the correspondence between 
 the actual state of mind in one and the imagina- 
 tion of it through the awakened possibilities 
 of the other. The more breadth and variety 
 of human nature a person has the better 
 equipped is he for sympathy with others — ^ 
 
 68
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 now through one side of his nature, now 
 through another. But, with average capacity, 
 the effect of greater variety obviously follows 
 in the case of a person whose possibilities of 
 thought, instinct, and mood are apt to become 
 real on the slighter stimulus. It is often 
 supposed that we can only sympathize with 
 that which we have already experienced, and 
 this would be true if the manifestations of 
 another's state were always insufficient to 
 awaken for the first time — i.e., out of the 
 potential — similar states in us. This universal 
 negative is by no means true. Even for stolid 
 natures it is not altogether true, as, for instance, 
 when one is deeply moved by absorbing affec- 
 tion for another. Much less is it for those of 
 the susceptible type. Thus, starting once more 
 from the central characteristic under discussion, 
 we find ourselves again in the light of an 
 established fact — i.e., the Celtic gift of accur- 
 ately imaginative sympathy. It is not that 
 the Celt is kinder than another. The English 
 and the Germans are quite as kind when they 
 
 69
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 become aware of another. The Germans 
 are the sentimentalists of Europe. The 
 Englishman has an affectionate nature. It is 
 that the Celt's kindness is so much more 
 skilful. His sympathy fits you like a glove. 
 He seems to have a miraculous insight into 
 your wants. 
 
 As to his spirituality, a word will suffice. It 
 is obvious that a vivid inner life must make the 
 materialistic estimate of life's conditions seem 
 ridiculous. The more a man tingles with con- 
 scious life through all his being the less will 
 he be moved by the thought of mere posses- 
 sions. This, of course, will make him appear 
 as unpractical from the money-maker's point 
 of view. It may also tend to make him, or her, 
 careless as to the common creature comforts 
 of order, neatness and punctuality, while 
 keenly alive to the perhaps not less important 
 creature advantages of having what one wants 
 when and where one wants it rather than at 
 the conventionally proper time and place. 
 
 Probably all healthy human nature has a 
 
 70
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 capacity to complete itself as a rational whole ; 
 and completeness, actual or potential, implies 
 the capacity to become " all things to all men," 
 in the sense of sympathy. But without a high 
 degree of facility in the potentiality to become 
 the actual, the process might take an infinite 
 time . 
 
 In other ways, as we shall see, facility, of 
 consciousness enters into the social gift, but at 
 present let us be content to note the direct 
 ability for instinctive sympathy which it 
 confers. 
 
 Returning now to the effect of the central 
 characteristic as concreteness of reaction, the 
 peculiarities of the Celtic intelligence may be 
 readily understood. Consciousness flashes out 
 at many points at once. Perception, imagina- 
 tion, feeling, thought, all work together on 
 the object of consciousness. Whatever the 
 business in hand, the Celt tends to deal with it 
 in a mood that is whole. Even when his 
 business is abstract thought and so consists in 
 concentration on one special aspect of his 
 
 71
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 world, as in mathematics, the ability for rapid 
 concrete realization, in illustration or applica- 
 tion of his thought, is not far removed. This 
 characteristic shows in French mathematical 
 and scientific education, and in Ireland also 
 so far as there has been a chance. Abstract 
 thought is, in fact, more attractive to average 
 ability when there is behind it this readiness 
 to break out into imagination. One form of 
 mental action holds the field, but mobilization 
 into another form is easy, should the process 
 of thought or the guiding purpose require it. 
 Imagination lies in wait on abstract thought, 
 with all the eyes of the senses open, ready to 
 dash in the colours of reality. Hence the gift 
 of the Celt for illustration and his inventive- 
 ness. In his most absorbed moments his 
 senses are still awake, eye and ear active in 
 fancy and open to impression. He dreams 
 indeed — dreams much — but the sense-life 
 vibrates even through his dreamiest moments. 
 And in like manner, when his attention is 
 
 concentrated on some object, in the attitude 
 
 72
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 that implies withdrawal from self-conscious- 
 ness, the current of self-consciousness is still 
 visible enough to colour the mood with delicate 
 dashes of emotion. In short, the concrete in- 
 telligence owes its concreteness to the fact that 
 it tends to be doing everything at once, and 
 so changes swiftly when it changes. This 
 habit, which might be a drawback — is a draw- 
 back often — becomes a gift when combined 
 with boldness and vigour in special intellectual 
 pursuits. The Celt has this vigour very 
 generally ; it is the positive quality in him ; 
 he is prone rather than otherwise to the specu- 
 lative in philosophy and the abstract in science ; 
 his danger is that he will follow his idea with 
 too much eagerness. Fanaticism is near him. 
 Salvation lies for him in this concreteness of 
 his intelligence. It is like a safety-belt to 
 the over-confident swimmer ; it brings him 
 to the surface when his strength begins to 
 fail. A concrete intelligence thus emboldens 
 the thinker ; it enables him to swim far and 
 still keep, the land within reach. The one 
 
 73
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 great philosopher of the ninth century, 
 Johannus Scotus (Erigena), is a marvel for his 
 times in boldness of speculation — the tremen- 
 dous confidence of high fearless spirit and clear 
 thought all aware of itself. Berkeley, of 
 modern times, has the same Irish touch. 
 Thinkers of this quality are afraid of nothing 
 that thought may discover to them. They 
 follow the cloud-veiled star of Truth by use 
 of the compass of reason within them. Who 
 knows what such minds may not in the future 
 do for the development of that ancient Chris- 
 tian Church to which the Irish Celt for the 
 most part belongs. 
 
 The value of concreteness is more specially 
 obvious ( I ) in all the practice of social life, 
 and (2) in the literary exposition of thought. 
 I hope to deal with these subjects at greater 
 length presently, and will only touch on them 
 briefly here. Celtic accessibility to ideas is 
 a familiar fact, and obviously pertains to that 
 concrete mind which finds hints of most things 
 readily in itself. The ability of a Celtic group 
 
 74
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 to adopt a common standpoint, notwithstanding 
 great diversity, has been abundantly tested, 
 and comes of the ease with which each mind 
 effects transformation of thought in face of 
 a common motive. An Irish crowd mobihzes 
 with strange swiftness, and Irish pohticians 
 can co-operate unexpectedly with a rapidity 
 embarrassing to Governments. This is because 
 each is quicker in awakening his intelligence 
 to reach at least the horizon of his own 
 experience. 
 
 Every one has heard, too, of the Gaelic 
 gift for intuitive social insight — that power of 
 imagining the mind of another which multiplies 
 a hundredfold the capacity for direct sympathy 
 — of its quickness to seize the central facts 
 of a situation and marshal them all, and of 
 the tact implied in these powers. Such gifts 
 make the Gael effective in society and politics, 
 influential to lead, able to administrate, popular 
 in rule, conciliatory in diplomacy. It is a 
 common saying that, so far in each case as 
 his abilities otherwise go, he is all this, and 
 
 75
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 we may take it as confirmatory of our 
 theory. 
 
 Ability to seize the central facts of a situa- 
 tion is the same as that ability for marshalling 
 ideas in the most telling order, which might 
 be called the gift for expounding" an argu- 
 ment or telling a story in due perspective. In 
 this respect the Celt is instinctively an artist, 
 and it is in the wholeness of his view that the 
 explanation seems to lie. 
 
 Thus, when all the points come to mind in 
 swift and orderly procession, the marshalling 
 process takes place under the circumstances 
 most favourable for producing effect. The 
 most pregnant points in an argument stand 
 out to the concrete intelligence as such, and 
 so they naturally take the most prominent 
 place in the exposition. The more vividly, 
 too, the mind of the hearer is conceived, the 
 more effectual is the instinct to place the matter 
 before him so that he sees it as we see it in our 
 own minds. The contrast to this is the pro- 
 cedure of the mind that moves literally always 
 
 76
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 step by step, climbing the mountain without 
 seeing the view — a common thing enough. 
 Such a one may produce the closest, most con- 
 vincing argument, beginning at any point that 
 is logically suitable, and yet leave his hearer 
 without any single clear conception of a whole. 
 The reason is that his habit of treating his 
 points as a series of separate though con- 
 nected units prevails to the extent of short- 
 sightedness, so that he does not see the whole 
 as a simultaneous whole, and thus its true 
 genesis in thought is hidden from him. So in 
 exposition he begins wherever he happens to 
 be, or wherever he happened to begin him- 
 self. To begin well is to arrest the attention 
 at once, to strike the imagination, or engage 
 the intellect. The point in which interest 
 naturally centres should come first. This con- 
 dition of effectiveness is instinctively secured 
 when he who expounds sees his subject all at 
 once. 
 
 The superiority of the French to the German 
 in these respects is explained by the Celtic 
 
 77
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 infusion.' We need not pause here to apply 
 the same idea to literature other than logical 
 exposition. All literature is expression — the 
 exfKDsition of stor^^, of fancy, of thought — and 
 it is the most essential requisite of good litera- 
 ture that the thing to be said should be said 
 so that in the mind of the hearer it is the thing 
 it was meant to be. 
 
 Therein lies, therefore, as I would suggest, 
 the first explanation of the acknowledged 
 literary excellence of the Celtic peoples. Their 
 gift of speech and literature, however, is wider 
 than this instinctive aptness for effective 
 exposition in order. It includes command of 
 words, an ear controlling all speech with its 
 demand for rhythm, an eye stamping all 
 thought with the forms of the pictorial imagina- 
 tion. With these forms of imagination, the 
 arrows of thought are pointed and made to 
 pierce the mind. The Irish orator, the Irish 
 writer, is fluent, musical, graphic ; he engages 
 the eye, delights the ear, and strikes the 
 
 ' See Chapter VI. 
 78
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 imagination at least as much as he takes 
 possession of the intelligence. Also, and 
 for the same reason, he moves the mind to 
 feeling, and thus further wins it to his theme. 
 And the explanation of these gifts lies ready 
 to hand ; it is still the same central charac- 
 teristic. He deals with his literary matter 
 concretely. \\'hen he thinks he does not 
 altogether cease to imagine in sight and sound, 
 nor does he cease to feel. Thought is in 
 the focus of consciousness, and in the wide 
 room around it the life of the senses and self- 
 consciousness wait, silent but alert and in- 
 dustrious. The more intensely his thousrht is 
 concentrated the more does all his intellectual 
 and emotional being react with it, not, how- 
 ever, to distract but to support. Hence the 
 music of his periods, the vitalitv^ of his illus- 
 trations, the brightness of atmosphere, the high 
 spirits and personality expressed at every- turn. 
 Consider this last trait of '* personality." The 
 Gael is not only lucid and brilliant, he has, 
 above all things, a personal style, he is there 
 
 79
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 in his book ; you can almost nod approval to 
 him across the table as you read. And the 
 reason is that he — he himself in all the vitality 
 of an active emotional soul — really was there 
 while he wrote. He did not first turn himself 
 out of doors that his intellect might work 
 without distraction. Perhaps, too, he had you, 
 the reader, to be talked at and moved in his 
 mind as he wrote, on the other side of the 
 table. And so in his writing all this multi- 
 form activity of his comes out ; he has a 
 personal style, a thing most delightful when 
 instinctive and the personality refined, most 
 hateful when affected. The real thing and 
 the imitation may be seen by any one any day 
 in the evening newspapers. But a philosopher, 
 as well as a journalist, can talk across the 
 printed page. 
 
 The object of this chapter has been to sketch 
 in outline a theory of Celtic character capable 
 of explaining those qualities commonly 
 observed in average Irish human nature as 
 based, not exclusively but generally, on a 
 
 80
 
 The Psychology of the Celt 
 
 variation from Teutonic standards in the 
 readiness, and hence the concreteness, of 
 psychological reaction. If the facts have been 
 correctly stated, and the inferences are sound, 
 then it may be claimed that something has 
 been done to establish the position that " the 
 lightning genius of the Gael " is the central 
 fact in the development of our racial character ; 
 that it is probably based on a well-marked 
 difference of physical constitution, and that it 
 is multiform in the variety of characteristics 
 to which it gives rise. 
 
 One other fact is worthy of mention. We 
 need certainly not be surprised, yet we are 
 almost startled to find, that the Celtic quality 
 of whole-natured lift and swing in psychical 
 matters is reflected into a corresponding 
 physical quality, as shown in the records of 
 international athletic contests. So at least it 
 would appear from the character of the names 
 considered racially of the world's "champions," 
 which are published up to date year by year 
 in Whitaker's Almanack. In all contests that 
 
 8i F
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 require sudden effort — high jump, long jump, 
 throwing the weight, and putting the hammer 
 — Irish names hold the field by a strong 
 majority against the world almost all the 
 time.' In other contests they merely main- 
 tain their place. Here we have in another form 
 concentration of energy in a single effort — 
 " Aufschwung," as the Germans call it in their 
 expressive tongue. 
 
 The " lightning genius," in its generic form 
 as facility of concrete psycho-physical life, is 
 by no means limited to the Irish Gael and his 
 Scottish brother. It is an element in the great- 
 ness of France. It is obvious and delightful 
 in Wales. It colours all the English Celtic 
 fringe. It is the essential Celtic quality in 
 that more complex creation, the Genius of the 
 Gael, which is expounded in these pages. 
 
 ^ The names are Irish Celtic names, not Scotch or 
 Welsh or Anglo-Irish. Also it should be noted that the 
 nationality of the record-breakers, as shown by reference 
 to the lists at various times, is even more striking than that 
 of the record-holders at any one time. 
 
 82
 
 Ill 
 
 THE 
 
 SOCIAL GENIUS 
 
 OF THE GAEL
 
 He prayeth best who loveth best 
 All things both great and small. 
 
 Coleridge.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE SOCIAL GENIUS OF THE GAEL 
 
 Even unsympathetic observers agree that the 
 •Western Irish are a sociable people with 
 gracious ways, swift to quarrel on occasion, it 
 maybe, but with well-marked social gifts, 
 quick to forgive, faithful to their pledges, loyal 
 in affection, genial comrades, and honourable 
 foes. The Irish soldiers in the Boer War 
 fought for a cause with which they had no 
 sympathy, and there was no enthusiastic 
 popular welcome for them afterwards in the 
 streets of Dublin. But they were pledged as 
 soldiers of the British Crown, and excelled 
 all others in achievement won by extreme 
 self-devotion to their colours. The Dublin 
 Nationalists, in strong disapproval of the war, 
 
 85
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 could not give them greeting on their home 
 
 return : we may be sure they did not fail to 
 
 note the brave and honourable action of these 
 
 simple soldier heroes, whose prowess, as the 
 
 story goes, so moved the veteran Queen that 
 
 she paid her last visit to Dublin partly with a 
 
 view to visiting the districts whence they came. 
 
 Here we see the old Irish spirit of honour 
 
 and knightly faith — adherence to the vows — 
 
 the gesa which the champion has taken on 
 
 himself • — adherence not in the letter only but 
 
 to the utmost limits of the spirit. Irish history 
 
 throughout abounds in examples of personal 
 
 faith, personal loyalty, touching, persistent, 
 
 devoted. Vows are sacred, responsibilities 
 
 binding. Love given is given, and due to 
 
 last. These things lie deeper than conscience : 
 
 they are rooted in primitive personality, the 
 
 self-respect which is honour, the respect for 
 
 others which is faith. 
 
 ' There would, of course, be nothing beyond common 
 soldierly duty to note in this incident were it not for 
 the abnormal character and quantity of the duty which 
 the Dublin FusiUers took upon them in the war. 
 
 86
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 There are bad Irishmen, who are the con- 
 trary of all that is described in these pages. 
 An anti-social Irishman is perhaps the most 
 degraded of human beings morally. Having 
 had the main features of social humanity 
 stamped more emphatically upon him, his 
 denial of his own social nature undermines the 
 more surely his moral being. He has cut 
 himself adrift from his natural moorings, and 
 the currents of selfish opportunity carry him 
 away. Such were the ignoble band of spies, 
 informers, and agents provocateurs. 
 
 A " decent " — not to say good — Irishman is, 
 first of all, instinctively faithful in his personal 
 affections. The son, or daughter, who prospers 
 in America never forgets the old people at 
 home, and seldom fails to accept responsibility 
 on behalf of brothers and sisters in need of 
 money for emigration. As for the peasant 
 farmer at home, he could if he tried hardly 
 separate the idea of his welfare from that of 
 " Herself " and the children. This is instinct, 
 not just sheer sense of duty. The roots of his 
 
 87
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 faithfulness reach down as deep as his primal 
 egoism, inextricably mixed with which, and 
 ever present with him, is his sympathetic con- 
 sciousness of those others who form the circle 
 of home. Sympathy is not the product of 
 civilization in him. It is awake with the first 
 breath of his untutored self-consciousness, and 
 it keeps awake. When he opens his eyes on 
 the consciousness of self, the consciousness of 
 these others with whom he lives and grows is 
 present with him. And this other-conscious- 
 ness towards human beings generally, and 
 even towards animals, grows with his growth, 
 and develops, so far as not checked by cir- 
 cumstances, in all normal life relations. 
 " Every man has his own feelings," and these 
 imagined feelings are to be considered in each 
 case. 
 
 This is the key to the Irishman's social 
 nature: he is other -conscious as a matter of 
 course. We have already seen how this is 
 a necessary manifestation of the concrete Celtic 
 
 mind. Here it is rather our business to note 
 
 88
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 it as a fact and to trace its developments— the 
 harmonies and discords to which it gives rise. 
 The Irish domestic virtues— kindness, faith- 
 fulness, mutual trust — form the first and 
 sweetest of its fruits. Side by side may be 
 placed the virtue of loyalty in all its mani- 
 festations. The other-conscious man is 
 naturally loyal because the other man's hurt 
 hurts him. We think of loyalty more especially 
 in relation to friends, but it applies to strangers 
 and even enemies as well. Its psychological 
 cause is the consciousness of the other man's 
 mind. Sometimes, it is the sense of what the 
 other man expects from us and our impulse 
 to live up to that as we would to an idea of 
 our own welfare. It is the motive force of 
 the other man's idea in us. Other-conscious- 
 ness makes us feel acutely the stranger's lone- 
 liness and longing for the kind word which 
 instinctively we give him. In this guise it 
 is hospitality — a very large and branching 
 virtue in the view of a reflective spectator, but 
 perfectly simple in all its variety as understood 
 
 89
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 by the intuitive sympathy of the Irish peasant. 
 In defect of other-consciousness, a code of 
 rules for hospitable service is needed. 
 
 Thou shall entertain the guest in proportion to his 
 
 need. 
 Thou shall treat him with honour whatever his estate. 
 Thou shall not whisper or speak in a language unknown 
 
 to him in his presence. 
 Thou shall entertain him with speech and music, or 
 
 leave him in peace, as it seemeth to thee it shall 
 
 please him best, and thou shall study his wishes in 
 
 this and other respects with care. 
 
 But other-consciousness is better than a 
 
 code. The ignorant peasant is often perfectly 
 
 well-bred, because intuitive insight aims 
 
 straighter than reflection. And this Celtic 
 
 gift of breeding is peculiarly marked towards 
 
 strangers : the social tastes of the Irish peasant 
 
 fill him with concern for the loneliness of the 
 
 stranger, thereby quickening the activity of 
 
 his natural tact. Thus, as faithfulness in 
 
 affection is an inbred virtue, so hospitality 
 
 comes to him with ready grace. This ready 
 
 grace of good breeding co -inheres with a 
 
 90
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 certain natural grace of high breeding also. 
 The courteous Irish peasant woman is not 
 easily fluttered by the discovery that she has, 
 unawares, been simply gracious to the great 
 ones of the world. At Leenane, in Connemara, 
 King Edward is said to have had an experi- 
 ence which was probably after his own heart 
 in this respect. He strolled into a cottage 
 unattended. He was invited to sit down and 
 the best chair placed for him with the usual 
 polite ceremony. " It was a great man that 
 sat last on that chair," said the mistress of 
 the house. " It was the Lord-Lieutenant him- 
 self the last time he was in these parts." King 
 Edward was too kind and too dignified to 
 leave her in ignorance. " But I am the King," 
 said he. "Are you, indeed?" said she. 
 " Well, you're very welcome to my house." 
 
 It is said that there is a dark side to this 
 readiness of goodwill. For instance, it is 
 alleged that the Irish peasant, meeting a 
 stranger on the road, reports the distance at 
 less than its length to keep up the " poor man's 
 
 91
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 heart." There is, or was^, probably some truth 
 in this allegation, but, as my experience goes, 
 not so much. It seems to be in the Ireland 
 of the Pale that incidents of this sort chiefly 
 occur ; and the farther west one goes the more 
 accurate are the answers which the peasants 
 give, though flanked often by words of en- 
 couragement or compliment. I once cycled 
 across Ireland from east to west and back 
 again, and in that ride discovered, as a 
 perfectly new idea to me, this superior veracity 
 of the Celtic Irish. i In Meath it was almost 
 impossible to get an answer to any question, 
 so intent was every one on saying things agree- 
 able. I had taken shelter from a shower under 
 a hospitable Meath hedge. A carman, with 
 full freight, came alongi and sheltered his 
 charge under a neighbouring tree. " How far 
 is it to Kells? " I called out. " Ah ! it's only 
 a bit of a shower," said he. " But how many 
 miles is it to Kells? " I again essayed. *' Sure 
 
 ^ I have tested it since. Veracity is altogether much on 
 the increase. 
 
 92
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 you're quite safe there, and the rain won't 
 last," was his relevant reply. " But can't you 
 tell me how far it is to Kells ? " " Sure, the 
 sun'll be out in a minute," said he. And I 
 gave it up. I don't think he was deaf. He 
 was fairly young and clearly gallant, and he 
 was only a few degrees more irrelevant than 
 others of whom I made inquiries between 
 Dublin and Kells. 
 
 But in the uplands of Cavan the style 
 changed. There was a high wind. " Will 
 the wind be against me on that road? " I 
 asked. " It will, indeed," was the reply, " but 
 sure you're strong." In the west my in- 
 formants took great pains to give me accurate 
 information about distances and hills and 
 weather, eking out hard facts with some happy 
 phrase of encouragement. " Do you think this 
 rain will last?" I asked a Donegal peasant. 
 " I doubt it will," says he, " but, maybe, it 
 wouldn't be wetting you much all the time." 
 And he turned out to be right as well as 
 truthful. 
 
 93 *
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 The cause of this difference between east 
 and west lies probably in the unconscious 
 caricature of Celtic breeding made by the 
 imitative effort of a less nimble wit. The 
 Anglo-Irishman, when he is true to himself, 
 is a dignified and charming person enough, 
 but at some stage in the evolution of a 
 commonplace Anglo-Irish family ' there is apt 
 to be much tomfoolery and play-acting in 
 clumsy imitation of the Hibernian model. 
 
 Still, it may be admitted that perhaps there 
 is in the model something corresponding! to 
 this feature which is more marked in the 
 imitation. Immediate sympathy may be in 
 the average Celt stronger than instinctive 
 truthfulness. And so we may have kindly 
 meant lies intended to give some immediate 
 pleasure ; and sometimes — not, I think, 
 generally — the net result is injury in the long 
 run. 
 
 The inference as to character may be easily 
 overstated, though the lesson as to ethical duty 
 
 I I am only Anglo-Irish myself, so far as I know. 
 
 94
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 cannot be enforced too much. In Celtic un- 
 cultured nature the instinct to give pleasure 
 perhaps has the upper hand of the instinct to 
 tell truth. The self-centred man is more easily 
 truthful because he is unconscious of any state 
 of mind except his own. The slow-thinking, 
 unimaginative man is easily truthful because 
 nothing but the experienced fact comes into 
 his head. Such a one is good for telling 
 truth, bad for keeping faith with the secrets 
 of a friend. Still he has advantages. On the 
 other hand, instinctive truthfulness has many 
 rivals in the mobile Celtic mind. Instinctive 
 sympathy uncontrolled is the first, after which 
 the whole imaginative brood rush in with haste 
 to confuse the judgment and suspend that 
 instinct by which the truth declares itself. My 
 mother had an Irish maid, a delightful, witty 
 person of the vivid Celtic type. A man called 
 at the back door to solicit custom for some 
 particular brewery. " Sure we're all teeto- 
 tallers here," said the maid on the instant. My 
 mother happened to overhear the colloquy. 
 
 95
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 " What did you say that for, Kate," said she, 
 " when you know it wasn't true? " " Ah, 'twas 
 the readiest thing to say," said the girl. It 
 was the shortest cut, no doubt, and saved all 
 explanations. Also it had a kind of truth, 
 so far as the beer was concerned, and the 
 maids were teetotallers. This girl would never 
 have told a mischievous lie or a misleading 
 one. 
 
 But all this does not make truth one whit 
 less necessary. On the contrary, it emphasizes 
 her claim for our punctilious service. If the 
 instinct to truth be not strengthened from the 
 first so as to hold its own, not only against the 
 instinct of self-defence, but against immediate 
 sympathy also and the overflowing suggestions 
 of imagination, then by continued overthrow, 
 time after time, it becomes weaker till it can- 
 not be counted on even as against the most 
 ignoble impulses of fear, spite, jealousy, 
 and unmeasured party spirit. 
 
 The practical inference is obvious enough. 
 The clear Celtic intellect is favourable to the 
 
 96
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 intentional development of the great intel- 
 lectual virtue. In spite of his springing fancy, 
 the Celt's sense of reality is uncommonly vivid, 
 and his very imaginativeness helps him to 
 appreciate the far-reaching beneficence of truth 
 when he gives it a thought. It goes, moreover, 
 with the close-knit character of his nature that 
 the ideal of truth, once established in mind, 
 should effectually govern the whole of conduct. 
 The truthfulness that reposes on the ideal of 
 good, as a whole, is the soundest and safest 
 truthfulness ; and of this the idealizing Celt 
 is peculiarly capable. It is when one in- 
 stinctive virtue fights another that there is 
 the greatest danger of moral chaos, because 
 then the triumphant instinct is apt to enthrone 
 itself in the seat of conscience. Rear up into 
 the light of the Ideal, therefore, this instinct 
 to truth so that it may not be overshadowed, 
 even though, in the nature of things, the rival 
 instinct to immediate sympathy may sometimes 
 tower above it. 
 
 All education as such tends to this end. The 
 
 97 G
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 more cultivated mind is the more trained to 
 intellectual honesty. Moreover, wider views 
 of life show — and make the consciousness more 
 daily present with us — that the ends of a more 
 far-sighted sympathy are not hindered, but 
 helped, by truthfulness on all occasions of 
 social intercourse. 
 
 But enough of this digression — I apologize 
 for the apology, suspecting, as I do, that the 
 Saxon, though in a different way, needs it as 
 much as the Celt. The snare to the Saxon is 
 his pre-occupation, his less vivid sense, and his 
 liability to onesidedness of view. He lies, 
 when he lies, out of an intellectual confusion 
 which he has not the strenuous conscience to 
 clear up. He thinks himself more truthful 
 than he will take the trouble to be. The Celt 
 lies from excess of tact, the Saxon from defect 
 of care. In both cases I speak, not of the 
 deliberate, but of the instinctive lie. 
 
 Irishmen, like Frenchmen, are frequently 
 accused of a tendency to be what is called 
 dramatic. By this it is, I think, meant that 
 
 98
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 they tend to do the thing under any set of 
 circumstances most appropriate to the occasion, 
 rather than that which expresses their own 
 view with the most perfect sincerity. So far 
 as there is any truth in this charge, the defect 
 impHed is a more refined form of that which 
 has just been discussed. If I say what is 
 most fitting rather than what I think — if I 
 do the act which completes the. drama rather 
 than the act which I mean and will stand by 
 — then I do so because my instinct to work 
 up an immediate objective effect predominates 
 over my consciousness of permanent feelings 
 and purposes in myself. Herein consists the 
 tendency to live and act in relation to some 
 object of feeling and apprehension outside self, 
 which is a generalization of other-consciousness 
 on one of its sides. The cause is a powerful 
 objective imagination which sees the total 
 object as it ought to be and tends to complete 
 it. The complaisant peasant who tells you 
 what you would like to hear is working 
 similarly, but with a simpler object of imagina- 
 tion — one other man's immediate state of mind. 
 
 99
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 To be dramatic within measure is obviously 
 not a fault. The act in accordance with the 
 circumstances is clearly the right act viewed 
 objectively. To be dramatic is right, pro- 
 vided we are also sincere — true to our per- 
 manent self as it will be after the act is done. 
 The hypocrite deliberately feigns a character : 
 the dramatic nature does not feign, but is for 
 the time so absorbed in the object as to be 
 carried out of a self to which he afterwards 
 returns. Clearly there is much that is good 
 in this : the objection lies in the false expecta- 
 tions of character which it occasions. In the 
 dramatic phase feelings are expressed which 
 have no permanent existence, intentions stated 
 or expectations raised which will not be carried 
 out. All this is evil, and must not be confused 
 with the beneficence of an isolated good act 
 which is the one appropriate to the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The objectivity and concreteness of Celtic 
 nature makes it capable of dramatic action, 
 but there appears to be no evidence in Celtic 
 
 I GO
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 regions of any great liability to serious error 
 here." Such error in the normal type is suffi- 
 ciently guarded against by the quality of 
 intense and positive personality already 
 noticed. An Irishman is easily carried out 
 of himself in the sense of forgetting self in 
 his absorption in the object before him : but 
 he is the last man in the world to be carried out 
 of himself in the sense of ceasing to be the man 
 that he normally is. By his objectivity he is 
 averse to egoism. By his vivid personality he 
 is eminently sincere. A close-knit mind is all 
 present with itself at all times — ay, even in 
 moments of tempestuous passion — and if a new 
 set of circumstances make it act in new and 
 unexpected ways, it will in all probability be 
 found to have developed by the act its inner 
 nature along those new and unexpected lines. 
 In the conflict between the consciousness 
 of objective and of subjective fitness much 
 
 * The French is too mixed a race to take in evidence 
 of Celtic procHvities which are not shown by Gael or 
 Cymri ; and the stagey hishman is mostly Anglo-Irish. 
 
 lOI
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 of the occasion for Irish humour arises. 
 This is the Celtic touch so markedly missing 
 in Parisian crowds. 
 
 Nevertheless, it remains that the passionate- 
 ness of an easily moved nature, however close 
 knit, lays it open to that partial activity which 
 is the negative characteristic of the over- 
 dramatic mind. The actor, like a man in 
 a passion, wraps himself up in a part of him- 
 self — the part brought into play by the circum- 
 stances. If, therefore, the Celtic nature loses 
 balance so as to allow its passionateness to 
 get the better of its allied concreteness, then 
 it will tend to be merely dramatic in its 
 objective, as well as merely passionate in its 
 subjective, moods. 
 
 Many varieties of type it is found to yield, 
 but the central type is what concerns us 
 specially. All other types branch from it by 
 some defect, the essential remedy for which 
 is to be found in the central racial character. 
 A slight reminder of some forgotten fact will 
 check the true Celt in a passion, the least hint 
 
 102
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 of his real nature will restore him to sincerity 
 in his most stagey mood. It takes but few 
 words also to remind him of his manners. 
 
 BicycHng from Dooghert in the island of 
 Achill to the ferry on Blacksod Bay I met a 
 boy at the cross-roads and asked, " Is this the 
 road to the ferry? " " Give me a penny and 
 I'll tell you," said the boy. I felt sure that it 
 was the road, but this surprising answer 
 brought me down from my wheel to admonish 
 the boy. 
 
 " It's ashamed of you I am," said I, " and 
 glad that there wasn't an English lady with me 
 this day to hear you say a thing like that. And 
 you an Irish boy ! Don't you know that Irish- 
 men are famed throughout the world for their 
 good manners, and especially their politeness 
 to ladies? " 
 
 There was a very brief pause. " Thank 
 you, ma'am," said the boy, " and that is the 
 way to the ferry." 
 
 As an isolated instance this would have little 
 significance. I give it as characteristic : 
 
 lO.S
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 swift and early return to good manners after 
 error is what one expects and generally gets 
 from the roughest boy out West. 
 
 Sociable to strangers, loyal to comrades, 
 affectionate and faithful to family and friends 
 — such all the world over the Irishman is 
 admitted to be. Our hypothesis as to Celtic 
 character supplies the clue. Concreteness of 
 self-consciousness implies a certain continuous 
 self-consistency throughout all changes which 
 makes a man keep faith with himself as a 
 matter of course. Thus sensitive personal 
 honour shows itself as the controlling action of 
 the whole nature on the variant partial mani- 
 festations in which it temporarily expresses 
 itself. On the other hand, the Gael's 
 mobility of mind and awareness of other minds 
 leaves him open on all sides to the social 
 appeal. Hence these familiar traits, which 
 appear to have characterized the race through- 
 out its history, seeing how large a part they 
 play in ancient Gaelic story no less than in 
 
 the tradition and practice of to-day. 
 
 104
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 In particular, the home of the Irish peasant 
 is, and no doubt long has been, a place sacred 
 to tender affections, mutual respect, and 
 delicate courtesies. Each link within the home 
 is a bond that lasts. Marriage above all is 
 a veritable sacrament, and that not by eccle- 
 siastical prescription only, but in its essential 
 nature, as these people feel it to be, a solemn 
 self-dedication of each to the other, a free 
 unconditional gift. This is the unique social 
 bond, unique in its nature because it implies 
 so much : but something of the same sacred- 
 ness attaches to all bonds that have been 
 entered into willingly. This may be incon- 
 venient ; the inconvenience is a trouble 
 inherent in the life of those who have the 
 faithful temperament : the benefit is for those 
 who are associated with them. As regards 
 marriage, it is worthy of note that there is not, 
 and never was, from one end of Ireland to the 
 other, any demand for the institution of a 
 divorce court, nor any effective interest in 
 the problems it suggests. 
 
 10=;
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 The Irish pair make their choice and keep 
 it. Is there anything distinctive in their 
 manner of making it — their courtship? What 
 sort of lover in particular does an Irishman 
 make? We know that in the Irish farmer's 
 house the marriage of the eldest son is matter 
 for close consideration in the first instance 
 by the seniors, and for shrewd negotiations 
 as to financial prospects on the one hand and 
 dowry on the other between the fathers of 
 the young people concerned. ^ We appear to 
 have the manage de convenance as in France. 
 Irish fathers, however, are frequently well 
 endowed, and Irish mothers even more so, with 
 a wise imagination and kindly common sense 
 that enables them to enter into the views shyly 
 held, or likely to be held, by the boy 
 and girl themselves. If the father on the 
 one side sees the girl, and the mother on the 
 
 ' See My Irish Year, Padraic Colum. The younger 
 daughter for whom there is no dowry forthcoming has 
 her remedy in these days by emigration to America, 
 where she can earn it for herself, and return if she will, 
 to become the centre of an Irish home. 
 
 io6
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 other side sees the boy, out of eyes enlightened 
 by sympathy with youth and intimate affection, 
 the choice may to all intents and purposes 
 be made — as it certainly is often made — by 
 the youthful pair themselves. That the court- 
 ship will, as a rule, be conducted with delay- 
 ing shyness and delicate reserve goes without 
 saying. Such is the custom of the country. 
 The courtship of young Irish lovers is a dainty 
 thing, fraught in great part of the tender 
 imaginative stuff that poetry is made of, 
 romantic rather than passionate, more adoring 
 than possessive, even though expressed in the 
 homely ways of homely souls. In every grade 
 of Irish society the Irishman, as a lover, tends 
 to the type that shows appreciation by an out- 
 burst of chivalrous service and by a general 
 exaltation of mental life. The passion of 
 attachment to the one beloved is diffused as 
 a radiance throughout the whole being, stimu- 
 lating the higher senses and uplifting their 
 activity to the higher levels of idealizing life. 
 This is what we might expect from the Celtic 
 
 107
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 temperament, with its inevitable upgrowth of 
 ideas under stimulus, its bent towards the 
 development of chastening intellectual — nay, 
 spiritual — influences when aroused. This is 
 what we might expect as a consequence of the 
 central Celtic quality described in these pages, 
 and I think I am correct in saying that it is 
 what we find. 
 
 Of a piece with this is the Irishman's tradi- 
 tional attitude to women in general. It is an 
 attitude perfectly well known in other lands, 
 but in Ireland it pervades all circles of society. 
 Its point of departure is the assumption of 
 equality in rights of thought and speech ; 
 and this opens the door to free intellectual 
 converse, good talk, sincere discussion, and 
 wholesome comradeship, so far as the friend- 
 ship goes. This talent for equality is a very 
 agreeable Irish characteristic, and women will 
 notice that they benefit by it for the most part 
 whatever their age and irrespective almost of 
 their appearance. This last is a quality which 
 
 I have not been able to notice in any other 
 
 io8
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 considerable group to anything like the same 
 extent. The second point about the Irish- 
 man is that, having set out to treat his woman- 
 friend on this basis of an equal and similar 
 human nature, he proceeds to exceed the 
 conventional normal in the way of conferring 
 upon her in addition all the little privileges 
 and services he can think of ; whether as due 
 from the greater in physical strength to the 
 less, or out of the depths of some primal in- 
 stinct, or for the mere pleasure of the thing, 
 does not appear. Thus in friendliness with 
 women he, on the average, excels in the 
 modern quality of mind-to-mind companion- 
 ship and also in the old-fashioned grace of 
 chivalrous courtesy. 
 
 His quick wit serves him well in both these 
 capacities. I was crossing a muddy street 
 in Dublin laden with books and an insecurely 
 held umbrella. To my dismay the umbrella 
 fell plump into a mass of mud. My hands 
 were full, but, before I had time to realize my 
 helplessness, the umbrella was rescued and 
 
 1 09
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 a well-dressed youth stood before me with it 
 in one hand and his clean pocket-handkerchief 
 wiping it in the other. " I hope that won't 
 spoil your dress now," he said, presenting it 
 with a charming smile. The umbrella was 
 clean, the handkerchief muddy. 
 
 Good manners from boys to women and 
 girls are taught in every Irish peasant home. 
 I have seen this exemplified again and again. 
 There is no idea current in the family that the 
 girl has less value in any way than the boy. 
 This may be due in part to the intense realiza- 
 tion of practical essentials in the Christianity 
 of these people, and in part to the heritage of 
 old custom and ideals handed down by tradition 
 and partly preserved by actual literature from 
 Gaelic times. Both these influences are work- 
 ing to this end, I believe, and reinforce the 
 social Celtic temperament, which is itself 
 involved in their existence. Gaelic story and 
 the ancient Irish law-tracts show that in early 
 Ireland, pagan as well as Christian, the position 
 
 of women was good. Indeed, one might 
 
 no
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 almost say that the social spirit in this regard 
 appears to have had just the same charac- 
 teristic marks then as it displays now.' 
 
 ^ The equal rights of the two parties in marriage, for in- 
 stance, is plainly laid clown by the Brehon law. In the 
 marriage of equal rank, when the wealth and social position 
 of the two are such as to make them social equals, the 
 law declares that " what each gives the other is equally 
 forfeited," her wealth to him as much and no more 
 than his to her. On this principle it is decreed that " a 
 contract made by either party is not a lawful contract 
 without the consent of the other, except in case of con- 
 tracts tending equally to the welfare of both." In the 
 marriage of unequal rank the two parties have status and 
 rights proportionate to their property. The man sup- 
 ported by the woman's wealth is on the same footing as 
 the woman supported by the man's. After describing the 
 rules for the latter case the writer of the law-tract turns 
 to the former with the simple opening statement that in 
 this case " the man goes in the place of the ivonian and the 
 woman in the place of the manJ' 
 
 Even the law-writer, however, is not prosaic. Behind 
 this abstract equality he sees romantic contrasts in the 
 ideal, which he betrays naively in the derivations given 
 of the Irish words for woman, " ban," and for man, "fer." 
 " Thus they are called," he says, " from the kindliness of a 
 woman, and the dignity of a man, and to reach these qualities 
 they exist." (See " Law of Social Connections," in Brehon 
 Laws.) 
 
 Ill
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 This old-age tradition of equality, courtesy, 
 and mutual respect between men and women 
 has an obvious bearing on the happy develop- 
 ment of modern Irish love-stories when 
 marriage has been reached. That the 
 marriages, on the whole, are happy seems 
 manifest in the facts. There are observers, 
 however, who entertain grave doubts as to 
 the effects of the system of marriage-choice 
 among the farmers on the young* Irishman's 
 capacity for love-romance. We are told, too, 
 that in parts of Scotland the phrase " as love- 
 less as an Irishman " has passed into a proverb. 
 If, however, we picture to ourselves the case 
 of the Irish boy fresh from the careful train- 
 ing of his cottage home, a stranger in a land 
 that to him is foreign, a simple boy, poor 
 but by no means irresponsible, we may very 
 well wonder whether " lovelessness " in such a 
 case as this may not be anything more than 
 ordinary uprightness of the most natural kind. 
 Backwardness in love-making is indeed natural 
 to those who are most disposed to be stead- 
 fast in love when made. 
 
 112
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 Those who are interested will do well to read 
 Dr. Douglas Hyde's collection of The Love, 
 Songs of Connacht for sidelights on this 
 elusive subject. These songs were all 
 collected — just saved in time — from the Irish- 
 speaking people of the West. They are 
 therefore in Gaelic and suffer inevitably at 
 the hands of even such a devoted scholar as 
 Douglas Hyde. He gives them in his own 
 skilful verse and also in prose for obvious 
 reasons. Here is a verse which I cull almost 
 at random as characteristic of the lover in his 
 radiant mood : — 
 
 Dark Girl of the Valley, Dark Girl that is lovely, 
 
 Dark Girl that is radiant and tender, 
 Her throat and her brow like the swan in the sun 
 
 And her shapely form so slender. 
 Her hands shaped aright, with fingers soft white, 
 
 That Mary gave from above to her, 
 When my swan leaves her seat the sun loses his heat 
 
 And the moon does obeisance with love to her. 
 
 In the prose version the homely sense of the 
 fancy-flight in the last two lines makes itself 
 more keenly felt. 
 
 113 H
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 " When the swan goes out, the sun loses 
 her heat;, and the moon bows down with love 
 to her." 
 
 This is not a mere fancy-flight : it is the 
 adoring lover's experience of the way real 
 things — the sun and the moon — affect him in 
 presence of the beloved one. 
 
 •Here is another song : it speaks for itself 
 as an expression of tender and passionate grief. 
 I give the literal prose version, as our interest 
 here is in the experience rather than in the 
 literature : — 
 
 The priests and the friars are every day in anger with 
 me, for my being in love with thee, O maiden, and thou 
 dead. I would protect thee from the wind and shelter 
 thee from the rain, and the bitter melancholy of my heart 
 it is, thee to be down beneath the ground. 
 
 When my people are certain that I am on my bed, 
 it is on thy tomb that I do be stretched from nightfall until 
 morning. Reasoning upon my hardship and bitterly 
 lamenting, and sorely for my gentle courteous girl who 
 was betrothed to me when a child. 
 
 Dost thou remember the night that thou and I were 
 at the foot of the blackthorn-tree, and the night freezing 
 hard ? A hundred thanks to Jesus that we made not the 
 spoiling and thy crown of maidenhood is now like a shaft 
 of light (shining) before thee. 
 
 114
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 ■Here we see the poet in the man relieving 
 the saddened lover's heart of him by that 
 " imaginative strife " which, as Tennyson says, 
 " diffused the shock through all the life, but 
 in the present broke the blow." On the other 
 hand, we hear in the unsophisticated love- 
 songs of the Gael the joyous lover turned poet 
 because heaven and earth and all life teem 
 for him with delightful experiences that image 
 forth his love. In one the coming of the girl 
 he loves is like the advent of young summer. 
 " She for whom the cuckoos call " is her 
 description. Another describes her — thus, no 
 doubt, he felt her — as light breaking through 
 the common dimness of all else : — 
 
 I saw her coming towards me o'er the face of the 
 
 mountain, 
 Like a star glimmering through the mist. 
 
 Again it is the gentle mind of the beloved 
 and the rapid flight of her wit that is 
 described : — 
 
 Her mind is a dove, 
 
 And the wit of my love 
 Is more supple and swift than a bird on the wing. 
 
 115
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 " These Irish bards," says Dr. Sigerson, 
 " always placed beauty of mind above bodily 
 beauty." And he notes as a simple example 
 of this and other things the little poem called 
 " Birds on a Bough," ' 
 
 How pleasant for the small birds 
 
 To waken in the grove, 
 And close upon the same bough 
 
 To whisper to their love. 
 Not thus, alas ! our fortune, 
 
 My very heart's delight : 
 'Tis far apart each morning 
 
 We waken to the light. 
 
 She's fairer than the lily, 
 
 Such beauty there is none : 
 She's sweeter than the violet, 
 
 More lightsome than the sun. 
 But better than all beauty 
 
 Her noble heart and free — 
 O God who art in heaven, 
 
 Remove this pain from me. 
 
 As an example of unsophisticated elo- 
 quence in a lover's appreciation of character 
 
 ' Bards of the Gael and Gall : G. Sigerson, p. 337. 
 
 116
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 the last two lines of the following may be 
 commended : — 
 
 It is Mary Haynes, the calm and easy woman, 
 Her beauty in her mind and in her face, 
 If a hundred clerks were gathered together 
 They could not write down a half of her ways/ 
 
 In the following we have sorrow again, the 
 grief of the deserted lover pouring itself forth 
 in delicate thought and vivid imagery, every 
 item of which is felt: — 
 
 The stars stand up in the air, 
 The sun and the moon are set, 
 The sea that ebbed dry of its tide 
 Leaves no single pebble wet ; 
 The cuckoo keeps saying each hour 
 That she, my storeen, is fled, — 
 
 girl of the brave free tresses, 
 
 Far better had you struck me dead ! 
 
 Three things have I learned through love, 
 Sorrow, and death, and pain, 
 My mind reminding me daily 
 
 1 shall never see you again ; 
 
 » From a poem by Anthony Raftery, translated by Lady 
 Gregory ; see Poem Book of the Gael : E. Hull, p. 323. 
 
 117
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 You left me no cure for my sickness, 
 Yet I pray, though my night be long, — 
 My sharp grief ! and my heart is broken, — 
 That God may forgive your wrong. 
 
 She was sweeter than fiddle and lute, 
 Or the shining of grass through the dew, 
 She was soft as the blackbird's flute 
 When the light of the day is new ; 
 From her feet on the lone hill-top 
 I have heard the honey dripping ; 
 Why, girl, did you come to my door ? 
 Or why could you not be stopping ? ^ 
 
 The contributions from the side of the 
 woman are fewer. As to their character it is, 
 on the whole, true, as most critics imply, that 
 they reveal a mind more absorbed in feeling. 
 It should be observed, however, that this 
 quality may belong to them because they 
 chiefly deal with love in grief, and it should 
 be remembered that the woman's loss when 
 she loves is in the nature of things greater 
 than the man's. She is harder hit in any 
 case. It may be also that she has smaller 
 store of reserve vitality, and so is less able to 
 
 ^ Poem Book of the Gael^ E. Hull, pp. 316-17. 
 
 n8
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 lift herself into that imaginative reaction in 
 which the stronger swimmer finds relief. Here 
 is a vision of despair : — 
 
 You have taken the East from me and you have taken 
 
 the West, 
 You have taken the path before me and the path that 
 
 is behind, 
 The moon has gone from me by night, and the sun by 
 
 day; 
 Alas, I greatly dread that you have stolen my God 
 
 away. 
 
 No way to turn, no light on earth, no refuge 
 in the human soul. And at the end of the 
 poem the bitter thought breaks out : — 
 
 That my heart is turned to stone what mattered that to 
 
 you, 
 What were you caring for but to get a cow or two ? 
 
 Best of all love-songs for human tenderness 
 and spiritual passion is the old Gaelic song of 
 the " Roisin Dubh," ' on the ideas of which 
 
 ' "Roisin Dubh" means the Little Dark Rose. " Ros 
 Geal Dubh " means the Fair Dark Rose, used as a lover's 
 name for Ireland during the Penal times. 
 
 119
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Mangan's " Dark Rosaleen " was written. It 
 is the Irishman's love-song to his immortal 
 sweetheart, the Spirit of Ireland : it breathes 
 the very essence of tender attachment and un- 
 limited devotion as from the lover to his 
 beloved in every age. Love and patriotism 
 are commingled in it, each conferring an 
 added spiritual dignity on the other. Here 
 are four stanzas of it, culled from the begin- 
 ning and the end : — 
 
 There's black grief on the plains and a mist on the hills ; 
 There is fury on the mountain and that is no wonder ; 
 I would empty the wild ocean with the shell of an egg, 
 If I could be at peace with thee, my Ros geal dubh. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 There is true love in my heart for thee for the passing 
 
 of a year, 
 Love tormenting, love lamenting, heavy love that 
 
 wearies me, 
 Love that left me without health, without a path, gone 
 
 all astray, 
 And for ever, ever, I did not get my Ros geal dubh ! 
 
 I would walk Munster with thee and the winding ways 
 
 of the hills, 
 In hope I would get your secret and a share of your 
 
 love ; 
 
 120
 
 The Social Genius of the Gael 
 
 O fragrant Branch, I have known it that thou hast love 
 
 for me, 
 The flower-blossom of wise women is my Ros geal 
 
 dubh. 
 
 The sea will be red floods, and the skies like blood. 
 Blood-red in war the world will show on the ridges of 
 
 the hills, 
 The mountain glens through Erin and the brown bogs 
 
 will be quaking 
 Before the day she sinks in death, my Ros geal dubh. 
 
 121
 
 IV 
 
 THE 
 
 GAEL IN 
 POLITICS
 
 " There is no nation under the sun that doth love equal 
 or indifferent justice more than the Irish ; or will rest 
 better satisfied with the execution thereof although it be 
 against themselves." 
 
 Sir John Davies (seventeenth century).
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE GAEL IN POLITICS 
 
 For a long time it was the English fashion to 
 believe that the Gaelic Irish had no capacity 
 —not even a potential capacity— for self- 
 government in any form. They were 
 supposed to be afflicted with a political in- 
 efficiency, either mental or moral, and fit only 
 to be guarded and ruled by a wiser and better 
 folk. It was admitted in those days that the 
 English government had been something of a 
 failure, but it was stoutly maintained that Irish 
 self-government would certainly be far worse. 
 All this has been changed. In later days 
 the sympathetic English visitor has returned 
 from Ireland deeply impressed by the political 
 
 intelligence, the civic sense, and the talent for 
 
 125
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 political organization shown by her people. 
 And now, in this year of our Lord 191 3, a 
 man would have to be a blind and determined 
 political opponent who ventured to assert that 
 Irish political talent was below the average. 
 
 All this talk of political inability has in 
 truth died out under pressure of hard facts. 
 Mr. Balfour's Government, in 1898, gave local 
 government on a democratic franchise to an 
 Ireland quite untrained in the management of 
 local affairs or representative institutions. It 
 was a revolution. The common people — the 
 despised Nationalists — came into power all over 
 the country. Some mistakes, of course, were 
 made, but they were few. It is generally 
 admitted that the system worked well — •■ 
 amazingly well — from the first, and now, after 
 fifteen years, few will be found to deny the 
 fact. 
 
 Outside Ireland there was evidence enough 
 
 in 1886 — evidence in Great Britain, in the 
 
 colonies, in the United States. Now it is 
 
 overwhelming. Thus we hear from non-Irish 
 
 126
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 sources how the Irish, all over the States, take 
 a leading part in political work and influence. 
 The Democratic Party, with Free Trade pro- 
 gramme now triumphant, depends much on 
 their assistance ; and their value in local 
 administration is well recognized. I think it 
 was at the Irish National Convention, 191 2, 
 that I heard Mr. John O'Callaghan say : " You 
 might go to a town — say a Western town — in 
 the United States and find 100,000 inhabitants, 
 10,000 of them being Irish. That 10,000 
 would be carrying on all the government of 
 the place." I repeated this a few days after- 
 wards to an American consul, not an Irishman, 
 and asked for his impartial opinion. " Yes," 
 he said, " that's the kind of thing all over the 
 States." 
 
 Yet when Irish immigration on the large 
 scale began in America, it was under circum- 
 stances as unfavourable in all respects as cir- 
 cumstances well could be. Without education, 
 without means, exhausted often by the horrors 
 
 of the voyage, these simple people adapted 
 
 127
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 for country life were cast on the quays, and 
 
 struggled to get footing in the back streets 
 
 of New York. In the United States, as in 
 
 Great Britain, Protestant prejudice was 
 
 bitterly against them in those old harsh days. 
 
 There is one terrible story of a shipload of 
 
 people who died practically on the New York 
 
 quays, having been smitten by cholera during 
 
 the voyage. Hundreds of infants and 
 
 children survived, whose names no one knew. 
 
 The Catholic priests took the matter in hand 
 
 and found homes for the children in friendly 
 
 households across the Canadian border. There 
 
 they grew up as French Canadians. It was 
 
 a nightmare time, and a bad start for those who 
 
 survived and who now, in the second and third 
 
 generations, are for the most part doing well. 
 
 Special interest for our argument attaches to 
 
 the fact that they have made for themselves 
 
 so strong a place in the political system of 
 
 the great Republic. 
 
 That political system was there before the 
 
 beginning of the great immigration of the 
 
 128
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 nineteenth century. The immigrants of that 
 date entered into it, with all its defects, for 
 better and for worse : and they stand to-day 
 for a great political influence, of which at 
 least this much must be said, that it is steadily 
 thrown time after time into the scales in favour 
 of the claims of humanity as against those 
 of the monopolists and other privilege-seeking 
 classes. The present Prime Minister, Mr. 
 Bryan, represents in this respect and others 
 the race from which he springs. 
 
 Before the American Revolution, however, 
 Ireland had sent a substantial contingent of 
 citizens to the British Colonies in the New 
 ■World. In the fight for American freedom, 
 and afterwards in the framing of the Consti- 
 tution, Irishmen played a worthy part. The 
 first daily paper published in the United States, 
 the Pennsylvania Packet, was issued by an 
 Irishman. In the Packet office the Declaration 
 of Independence was signed. Eight of the 
 signatories of the Declaration were Irish, or 
 
 of Irish descent. An Irishman, Colonel John 
 
 129 I
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Nixon, first read it to the people. The first 
 Governor of Pennsylvania after the adoption 
 of the federal Constitution was a man from 
 Dublin.' 
 
 Brigadier-General Owen, a Limerick man, 
 received public thanks from Washington and 
 Congress. Commodore John Barry, from 
 Wexford, was Washington's commander-in- 
 chief of the naval forces of the States .2 After 
 the conclusion of the war, moreover, the 
 English Major-General in the 'House of 
 Commons declared upon oath that half the 
 rebel continental army was from Ireland. 
 
 Later, in the Civil War, there were Irish- 
 men prominent on both sides — Generals Meade 
 and Sheridan for North and South respectively. 
 Of Presidents, note should be taken of Presi- 
 dent Jackson, a Protestant of Irish origin, who 
 is said to have promised in 1825 the first 
 thousand dollars to the Irish Catholic Eman- 
 cipation Fund. To our own time belong the 
 
 ' See The Irishman in Canada^ Davies, pp. 59, 66. 
 2 Irish Nationality f A. S. Green, pp. 180-1, 251. 
 
 130
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 name of President McKinlay, whose grand- 
 uncle suffered death as a rebel outside the 
 church of Coleraine and who has relatives 
 living in Antrim to-day, and the name of Mr. 
 Bryan, whose family settled in Virginia at an 
 early date.' 
 
 The Irish in America have — so it is now 
 generally admitted by Americans — a record of 
 which any race might be proud. In parti- 
 cular it is not too much to say that they are 
 the strongest vital force in politics. Turn- 
 ing now to Australasia, that " industrial Empire 
 of unfederated labour nations," as Mr. 
 Michael Davitt called it in 1898, we find the 
 Irish in a position and with a record still more 
 satisfactory. Alike up the country and in the 
 towns, they are doing well : when they settle 
 in a place and see their way^, then home go 
 letters with remittances and another member 
 of the family comes out. So their number, 
 already considerable, tends doubly to increase : 
 
 * Irish-American History of I he United States, O'H anion, 
 pp. 283, 650. 
 
 131
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 they settle well, maintain their religion, inter- 
 marry with each other for the most part, and 
 form prosperous communities abounding in 
 healthy happiness and dominated by the 
 characteristic Irish turn of mind.' 
 
 Their position in politics may be briefly 
 indicated by one quotation from Mr. J. F. 
 Hogan's book on The Irish in Australia. 
 It was written in 1887, but it is matter of 
 common knowledge that the interval since then 
 has been turned to good account. " In every 
 colonial Parliament," he says, " Irishmen will 
 be found distinguishing themselves as political 
 leaders. . . . As a striking proof of the signal 
 ability displayed by Irish leaders in Australia 
 it is worthy of note that, since the inception 
 of Parliamentary Government in the leading 
 colony, Victoria, all the Speakers of the Legis- 
 lative Assembly have hitherto, without excep- 
 tion, been Irishmen — Murphy, MacMahon, 
 Gavan Duffy, Lalor." And that these four 
 
 ' Life and Progress in Amlralasia, Michael Davitt, p. 97 
 for an example. 
 
 132
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 were chosen solely on their merits appears from 
 the fact that " in every case the majority of the 
 Assembly was composed of English and Scotch 
 representatives." ' The Irish population at 
 that time in Victoria was about 180,000, one- 
 fifth of the whole. 
 
 There is more to say even in this brief 
 summary about Victoria, but in the history 
 of the subject New South Wales comes first. 
 As far back as the end of the eighteenth 
 and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, 
 thousands of Irish peasants were trans- 
 ported beyond the seas for the political crime 
 of belonging to illegal bodies in opposition 
 to tithes and other social grievances. In some 
 of the early shipments to Botany Bay there 
 was among the convicts a leaven of " these 
 humble Irish reformers who helped to lay the 
 foundations of Sydney." Sir Roger Therry 
 in his History of New South Wales bears 
 witness to the after -growth and prosperity of 
 the Irish element. About half a century later, 
 
 * The Irish in Australia, J. F. Hogan, p. 12. 
 
 133
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 when the colony had grown up, it was high 
 time for the estabhshment of a Home Rule 
 Constitution. Two groups stand out from the 
 crowd as specially interested in this matter : the 
 group of exiled British Chartists and the group 
 of Irish Australians descended from the rebels. 
 Two men are conspicuous : Parkes, a Chartist, 
 a thorough Radical in the English sense, 
 and William Charles Wentworth, an Irish 
 Australian, whose services to the colony in 
 the cause of self-government won for him the 
 title of " the Australian Patriot." Other noted 
 Irish names there are in the early record of 
 the emancipated colony : Sir John O'Shaugh- 
 nessey (twice Premier), Sir William Bourke 
 (Governor), Plunket, Wilson Gray. 
 
 The next step in the development of self- 
 government was taken when the southern 
 portion of the colony, under the name of 
 Victoria, divided from New South Wales and 
 set up a political constitution for itself. Four 
 eminent Irishmen took an active part in this 
 business. Sir W. F. Stawell, afterwards Chief 
 
 134
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 Justice and later Lieutenant-Governor of 
 Victoria, Sir Redmond Barry, subsequently 
 Judge of the Supreme Court, Sir F. Murphy, 
 for many years Speaker of the Legislative 
 Assembly, and Sir John O'Shanassy, con- 
 spicuous for his unique services on the com- 
 mittee that drafted the Constitution. He it 
 was who became the first Premier and held 
 that office in three successive Governments. 
 We have already seen how Sir F. Murphy, 
 the first Speaker of the Victorian Parliament, 
 was succeeded by three other Irishmen in 
 succession. One of these, Sir Charles Gavan 
 Duffy, famous among Irishmen as editor of 
 the Nation in the " Young Ireland " days, 
 came to Melbourne in 1856. He was greeted 
 with enthusiasm by the Irish community, who 
 subscribed £5,000 in order to be ready for 
 him with the gift of an estate, to qualify him 
 for entry on election into the Legislative 
 Assembly. He joined the Ministry of Sir 
 John O'Shanassy, and succeeded him as Prime 
 Minister in 187 i. At a later date he became 
 
 135
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Speaker. Sir Bryen O'Loghlen, of County- 
 Clare, made the third Irish Prime Minister in 
 1881. 
 
 Ireland deserves well of Australia, most of 
 all for the part which the Irish played in 
 helping to lay the foundations of her political 
 system. It is good to know, however, that 
 they keep their place in the front rank, and, 
 better still, are popular and respected in all 
 ranks of public service. It is interesting, too, 
 to note that the ancient Orange feud, rampant 
 though it once was when the representative 
 Catholic Irishmen came to t"he front in the 
 infant colony of Victoria, has quite died out. 
 The present Speaker of the South Australian 
 Parliament, Mr. O'Loughlin, at the Irish 
 National Banquet in London, 1913, referring 
 incidentally to the talk about religious trouble 
 in Ireland, said it was all a myth. Religious 
 differences were the last thing they thought 
 of in Australia. Not a fifth of the people 
 in the district he represented were Irish. The 
 Orangemen voted for him the same as the 
 
 136
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 Catholics did. Nor is this because either has 
 become indifferent to rehgion. 
 
 Of West AustraHa, South Australia, and 
 Queensland a similar tale might be told. Mr. 
 W. Redmond is amply justified by the facts 
 for the general statement incidentally made in 
 the course of his interesting book Through 
 the New Commonwealth. "Australia," he 
 says, " has been largely moulded by Irishmen, 
 and Irish names are honourably connected with 
 every phase of Australian life." In Australia, 
 as a whole, about one quarter of the people are 
 either entirely or partially Irish. There are 
 three Judges in the High Court of the 
 Commonwealth, and one of these is an Irish 
 Australian. The Chairman of Committee, 
 by whose casting vote the West Australian 
 Constitution was passed, bore the name of 
 O'Kelly ; South Australia has had an Irish 
 Premier in the person of Mr. C. C. Kingston : 
 the late Premier of Queensland, Mr. T. J. 
 Byrnes, was an Irishman, and Irishmen are 
 not few on the Eench in Queensland and in the 
 Parliament. 
 
 137
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 I will not weary the reader by carrying 
 the record farther. What has been said is 
 sufficient to indicate the nature of the experi- 
 ence which lies at the root of Australian 
 opinion about the soundness of Irish political 
 talent. As to the fact in general, it is not 
 too much to say that all the Prime Ministers of 
 Australasia might be called in evidence.' 
 
 Quick intelligence, readiness of speech, re- 
 sourcefulness, idealism, and a persuasive 
 personality — the average Irishman's share of 
 these qualities goes far to make him effective 
 in counsel and in controversy. The more im- 
 portant gift lies deeper : it consists in his 
 sympathetic imagination turned to political 
 uses : — (i) by rough but sagacious insight into 
 the problems that underlie political issues ; 
 (2) by intuition as to other men's minds and 
 
 * See Sir Joseph Ward's speech at the Irish National 
 Banquet, 1913, on which occasion also Mr. Holman, 
 the Attorney-General of New South Wales, deliberately 
 acclaimed Mr. Redmond as " leader throughout the 
 British Empire of every man who values the right of 
 self-government." 
 
 138
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 the popular movements of thought and feeling. 
 He knows his own mind, moreover, about the 
 political objects to be attained, because he is 
 in general a man of ideas, original or acquired. 
 Also he is a man of action, and therefore he 
 is a practical idealist. Further, besides know- 
 ing the minds of his fellows, he is sympathetic 
 and responsive in dealing with them : thus he 
 gives the impression of being the man who 
 understands. Therefore, if he is strong and 
 clear enough, he is the man who leads. If 
 there are other Irishmen equally effective, 
 they settle it between them. They are well 
 able to weigh one another with sufficient 
 accuracy. They have a turn for co-operation 
 too, and believe in the elective principle. 
 
 It is probable that the political gift first 
 noticed with admiration by the observant 
 Englishmen of the eighties was the ability 
 for coherence shown by the Irish Party under 
 Mr. Parnell in the House of Commons, and by 
 the Irish race behind it scattered through the 
 world. That tremendous fact remains to-day, 
 
 139
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 has remained, grown larger, and become more 
 significant during thirty years, a persistent 
 solidarity in which the earlier flaws have dis- 
 appeared. It needs some reflection to realize 
 how remarkable that coherence was, consider- 
 ing the wide diversity of ideas that prevailed 
 up to 1886 as to both means and ends, and 
 considering also the strong and even stormy 
 personalities of many who stood shoulder 
 to shoulder for the Irish cause, in disre- 
 gard of all differences, dislikes, suspicions, 
 disapprovals, jealousies. There were the 
 physical-force men, very dubious about the 
 constitutionalists : there were the constitu- 
 tionalists, very anxious about the men who 
 relied on physical force. But to one idea all 
 could agree— namely, that the Parliamentary 
 Party should make the best fight possible in 
 the British Parliament, in order to relieve Irish 
 distress on the land and set up an Irish Parlia- 
 ment for the management of Irish afl"airs. By 
 this central idea they held fast, and, never 
 losing sight of it, stood by each other loyally 
 through good report and evil. 
 
 140
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 The " Parnell movement " revealed many 
 potentialities in Irish political nature, but above 
 all it revealed the ability of the Irish— like the 
 French in this respect— to grasp the one idea 
 common to a vast number of differing minds, to 
 hold it fast, and to group all other related ideas 
 in subordination to it for practical purposes. 
 The most irreconcilable Nationalists and the 
 most timid Constitutionalists within the party 
 desired alike that the United Kingdom Parlia- 
 ment should, in some way, be used for the 
 benefit of Ireland : also they agreed alike that 
 the necessary means for this purpose was a 
 perfectly independent and coherent party, allow- 
 ing" no quarrel inside its ranks and no alliance, 
 except on the main question, outside. This 
 was the basis of that united movement which was 
 backed by the Irish Nationalists scattered 
 over the face of the globe. There is no other 
 example in history that compares with this as 
 showing ability, in a scattered and motley host, 
 to cohere under the lead of an idea. And the 
 
 example is the more remarkable because 
 
 141
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 the greatness of the personality at the head of 
 the host centred in nothing less, but in nothing 
 else, than his absolute trustworthiness as the 
 servant of the idea. The people obeyed him 
 because they trusted him, and they trusted him 
 because he was the incarnation of the idea 
 which gave them unity— a unity which once 
 won by a nation can never again be wholly lost. 
 Irishmen have a great capacity for differing, 
 but when they begin to agree, there is no 
 stopping them. The nineties supplied other 
 examples of this genius for unity with 
 difference: — (i) the co-operation of Unionists 
 with Nationalists in protest against the over- 
 taxation of Ireland, as revealed by the Royal 
 Commission; (2) the reunion of the Irish 
 Parliamentary Party, broken, so hopelessly as 
 it once seemed, by the Parnell tragedy ; 
 (3) co-operation, irrespective of politics, in the 
 Industrial, Literary, and Language movements. 
 The note of the racial character here is the 
 practical idealism which is also so French. 
 
 The mobile, concrete Celtic mind is at the back 
 
 142
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 of it. Suppose twenty million minds have, 
 amid a thousand differences, one idea in 
 common, and suppose that some man, or group, 
 of men, feeling this, take it as the basis of a 
 practical policy and so proclaim it. The quick- 
 ness and completeness with which the twenty 
 million fall in line behind their standard- 
 bearers depends on the degree of mobile con- 
 creteness in the racial intellectual character. 
 The mind that moves with swiftness and unity 
 easily rearranges its ideas, at least tentatively, 
 round the common idea as centre. If that 
 common idea has any hold on such a mind, 
 then the hope of national unity which goes with 
 this idea will make it strong ; and so, with more 
 or less ease and completeness, according to 
 its range of other ideas, the swift and singly 
 moving mind thinks itself into a new attitude 
 characterized by the acceptance of the ideal 
 proposed as the basis of, at least, an immediate 
 practical policy. The stalwart ex-Fenian John 
 O'Leary, I suppose, never preferred constitu- 
 tional to revolutionary methods, and all the 
 
 H3
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 extremists were liable to fits of retrogression 
 on their own views, but they were able to find 
 something in themselves enabling them to fall 
 into line behind men whose views were the 
 very antithesis of their own. These, for their 
 part, accepted without flinching the co-opera- 
 tion on their own lines of any Irishman, what- 
 ever his record. 
 
 Putting it more generally, it is characteristic 
 of the concrete Celtic mind that it enables a 
 group of persons with different ideas to 
 " mobihze " easily under the lead of an idea. 
 This it does because the concrete mind in each 
 individual is able to mobilize itself with ease. 
 A Celtic group thinks, as I have been told of 
 Frenchmen at a scientific congress, like one 
 man. This is because each man thinks himself 
 into the position rapidly, and the position, while 
 it may appeal, in some respects, differently 
 to each, appeals also similarly to all in that one 
 respect which is for all relevant to the imme- 
 diate purpose. In an act of thought so 
 sudden and swift as that by which a hundred 
 
 144
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 men under emotional excitement think the same 
 thought and do the same deed simultaneously, 
 there is a quick play of sympathetic imagina- 
 tion as well as of individual thought. They 
 not only agree, they know also that they are 
 agreed. 
 
 The fact that individual swiftness of thought 
 and social simultaneity are thus connected is 
 illustrated by the following account of the 
 average history of a House of Commons joke 
 once told me by an English member. " When 
 a joke is made, or a humorous incident occurs, 
 it takes effect first on the Irish benches : a 
 burst of simultaneous laughter issues from that 
 part of the building. Thence it is taken up 
 by the neighbouring benches and rolls 
 gradually over the House. I have noticed this 
 very often. An Irish repartee to the Minister 
 of the Crown will sometimes be shouted across 
 the House in unison while the words are 
 scarcely out of his mouth." 
 
 Ability to " mobilize " in a group turns on 
 the inner ability of its members to readjust the 
 attitude of mind and concentrate it at a new 
 
 145 K
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 practical point as required. Political adherence 
 depends on the maintenance of the attitude thus 
 taken up— the persistence of the idea. This 
 persistence clearly is not the same quality as 
 readiness to mobilize. And yet there is a close 
 connection. 
 
 Mobihty tends direct to social solidarity 
 when the social conditions are fulfilled, that 
 is, when the hundred minds or so are kept by 
 circumstances in each other's presence. The 
 mobile mind condemned to solitude loses touch 
 with its kind, and may run away along its own 
 tangents into a myriad eccentricities, such as 
 would never occur to a slower mind on another 
 solitary and neighbouring mountain -top. Of 
 these two, both solitary, the least mobile is 
 the more persistent : its excursions from its 
 original centre of ideas are slower, slighter, 
 and less frequent : its stability is self- 
 dependent. There is a great charm in this 
 absolute stability of character which we should 
 be wrong to undervalue. To the mobile Celt 
 this kind of stability is denied : even on the 
 mountain -top alone new ideas grow and swell 
 
 146
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 in him, and, if his power of intellect is not high, 
 may carry him far into the insanities of exag- 
 gerated and morbid individuality. This is the 
 danger of prolonged solitude for the Celt. For 
 one of the opposite type the danger is simple 
 stagnation and dullness ; this is the lesser evil 
 surely of the two. Moderate isolation leaves 
 the one stable and fairly normal^ while it makes 
 the other eccentric, more separate from his 
 kind than before. 
 
 But let the mobile Celt live in society, even 
 though it be only in that imagination of society 
 which is maintained by letters and newspapers. 
 The mobility of temper— which is another 
 aspect of accessibility to ideas — will by any 
 kind of intercourse maintain his solidarity with 
 his kind, and preserve that stability of mental 
 equilibrium which is persistence of ideas at its 
 best. His tendencies to go off along the tan- 
 gent of his original ideas with preposterous 
 speed are balanced by the constant central 
 force of the social ideas with which he is in 
 contact — the common sense of his social world. 
 If the individual force is strong, so is the social 
 
 147
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 force, and together they keep him rapidly in 
 movement, but always in the path of social 
 sanity and common sense. Thus we need not 
 be surprised to note that a Celt, so far as 
 solitary, tends to be eccentric, while, so far as 
 social, he tends to exemplify his type with 
 extraordinary tenacity. Irishmen are at once 
 more unlike and more like each other than their 
 opposite, according as the tangential forces 
 of solitude or the centripetal forces of society 
 predominate in them. The golden mean which 
 combines originality with common sense, indi- 
 vidual mobility with individual persistence, is 
 preserved best through the medium of social 
 solidarity. Cheap newspapers, the penny post 
 and village libraries may in the future play a 
 large part in the fulfilment of those conditions 
 of development which the Celtic races have 
 required all along. 
 
 We may thus sum up the conclusion now 
 reached. Mobihty of temperament makes for 
 instability of ideas, and, it may be, of character, 
 when separated from the social medium to 
 which it naturally and by its history belongs. 
 
 148
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 But the same mobility makes for the stabiHty of 
 
 thought and of character, so long as contact 
 
 with its proper medium is maintained. Easy 
 
 movement is as favourable to the social forces 
 
 of restitution as it is to the individual forces 
 
 that make for change. 
 
 In every life there are, however, intervals 
 
 during which the central (I.e., social) force 
 
 is not producing any new impressions, either 
 
 by restitution or otherwise, on the mind. The 
 
 self is left to itself and to the workings of its 
 
 own imagination. The salt of its sanity in 
 
 such days is the social imagination. By this 
 
 is kept alive the bygone touch of other minds, 
 
 and thus are maintained the moorings which 
 
 bind it to its kind. In temporary solitude, or 
 
 absence from home_, the other-conscious mind 
 
 has still the feelings of the others, their 
 
 thoughts, their wishes. Affection makes these 
 
 into sacred ties, and fills the personal life 
 
 with the sentiment of loyalty. This sentiment, 
 
 grounded as it is in imagination of the affections 
 
 and sympathies, becomes for the mobile Celt 
 
 the permanent safeguard of his social attach- 
 
 149
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 ments and, through them, of his individual 
 character. The Irishman who tampers with his 
 sentiment of loyahy is doing a dangerous thing. 
 He is cutting the rope that binds him to the 
 weightiest anchor in the moorings of character, 
 the anchor of social imagination supreme over 
 instinct. 
 
 We have seen how Celtic mobility hangs 
 with Celtic solidarity, and thus with Celtic per- 
 sistence of ideas. A Celtic political idea does 
 not die : it wanes^ but somewhere its memory 
 is enshrined. One day it is proclaimed to the 
 world again, and its world rallies to its standard 
 once more. 
 
 We have seen, too, how the completion of 
 individual character by social influence may 
 fail at this point and a certain series of types 
 of the incomplete erratic Celt become possible. 
 Celtic negatives attract attention : they appear 
 as the unbalanced positive quality in exag- 
 geration. 'Hence their variety and vexatious 
 aggressiveness. Hence also the crying need 
 for education and all goods of the soul— a 
 crying need because the lack of these is a 
 
 150
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 positive hurt. The Teuton is only dull where 
 the Celt is ridiculous and annoying. 
 
 In political life mere abstract mobility in 
 the units enables a great movement to be made 
 and led : but it also enables the enemy easily 
 to break it up by the advancement of new and 
 attractive ideas of a disintegrating character. 
 Mobility implies expansive friendliness in 
 general society, a capacity for the formation 
 of new alliances : this in politics is one way 
 of disintegrating old bonds. In Elizabethan 
 Ireland, and much later, this was the form 
 taken by the Irish political anti-genius. Celtic 
 solidarity broke down in those stormy days 
 for many reasons, of which the Celtic social 
 nature, on the expansive side of it towards 
 Teutonic neighbours, was certainly one. Note, 
 on the other hand, that improved means of 
 communication between the scattered members 
 of one race works steadily, not towards the 
 reduction of Celtic expansiveness, but towards 
 the increase of that Celtic solidarity on which 
 the stability of the national progress depends. 
 When solidarity is secured, expansiveness
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 enriches the national feeHng and adds to the 
 national strength. 
 
 In modern Ireland— the Ireland of this cen- 
 tury and the last — the conflict has been and is 
 between ideas, not between races or great 
 families. Abstract mobility means a liability 
 to be swiftly moved and carried away by a 
 great idea, with an equal liability to be drawn 
 from it by another idea following after. This 
 is the political character of which the French 
 are, not very justly, accused, and perhaps it 
 was an element in the political character of 
 the ancient Greek. To it certainly the indi- 
 vidual Gaelic Irishman has the liability of his 
 temperament. It suggests the easiest line of 
 attack on his political character. Against it 
 stands up his social instinct making for 
 solidarity, and thereby for a most conservative 
 persistence in the old central ideas round 
 which, and round which only, the race can be 
 rallied. Social instinct must always be against 
 a change of national standard : thus it acts 
 as a safe and steady drag on tendencies to 
 
 change in the national ideas. The Irish nation, 
 
 152
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 conscious of its nationhood, is to each one of 
 its members the counterpoise of excessive racial 
 accessibility to new political ideas. It may 
 well be said that the Irish political genius has 
 shown itself at its best in our generation, 
 because never until now has the social instinct 
 of nationhood found for itself sufficient oppor- 
 tunity to outweigh the Celtic fertility of ideas ? 
 Even towards enemies the social nature has 
 its instinctive play. When the Founder of 
 Christianity laid it down as a principle that 
 we should love our enemies, He implied that 
 it was possible to regard a man as an enemy 
 and nevertheless treat him with kindly human 
 regard. The psychology of this Christian prin- 
 ciple is plain enough : it lies in the fact that, 
 even in the hour of deadliest strife, each of 
 the two opponents is capable of respecting 
 the feelings of the other and treating them as 
 sacred to him equally with his own. Gaelic 
 heroic literature is rich in pagan illustrations 
 of this theme. At this point— this most charac- 
 teristic point— Celtic nature is instinctively 
 Christian. Ireland has been a battle-ground 
 
 153
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 for centuries, both pagan and Christian. No 
 country has suffered more terribly from fierce 
 internecine strife. But Irish social nature has 
 been able to maintain its sympathies, its sense 
 of a common nature, and a common conscious- 
 ness in the face of the most persistent enemies. 
 There is a contrast here between French and 
 Irish history which argues for the presence 
 of some gloomier racial element in the French. 
 This Irish quality explains at once two marked 
 features of Irish history. One is the capacity 
 of the Irish race to absorb all strangers and 
 enemies into itself. The other is that social 
 incoherence of mediaeval Ireland already 
 noticed which proceeds in actual fact, as we 
 see when we study it, as much from the ten- 
 dency of all men to fraternize with each other 
 as from their equally indisputable tendency to 
 quarrel. It remains that, in the long run, this 
 Gaelic gift for realizing human brotherhood 
 in any form may prove to be the most potent 
 element for Ireland's weal in the Irish national 
 genius for politics. 
 
 His emphatic personality makes the Irish- 
 
 154
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 man fiery in dispute, his sociability disposes 
 him, during the intervals of warfare, to expand 
 in friendly sympathy towards his enemies. 
 Both effects tended to produce, in the old 
 stormy times, social incoherence within the 
 nation. The peculiarly shifting character of 
 the English settlements, moreover, and the 
 capricious method of English government in 
 all the centuries, encouraged the tendency to 
 alternate bursts of war and friendship between 
 the two races in Ireland. The remarkable 
 fact, however, is that there was, even in the 
 most chaotic times, an extraordinary amount 
 of kindly feeling between hereditary foes, mixed 
 with a most extravagant passion for warfare. 
 We find nothing like the fierce steady feuds 
 between the Scotch clans which are the 
 counterpart of the magnificent loyalty and 
 coherence within the clan. The Irish tribe 
 was less coherent, but, as a compensation, the 
 Irish race, by Hibernicising the aliens, saved 
 Ireland for the Irish to a considerable extent. 
 The Gael of Scotland is the Highland Scot 
 to-day : the Gael of Ireland is the Irish type. 
 
 155
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 In the counsels of the Irish NationaHst Par- 
 liamentary Party the tendency to fraternize with 
 English Liberals was regarded by many as 
 a serious danger to party independence. The 
 members of the Home Rule Party under Mr. 
 Parnell, in the great fighting days of i 881-6, 
 considered themselves as practically bound 
 over to a social, as well as a political, policy of 
 unfriendliness. In those days no Irish member 
 dined with an English member. It was felt 
 necessary for discipline — that is, for unity — to 
 negative by strict principles the dangerous 
 sociability of the Gael. 
 
 Let us look more closely at this pleasant 
 
 quality in order to see whether, apart from 
 
 circumstances so abnormal as those of Irish 
 
 history, it is liable to such excess as to call 
 
 for counterbalance in some other quality. 
 
 When friends are made readily and freely it 
 
 becomes easy, if one be otherwise so inclined, 
 
 to make new friends in the place of old ones ; 
 
 and this may lead to fickleness unless there be 
 
 some powerful preventing force. The inex- 
 
 pansive, ungenial man needs his old friends 
 
 156
 
 The Gael in Politics 
 
 the more because he does not easily make new 
 ones. The genial man is faithful only because 
 there is a positive force of faithfulness in him. 
 This is the conservative virtue which keeps 
 balance against the expansive virtue of 
 geniality. 
 
 To be faithful is the same thing as to be 
 conservative in affection. Irish instinct tends 
 thus direct to faithfulness. But let an Irish- 
 man reason himself away from his instinct in 
 this respect, and the chances are that he will 
 drift very far — farther than the less instinctive 
 Teuton — just as a woman who has lost her 
 self-respect is apt to continue to lose it more 
 fatally than a man. And in general it should 
 be noted that the nature which is governed by 
 fine instincts in perfect balance suffers more 
 in moral deterioration by the destruction of one 
 instinct than is suffered in like case by the 
 nature which walks coolly and calmly in the 
 mean of reason or duty. Still, it is a fine thing 
 to have the instincts, and it remains to preserve 
 them by cultivating a rational ideal of life. 
 
 Faithfulness is in politics a conservative 
 
 157
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 force. Is not this conservative quality itself 
 an outcome from that central quality of con- 
 creteness which we discovered at the outset ? 
 The concrete mind reacts, not partially but 
 with wholeness and swiftness, on its new im- 
 pressions ; it does not lose the old in the new 
 any more than it ceases to feel and to imagine 
 when it thinks — any more than it ceases to 
 realize its personality even when most absorbed 
 in the things of the world outside. 
 
 Here, then, is our conclusion. The normal 
 Irish nature, even of civilized to-day, owes 
 its politico-social quality to the rare force with 
 which it has preserved, and the fullness with 
 which it has developed, the twin primitive 
 instincts of universal friendliness and conserva- 
 tive affection — the instinct to fellowship of man 
 with man, and the instinct to cling close and 
 persistently to its prime objects of affection. 
 
 It is this sense of the eternal in human 
 attachments that gives to all Irish social life 
 its characteristic undertone of spirituality. In 
 this, perhaps more than in anything else, Celts 
 of all nations understand each other. 
 
 158
 
 EVOLUTION OF 
 SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 
 UNDER THE 
 ANCIENT GAEL
 
 Born into life ! — man grows 
 Forth from his parents' stem 
 And blends their bloods, as those 
 Of theirs are blent in them ; 
 So each new man strikes root into a far fore-time. 
 
 Matthew Arnold.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS UNDER 
 THE ANCIENT GAEL 
 
 Ireland is a land of memories that endure. 
 
 All the old Gaelic institutions were ground 
 
 into powder during centuries of violent and 
 
 continual strife. Yet few of the old ideas 
 
 really died out : in recent years they have used 
 
 the new forms imposed upon them, turning 
 
 these into fresh vehicles of their life. The ideal 
 
 sources of the Irish modern movement lie in 
 
 deep instincts begotten of the dim historic past 
 
 — instincts which expressed themselves in the 
 
 development of the ancient Irish organization 
 
 of society. In each branch of this organization 
 
 can be seen the original Aryan idea on the 
 
 subject, modified just so far as was necessary 
 
 i6i L
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 for the purposes of development, but not trans- 
 formed as in other lands. Consider, for 
 instance, the case of tribal rights and land 
 ownership. Throughout Europe tribalism 
 changed into feudalism, and the original tribal 
 idea was lost : the free man's status was 
 reduced to that of the unfree feudal tenant. 
 In Ireland similar external forces were at 
 work, but the tribal idea reacts stiffly on these 
 forces so that they modify and preserve it : 
 the Brehon law ' provides means and sets 
 limits for the preservation of the tribesman's 
 freedom, and even for the acquisition of tribal 
 freedom by the " fuidir," or unfree tenant of 
 alien race. Celtic idealism and the Celtic 
 social temper, reinforced by Christian influ- 
 ences, would seem to be the explanation of 
 this fact. The high character and gallant 
 record of the unfree tribes may also have 
 contributed. 
 
 A study of Irish society under the 
 
 ^ Compare provisions to similar effect in the Hebrew 
 law. 
 
 162
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 Brehon law in pre-Norman times will fully 
 illustrate the claim here put forward, that 
 Gaelic institutions were characterized by the 
 maintenance of the " idea " of the Aryan 
 tribe throughout the necessary changes that 
 beset it. In such maintenance of the central 
 idea, change becomes development — progress 
 in the best sense — a reflective, self-conscious 
 progress from the simple to the complex. 
 
 The common tribesman was the peasant 
 head of the family, enjoying freely the use of 
 the tribal land. The tribesman might fall into 
 debt, make a contract with the chief of his 
 tribe — or some other person of weight — by 
 which he borrowed cattle for his use in agri- 
 culture, and undertook to pay interest in 
 service, homage and material goods. This is 
 the origin of rent in Ireland, and probably in 
 other European countries as well. Elsewhere, 
 it was the beginning of feudalism. The 
 peculiarity of Ireland lies in the fact that the 
 Brehon land law was developed side by side 
 
 with the conditions leading to feudalism, to 
 
 163
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 check and regulate them at every turn. Thus, 
 as the needy peasant found it necessary to 
 " take stock " from his chief and become a 
 tenant^ the law-loving intellect of the Gael 
 stepped in and regulated with the utmost 
 exactness the rent which tenants were to pay 
 their lords. Hence the difference between the 
 Irish idea of land tenure and the idea in all 
 other European countries where landlordism 
 still exists. The idea of a judicial rent is as 
 old in Ireland as the institution of rent itself. 
 Even the chief of the tribe was not excepted 
 from the dominion of law : the king's rents 
 were regulated as well as those of all the 
 others. 
 
 The law also made provision for the termi- 
 nation of a tenancy. After rent and homage 
 had been rendered for seven years, the tenant 
 became entitled to the stock if the chief died ; 
 and, if the tenant died, his heirs were partially, 
 though not wholly, relieved from their obliga- 
 tion. Thus the law aimed not only at 
 regulating the relations between landlord and 
 
 164
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 tenant, but at the prevention of permanency 
 in the servile relationship. Clearly, the 
 tendency throughout is to conserve the ancient 
 tribal idea of a community of freemen by 
 limiting the power of the strong to make 
 contracts with the weak. Contrast this with 
 the unchecked degeneration of tribalism in 
 medieval Europe. 
 
 The Irish law tracts give us, in the fuidir 
 class, the true prototype of the nineteenth- 
 century Irish tenant. Strangers, tribeless and 
 homeless, needed not only land to settle upon 
 and perhaps a little capital to start with, 
 but also the protection of a claim on some 
 society. The chief no doubt had, in early 
 times, access to the waste lands of the tribe, 
 and on these it was easy for him to settle 
 strangers who came to him. Thus the fuidir 
 would enter into a free contract with the lord, 
 by which he obtained leave to settle on the 
 land and was secured in the protection of his 
 lord, who thenceforth stood to him in the 
 relation of family, i.e., was bail and witness 
 
 i6s .
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 for him in the tribal courts. On the other 
 hand, he would agree to pay the lord a rent, 
 and the law left the two perfectly free to agree 
 on that rent as best they might. The lord 
 might accept the fuidir's offer or let him go ; 
 the tenant was free to pay or go. The rent 
 of a fuidir is definitely distinguished in the 
 great law tract, the " Seanchus Mor " from the 
 fair rent paid by one of the tribe, as a " rack- 
 rent from a person of stranger tribe." So 
 to be a tribesman was to have the protection 
 of the law, and to be a stranger was to be 
 left to the lord's goodwill, public opinion and 
 the natural law of demand and supply. 
 
 Now the result of the progress of feudalism 
 in Europe was to turn all tribesmen into fuidir 
 tenants in the sense of the Brehon law ; and 
 the downfall of feudalism, as between king and 
 barons in modern times, brought in modern 
 landlordism with its mere tenants-at-will. This 
 system was introduced into Ireland, but clearly 
 as a foreign system. The Brehon law in 
 
 the uld days checked the feudal tendency at 
 
 1 66
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 every turn, and Us ideas have not died out 
 even to-day. It is indeed striking to note 
 how the ancient practical ideas, crushed below 
 the surface by new institutions and opposed 
 from the outside in later times, have survived, 
 and so make their first re-appearance, in the 
 modern world of the British Isles, from the 
 mind of the nation that invented their practice 
 hundreds of years ago. In fact, the idealistic 
 race is necessarily conservative, though not 
 blindly so as towards particular institutions 
 or towards mere custom in any guise. Pro- 
 gressive conservatism is of the essence of the 
 Irish political genius. This is one of the facts 
 which are explained by the hypothesis of 
 Celtic psychology set forth in these pages. 
 
 Another illustration of the conservative way 
 in which these old Irish developed their civili- 
 zation may be found in the extraordinary 
 development of the idea of kinship, voluntary 
 no less than natural, as the source of mutual 
 duties and joint responsibilities capable of 
 
 being defined by law. The responsibility of 
 
 167
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 the natural family for the crimes of its members 
 is an idea to be found in early Aryan societies 
 generally. But in the other societies it was 
 superseded as they became more complex. In 
 Ireland it was developed to suit the com- 
 plexities. This appears more particularly in 
 connection with the fruitful idea of voluntary 
 kinship, applicable to all bonds between man 
 and man outside the relationship of the natural 
 family. How characteristic this of the ex- 
 pansive and conservative Celt 1 The bonds 
 of natural family affection are transcended, 
 not by the denial, but by the expansion, of 
 the family idea. Workers at one craft form 
 a voluntary family — called a craft's guild in 
 mediaeval Europe — and the law treated its 
 members as an artificial group of kindred. 
 The peasants likewise formed such groups, 
 called " Bruighs," and the law recognized this 
 voluntary group as a family entitled to a repre- 
 sentative — their elected head — in the tribal 
 assembly. The Brehon law supplies many 
 
 missing links : it shows us here how modern 
 
 1 68
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 representative institutions point back to an 
 origin in the early constitution of the tribe. 
 Our Member of Parliament is the elected head 
 of the voluntary family. It is only the old 
 Irish law that keeps the original ideal in sight. 
 The people who have no family acquire by 
 co-operation the rights of family. 
 
 The Irish laws of fosterage enshrine the 
 same idea in this conservative progress from 
 simple to complex. Fosterage pure and 
 simple, the giving and taking of children for 
 nurture, existed in all the early Aryan com- 
 munities ; but in Ireland the practice became 
 extraordinarily prevalent, and was carefully 
 regulated by the law. It was quite usual, 
 till very late times, that children of noble birth 
 should be fostered by the lowlier dependents 
 of their families ; and this custom has no 
 doubt contributed to intensify the sentiment 
 of affection between the different ranks of the 
 sept or clan. It has supplied the idea of 
 foster-kindred when that of kindred was 
 
 obscure. But it is with the use of the fosterage 
 
 169
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 idea in spiritual, intellectual, and industrial 
 relationships that we are more specially con- 
 cerned. In a society organized under the idea 
 of kindred it is natural that every relationship 
 should be assimilated to the family relation- 
 ship. So we fmd in Ireland the family of 
 the saint and spiritual fosterage, or gossipred, 
 the fraternity of the craftsman and industrial 
 fosterage, the family of the teacher, whether 
 bard or brehon, and literary fosterage, besides 
 the military foster-children of the great 
 warriors. It is about literary fosterage that we 
 read most in the Brehon law tracts, which give, 
 under this title, the law of the relation between 
 teacher and pupil. An entire subtract in the 
 " Seanchus Mor " is devoted to the subject of 
 fosterage, and sets out with the utmost minute- 
 ness the rights and duties attaching to all 
 parties concerned. It is plain that the Brehon 
 conception of the relation between foster-child 
 and foster-family is a slight variation of that 
 which regulates the relation between the child 
 
 and its natural family, the child owing certain 
 
 170
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 duties to the family, and the family bearing 
 certain responsibilities for the child. 
 
 Out of the conception of fosterage grew 
 the law regulating the relation of pupil to 
 teacher— the literary foster-father. " However 
 it may surprise us," says Sir Henry Maine, 
 " that the connection between pupil and teacher 
 was regarded as peculiarly sacred by the 
 ancient Irish, and as closely resembling natural 
 fatherhood, the Brehon tracts leave us no room 
 for doubt on the point. It is expressly laid 
 down that it created the same patria potestas 
 as actual paternity ; and the literary foster- 
 father, though he teaches gratuitously, has a 
 claim through life upon portions of the property 
 of the literary foster-son. Thus the brehon 
 with his pupils constituted not a school in our 
 sense, but a true family. While the ordinary 
 foster-father was bound by the law to give 
 education of some kind to his foster-children— 
 to the sons of chiefs instruction in riding, 
 shooting with the bow, swimming, and chess- 
 playing ; to their daughters, instruction in sew- 
 
 171
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 ing, cutting-out, and embroidery— the brehon 
 trained his foster-sons in learning of the 
 highest dignity, the lore of the chief literary 
 profession. He took payment, but it was the 
 law which settled it for him. It was part of 
 his status, and not the result of a bargain." » 
 
 Remembering that the natural family was 
 in a measure responsible for the ill-deeds of 
 its members, we look for some definition of the 
 tutor's more limited responsibility for his 
 pupils. The following passage from the laws 
 makes this point clear, and gives us, at the 
 same time, a pleasant picture of the educational 
 system at work :— 
 
 " The poet (or tutor) commands his pupils. 
 The man from whom education is received is 
 free from the crimes of his pupils if they be 
 the children of natives, even though he feeds 
 and clothes them, and that they pay him for 
 their learning. He is free, even though it be 
 a stranger he instructs, feeds, and clothes, pro- 
 
 ^ Sir Henry Maine's Early History of Institutions, 
 Lecture VIII, p. 242. 
 
 172
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 vided it is not for pay but for God that he 
 does it. If he feeds and instructs a stranger 
 for pay, it is then he is accountable for his 
 crimes." ^ 
 
 The dual play of ideas in this passage gives 
 us a sudden insight into the ideal life of the 
 times. On the one hand, there is the tribal 
 idea of the citizen's strict responsibility to the 
 State for those he may introduce into the com- 
 munity. On the other hand, this idea is 
 annulled by the permission to exercise free hos- 
 pitality without limit. We know, too, that it 
 was customary for the neighbours of the 
 mediaeval schools to exercise their hospitality 
 for the support of the strangers who flocked 
 as students to the schools. The " poor 
 scholar," dependent on the charity of his 
 neighbours for his living, as on the kindness of 
 the teachers for his learning, was as familiar 
 a feature of Irish society as the bard and 
 the brehon themselves. The entertainment of 
 
 ' O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, 
 vol. ii., p. 79. 
 
 173
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 strange students was, in fact, regarded by the 
 people, and by the law, as a duty of national 
 hospitality. 
 
 The children of the Irish upper classes paid 
 for their education in the ordinary way, and 
 the sons of the poorer classes who were 
 educated at the same college were provided 
 for by an arrangement similar to that of the 
 modern, though now old-fashioned, sizarship. 
 They waited on the wealthier students and 
 received educational benefits in return. The 
 scholars who belonged to the neighbourhood 
 lived in their homes, and those who were 
 pensioners lived in the humble-looking group 
 of dwellings called the college ; while others, 
 coming from remote or foreign districts, lived 
 in their own huts adjoining the college and 
 were supplied with provisions by the neigh- 
 bours. The living doubtless was plain indeed, 
 but of high thinking there was no lack. 
 
 The whole educational system was a spon- 
 taneous growth over which the law threw its 
 mantle of authority as it grew, regulating it 
 
 174
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 by careful definition of ideas concerning the 
 right and desirable, which were already more 
 than half expressed in the national conscious- 
 ness. Thus the aspiration after knowledge and 
 intellectual activity, which is of the very 
 essence of Irish character, fulfilled itself at an 
 early period of political development, by insti- 
 tutions which embody the essential idea of 
 Irish social life — the idea of kinship, natural 
 and voluntary, as the source of mutual duties 
 and. joint responsibilities, which it is the busi- 
 ness of the law to define rather than to 
 enforce . 
 
 Probably I have said enough to indicate that 
 there is evidence, and the nature of the 
 evidence, in support of the fact which I set 
 out by asserting, that the tendency of Gaelic 
 civilization was to progress by conserving — 
 to find ever in the old ideas a means of 
 envisaging and adapting new facts. Every- 
 where, more or less, the old disappears and 
 gives place to the new. Everywhere, more or 
 less, the old develops and is preserved in the 
 
 175
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 new. But in the old Ireland where the Celtic 
 influence was freely at work progress was less 
 revolutionary and more evolutionary— conserva- 
 tive of ideas, while rapid and ready in adapting 
 those ideas to new uses. For notice in par- 
 ticular that readiness of resource is as charac- 
 teristic of the Brehon law as is persistence in 
 original ideals. France, indeed, is known to 
 modern Europe as the land of revolutions, but 
 the ruling classes in old France were the very 
 antithesis of the Celt and had destroyed every 
 Celtic institution. In France the Celtic in- 
 fluence was not free till it freed itself, or 
 some other harsher influence freed it, by the 
 Revolution. 
 
 There was, at any rate, no incapacity to 
 solve new problems in ancient any more than 
 in modern Ireland. Conservative persistence 
 is balanced by the adaptability which seizes 
 readily on a change in the situation. 
 
 And here it is obvious that we have come 
 once more back to that groundwork of funda- 
 mental character so fully discussed in a 
 
 176
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 previous chapter. The mobile mind thinks 
 itself into its situation ; it is reflective, idealistic, 
 forms stable ideas of its life and surroundings. 
 Ideas persist as circumstances change : thus 
 the idealistic race is conservative of its ideas. 
 Social solidarity, moreover, so far as realized, 
 makes strongly for the persistence of social, 
 and indeed of all communicated, ideas . Hence 
 the conservative instinct, which is the guiding 
 wheel of Celtic civilization, is a natural product 
 of that swiftly moving, concrete mind which 
 produces also the driving wheel of its pro- 
 gressive activity. 
 
 In all departments of thought and feeling — 
 in art, in literature, in domestic habits, in 
 religious observances, in the whole round of 
 those activities to which the idea of progres- 
 sive civilization applies — the Celt changes his 
 ways, but changes conservatively. Both his 
 Liberalism and his Conservatism have often 
 been noticed. The former when dominant is 
 softened by reverence, the latter always centres 
 in the life, not the stagnation, of ideas. This 
 
 177 M
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 is the conservatism of thought, not the conser- 
 vatism of habit. 
 
 It is open to question whether this unfor- 
 getful method of civilization is the most 
 effective method, looked at from a wider point 
 of view ; but there can be no doubt that the 
 process of it, as above described, produces 
 more gracious individual development. Let 
 us look more closely into this matter. Does 
 the native Irish method of civilization show 
 itself on the smaller scale as characteristic of 
 the educational development of the individual 
 Irishman? Does the educated Irishman on the 
 average differ in this respect from the average 
 educated Englishman ? 
 
 To this my experience replies in the affirma- 
 tive. He differs much as the race differs. 
 Just as new Ireland is still old Ireland, so the 
 educated Irishman remains more than others 
 the natural in becoming the civilized man. He 
 sheds a less amount than usual of his ancient 
 sel'f : he is more of a boy and more also 
 of a primitive man than are his peers else- 
 
 178
 
 Evolution of Social Institutions 
 
 where. 'His proverbial naturalness of manner, 
 his unconventionality, his primitive directness 
 of outlook, all are signs of this. He lives in 
 cities, and loves them all the more because 
 they do not force him, in the inner life, into 
 any breach of contact with mother nature. In 
 the crowded streets of New York he still feels 
 the influence of the green hills in Ireland, 
 the open spaces, and the fragrant perfume of 
 the turf. Or he moves in the academic circles 
 of universities, or the more strait-laced circles 
 of theological colleges, heavily weighted with 
 learning, dignity, or pious reputation — 
 weighted but not weighed down, bear- 
 ing knowledge and even clerical sanctity 
 like a wand in his hand, not like a 
 halter round his neck, his heart rooted still, 
 be he priest or professor, in the old simple 
 things of life, buoyant, fresh, unartificial, all 
 the more dignified because he takes no thought 
 for dignity, all the more self-possessed because 
 his sense of good still centres in primitive 
 gifts. It is true that, to a large extent, the 
 
 1/9
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 highest education tends to produce in all 
 persons this completeness of character which 
 turns on the preservation, or revival, of the 
 primitive man within the scholar. This 
 tendency takes effect on all natures that are 
 broad and concrete enough. But the opposite 
 tendency exists and takes effect in other cases ; 
 the academic is often the mere academic. And 
 in this respect the commonplace Celt comes 
 off better than the commonplace Teuton. 
 
 The aim of personal education for the in- 
 dividual — of social civilization for the race — 
 is to grow in the soil of human nature all the 
 possible goods of which it will hold the seeds, 
 while rooting up no good thing that is already 
 there. To this process of conservative develop- 
 ment all human nature takes more or less 
 kindly, because all human nature is more or 
 less of the type I have described. All human 
 nature is more or less Celtic in this sense. 
 Only, Celtic human nature is more Celtic, more 
 bound up in ideals of life to be maintained, 
 more apt in the invention of practical means 
 for their realization. 
 
 1 80
 
 VI 
 
 THE 
 
 GAEL IN 
 LITERATURE
 
 An air is more lasting than the voice of the birds, 
 A word is more lasting than the riches of the world. 
 
 Irish Proverb.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE GAEL IX LITERATURE 
 
 In these days of the Gaelic literary revival, 
 the Abbey Theatre, the Ulster playwrights, of 
 William Butler Yeats, of John M. Synge, and, 
 in another field, of George Bernard Shaw, it 
 is more than ever of interest to inquire whether 
 Ireland has it in her to make a characteristic 
 contribution to the world's literature. The 
 literary revival, in its primary sense, means 
 the publication, translation, and development 
 into new forms of ancient Irish literature, and 
 no student doubts that a valuable addition is 
 thus being made to the general stock of literary 
 lore. The revival aims at more than this. 
 It aims at the recovery of their old literary 
 habits by the Irish people, gentle and simple ; 
 
 183
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 and ideas are afloat for effecting this recovery 
 by bringing to every cottage hearth oppor- 
 tunity for acquaintance with the masterpieces 
 of literature, not Irish only but of all sorts, 
 as in the ancient times. Village libraries wisely 
 stocked would be a priceless boon. 
 
 Does it mean more than this ? Does there 
 lie folded within it the idea that the Irish 
 race, speaking and writing in English, has a 
 literary work in the future, for the doing of 
 which it has special gifts, and which would 
 not be done if it failed to maintain its indi- 
 viduality ? 
 
 The answer to this question the future will 
 more fully reveal : but there is no lack of 
 experience on which to ground an affirma- 
 tive faith. We are indeed passing through 
 that phase where faith is merged in sight. 
 The writers I have named are but the largest 
 and most diverse stars in a considerable cluster, 
 each with some characteristic— romantic in 
 several styles, or humorous, or satiric. 
 
 Reference to a few examples must suffice. 
 
 184
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 There is nothing more exquisite in dramatic 
 literature, more lyric in effect, more profoundly 
 Irish, than Kathleen-ni-Houlihan, by W. B. 
 Yeats. We have the wholesome, homely Irish 
 life, the strange old woman with mystic power, 
 symbolic of the age-long tragedy of Ireland 
 — the real and the symbol set side by side in a 
 single cottage scene, each claiming allegiance 
 from the young man's heart — the bright young 
 girl overwhelmed by sorrow at her lover's loss, 
 and finally the " Shan Van Vocht " — the poor 
 old woman herself — transformed, though we 
 see her not, into that glorious shape of 
 beauteous youth, reborn of Irish love and 
 Irish hope at every climax of the nation's 
 struggle upwards. 
 
 Peter. Did you see an old woman going down the 
 path? 
 
 Patrick. I did not : but I saw a young woman, and 
 she had a walk like a queen. 
 
 It was to the old woman that the young man 
 had given his devotion. Others there are who 
 
 185
 
 "^ The Genius of the Gael 
 
 wait for the appearance of the maiden with the 
 queen-hke walk. 
 
 But this little play is not only Irish in its 
 profound appreciation, its delicate expression 
 of the Irish patriotic romance : it is Irish 
 in the literary method employed, that subtle 
 interweaving of vivid realism with robust 
 idealism which marks alike the composition of 
 Gaelic romantic literature and the talk of the 
 people in the West to-day. 
 
 This last repays study : the original live 
 sources of fine Irish speech are by no means 
 dry. It must be that there is in these people 
 a pressing inner need for the expression of 
 thought in speech. Otherwise, how is it 
 possible to account for the fact that an Irish 
 peasant has on an average in his vocabulary 
 about ten words for every one used by the 
 English peasant ? ^ This inner need is in part 
 
 ^ Dr. Douglas Hyde wrote down 3,000 words from 
 Roscommon people who could neither read nor write, 
 and he thinks he fell short of the vocabulary actually in 
 use by 1,000 words more. He suggests that in Kerry the 
 average vocabulary used by Irish speakers is probably 
 
 186
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 the outcome of the highly developed social 
 sense ; and the good English vocabulary even 
 in the Irish-speaking districts can only be ex- 
 plained by desire of speech with the stranger 
 as he comes along. The peasant's gift of 
 speech is, however, more than the wealth of 
 his vocabulary, and that vocabulary itself is 
 a very different thing from the sum of words 
 and phrases picked up by attention to English 
 speakers of the day. Padraic Colum in My 
 Irish Year should be read in this connection : 
 the book abounds in examples of picturesque 
 talk and of what he calls the Irish peasant's 
 " compelling sense of style." Among the 
 people of the Midlands he finds a vigorous 
 and imaginative speech. A man speaks about 
 the virtues of a certain well. " The water of 
 that well," he said, *' when the sun would be 
 splitting the flags, the coldness of it would 
 shiver the teeth in your head." 
 
 between 3,000 and 5,000 words. Dr. Pedersen took down 
 2,500 words from Irish speakers in the Aran Islands. 
 It is said that the Enghsh peasant's vocabulary consists 
 of from 300 to 500 words. 
 
 187
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 In his preface to The Playboy of the 
 Western World, J. M. Synge tells us that in 
 this, as in all his other plays, " I have used 
 one or two words only that I have not heard 
 among the country people of Ireland, or spoken 
 in my own nursery before I could read the 
 newspapers. A certain number of the phrases 
 I employ I have heard also from herds and 
 fishermen along the coast from Kerry to Mayo, 
 or from beggarwomen and ballad-singers 
 nearer Dublin ; and I am glad to acknow- 
 ledge how much I owe to the folk imagina- 
 tion of these fine people. Any one who has 
 lived in real intimacy with the Irish peasantry 
 will know that the wildest sayings in this play 
 are tame indeed compared with the fancies one 
 may hear in any hill -side cabin in Geesala 
 or Carraroe, or Dingle Bay." And of the 
 importance to art of this great " find " of his 
 he says : " On the stage one must have reality 
 and one must have joy. ... In a good play 
 every speech should be as fully flavoured as 
 a nut or apple, and such speeches cannot be 
 
 1 88
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 written by any one who works among people 
 who have shut their lips on poetry. In 
 Ireland for a few years more ' we have a 
 popular imagination that is fiery and magnifi- 
 cent and tender, so that those of us who wish 
 to write start with a chance that is not given 
 to writers in places where the springtime of 
 the local life has been forgotten, and the 
 harvest is a memory only, and the straw has 
 been turned into bricks." 
 
 With the touch of pessimism in that last 
 sentence we need not identify ourselves. It 
 is perhaps of a piece with that strange mani- 
 festation of an improbable inhumanity in the 
 characters of this play which mars its efi'ect 
 as drama acted on the stage, and even makes 
 one want to turn one's eyes away. 'Having 
 seen The Playboy acted once, I do not 
 desire to see it again : but I have read and 
 will read it many times for the delight I take 
 in the splendour of its language — language 
 that for vigorous imagination, bold metaphor, 
 
 ' This is the pessimistic note in Synge. 
 189
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 and perfect phrasing could not well be 
 surpassed. 
 
 By far the most beautiful of all Synge's 
 plays is Deirdre of the Sorrows. Here we 
 have an antique subject of the highest dignity, 
 and yet the language woven into the dialogue 
 by the genius of the dramatist is, as he tells 
 us, found in the talk of our twentieth-century 
 peasant Ireland. There is something in the 
 musical swing of the phrase in all these plays 
 which makes one think of the chants that are 
 sung by the winds on the hill and the waves 
 on the shore ; but the dominant formative 
 influence each phrase bespeaks is that of an 
 intense underlying interest in the problem of 
 saying briefly all that is in one's mind as 
 unmistakably, as convincingly, and as per- 
 suasively as possible. For an example, take 
 this fine dialogue between the beautiful princess 
 and the foster-mother who loves her devotedly. 
 
 Deirdre. I'm in dread of going or staying, Lavarcbam. 
 It's lonesome this place, having happiness like ours, till 
 I'm asking each day will this day match yesterday, and 
 
 190
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 will to-morrow take a good place beside the same day in 
 the year that's gone, and wondering all times is it a game 
 worth playing, living on until you're dried and old, and 
 our joy is gone for ever. 
 
 Lavarcham. If it's that ails you I tell you there's 
 little hurt getting old, though young girls and poets do 
 be storming at the shapes of age. {Passionately) There's 
 little hurt getting old, saving when you're looking back, 
 the way I'm looking this day, and seeing the young you 
 have a love for breaking up their hearts with folly. Take 
 my word and stop Naisi, and the day'll come you'll have 
 more joy having the senses of an old woman and you 
 with your little grandsons shrieking round you than I'd 
 have this night putting on the red mouth and the white 
 arms you have to go walking lonesome byways with a 
 gamey king. 
 
 Turning to the same writer's records of his 
 walks through Ireland, we find careful reports 
 of talks with tramps and peasants. These are 
 what the world calls ignorant people, with little 
 knowledge probably of the English Bible, and 
 less, if any, of Shakespeare's plays. This is 
 how they talk. It is " an old man with a 
 white pointed face and a hoary beard " who 
 pulls himself out of the ditch to walk with 
 the stranger, and presently begins " talking 
 
 191
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 in a mournful voice of the famines and mis- 
 fortunes that have been in Ireland. 
 
 There have been three cruel plagues/ he 
 said, ' out through the country since I was 
 born in the west. First there was the big wind 
 in 1839 that tore away the grass and green 
 things from the earth. Then there was the 
 blight that came on the 9th of June in the 
 year 1846. Up to then the potatoes were clean 
 and good ; but that morning a mist rose up out 
 of the sea, and you could hear a voice talking 
 near a mile off across the stillness of the earth. 
 It was the same the next day, and the day 
 after, and so on, for three days or more ; and 
 then you could begin to see the tops of the 
 stalks lying over as if the life was gone out 
 of them. And that was the beginning of the 
 great trouble and famine that destroyed 
 Ireland. Then the people went on, I suppose, 
 in their wickedness and their animosity of one 
 against the other, and the Almighty God sent 
 down the third plague, and that was the sick- 
 ness called the cholera. Then the people left 
 
 192
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 the town of Sligo — it's in Sligo I was reared 
 — and you could walk through the streets at 
 the noon of day and not see a person, and you 
 could knock at one door and another door and 
 find no one to answer you. The people were 
 travelling out north and south and east, with 
 the terror that was on them ; and the country 
 people were digging ditches across the roads 
 and driving them back where they could, for 
 they had great dread of the disease.' " 
 
 I am but one of the common crowd, with- 
 out the skill to note and memory to retain that 
 marks these gifted observers. Nevertheless, 
 I have seen not a little of the Irish people in 
 all parts and listened to their choice and ready 
 talk. This quality of choiceness interests me 
 much. Some choose word and phrase by 
 instinct, some by deliberate act of selection. 
 The tramcar conductor in Dublin may be 
 heard any day discarding a moderately suitable 
 word to substitute another more apt or 
 effective. It is noteworthy that synonyms 
 
 should in rapid succession occur to his mind. 
 
 193 N
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 More noteworthy is the comparatively rare use 
 made of common swear-words and slang -words 
 in country parts. In Kerry I was in a third- 
 class carriage travelling from Cahirciveen on 
 a fair day. I had for fellow-passengers about 
 half a dozen young men fresh from the fair, 
 one of them rather tipsy and the other five 
 engaged in supervising him for his own good, 
 with much excitement all round and quantities 
 of quarrelsome language. What interested me 
 was this. Whereas the young men used many 
 words, they never used an ordinary " bad " 
 one at all. This was not either virtue or 
 religion, I think, but just the Irishman's habit 
 of using the words he means. Irish invec- 
 tive is, I believe, a branch of literature in 
 itself, dying out perhaps in our day. The 
 poets of the old days wielded it as a weapon 
 of terror over princes. 
 
 Here is a Highlander's story, an old one 
 certainly, but it illustrates the point. There 
 was a certain general who had a Highland 
 
 servant. The general's heart was set on 
 
 194
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 putting down bad language among his soldiers. 
 " I would not be troubling myself, General, 
 if I were you," said Donald, " at the few 
 little words those men do be using. Now if a 
 man had the Gaelic he could be saying' all that 
 is in him and never use the same word twice." 
 We may take it that the Gaelic language would 
 be in sonorous phrases, apt as well as strong. 
 English slang-words also, though not unknown, 
 have no great vogue in Ireland : like swear- 
 words, they argue poverty in choice of speech. 
 The twin gift to choiceness of speech is 
 fluency ; both depend for their effectiveness 
 on a rich vocabulary : otherwise, they supple- 
 ment and stimulate each other. In Irish 
 writers and speakers the characteristic most 
 obvious to an Englishman is fluency. It is easy 
 to talk or write when words come easily : and 
 this facility is no doubt a great temptation 
 to write or speak when there is nothing to 
 say. The " windbag " Irish orator does exist, 
 and, still more, has existed. On his native 
 soil he is kept in check, since his fellows there, 
 
 195
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 having their measure of the same facility, 
 
 estimate it at its value — that is, very lightly. 
 
 The educated Irishman learns, in a double 
 
 sense, to distrust his own fluency ; his choice- 
 
 ness as to words, his compelling sense of style, 
 
 warn him to weigh well all his sentences. And 
 
 this is probably the reason why the educated 
 
 Irishman, although he speaks better than his 
 
 English peer, does so on the average, as I 
 
 believe, with more anxiety. He does not fear 
 
 that he will fail to get through, but he does 
 
 fear that he may fail to say the thing he means, 
 
 or fail to say it to his liking. Starting with 
 
 facility, he sets his standard by significance, 
 
 and sets it high. In a pleasant impromptu to 
 
 fill up time he succeeds easily. Too much of 
 
 this ruins him for better things. 
 
 Be this as it may, it will not be denied that 
 
 control of language — a ready co-operation of 
 
 thought and word — is characteristic of the 
 
 Gaelic mental manifestation as seen in the 
 
 Irishman. True, the language-gift is not 
 
 limited to the Gaelic Irish. In Anglo- 
 
 196
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 Irish circles also tongues wag freely and 
 to good effect. But the more Gaelic the 
 circle, the more striking the gift. And 
 here it may be remarked, in passing, that 
 the Irish quality of the Ulsterman, who is 
 half a Scotchman, may be traced in part to 
 the racial fact that, in so far as he is Scotch, 
 which is not altogether, he is largely High- 
 land Scotch, i.e., of the same race as the 
 Gaelic Irish. There is little to choose in the 
 way of race between the Presbyterian 
 Macdonald of the north and the Catholic 
 O'Donnell of the western province. More- 
 over, the qualities that distinguish the Celt are 
 qualities that can be made to grow by use 
 and association. 
 
 Power of language implies the tendency of 
 words to rise with the thoughts, to think in 
 language, so that thought and the speech of 
 it are parts of a single mental act. The man 
 who expresses himself with difficulty thinks 
 habitually without flowing out into words. He 
 
 is either centred in the source of thought — 
 
 197
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 a difficult thing to conceive, but it occurs ' 
 — or he expresses himself to himself in some 
 silent way, in pictorial imagination or some 
 personal symbolic shorthand, or by the use of 
 his hands in art production. When he speaks 
 he has to put his thoughts into words. As 
 compared with the eloquent man he is like one 
 who translates from his own tongue into a 
 foreign language. Words are the native 
 language of the eloquent man. Thought and 
 speech are of the same act to him, so closely 
 do these correlated functions work together for 
 his ends. 
 
 What is eloquence, then, but an example of 
 the facility of all-round consciousness and con- 
 sequent concrete, close-knit being with which 
 we have identified the Celtic mind? Thought 
 flashes into words, words flash back to stimu- 
 late thought, because mental action in general 
 is of this swiftly co-operating, variously re- 
 
 ' This is not the place to argue the psychological 
 question as to how thought is possible without complete 
 expression. I have no doubt that it is, and am quite 
 ready to argue it on the appeal to experience. 
 
 198
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 ciprocating kind. Physically we may suppose 
 that the currents of action move quickly, so 
 that all parts of the brain are more readily 
 roused to act together. 
 
 Mere fluency of words is a very small part 
 of the characteristic as a whole. Of far greater 
 importance for literary excellence is the close- 
 ness with which the pictorial imagination runs 
 alongside thought, playing into it, giving vent 
 to it, illustrating it with images that pierce 
 the mind of the listener, adorning it with a 
 wealth of graphic fancy that reacts as stimulus 
 on itself. Graphic power is of the very 
 essence of literary excellence. No writer or 
 speaker makes others see except in so far as 
 he himself sees ; and unless he is deficient 
 in words, or they below the normal in visual 
 imagination, what he sees they see also, and 
 through sight, by way of images, an entry is 
 made into thought. He who uses metaphors 
 without himself having imaged their content 
 is curiously ineffective. An original metaphor 
 cannot come into being at all without the 
 
 199
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 full action corresponding of the originator's 
 imagination. 'Hence its power, because it is 
 sure to be expressed in words that indicate 
 the particulars of the image and their exact 
 fitness. But literature is full of hackneyed 
 metaphors that have been used again and 
 again, and have come to symbolize merely the 
 thought they illustrate without any stimulus 
 of the imagination corresponding. They are 
 used as mechanically as ordinary words, which 
 also abound in the implicit suggestion of 
 metaphor. " A stranded vessel," " a rudder- 
 less bark," " the flowing tide "—metaphors like 
 these in a suitable context are apt by long 
 use to suggest their meaning in the context 
 only, without even a back-current of imagina- 
 tion for the images themselves. 
 
 Now, the true literary mind dealing with 
 even such simple material as this is always 
 active on it as imagination. It never uses 
 a metaphor without feeling the life thereof. 
 This is the secret of using old metaphors in 
 an original manner. When used by one who 
 
 200
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 has the image before him, the image is exactly 
 fitted to the context, with subtle natural modi- 
 fications that make the whole one and unique. 
 Thus the dying metaphor has given to it a 
 new lease of life. A metaphor, to be alive, 
 must in a sense be new-bom when it is used. 
 Its new birth in the speaker's mind is ex- 
 pressed by the aptness of its resetting in the 
 context of his speech. 
 
 There is a metaphor frequently used in the 
 old Irish stories. In flight or pursuit the hero 
 rides so swiftly that the March wind cannot 
 overtake him. Perhaps the form of this 
 metaphor helps to make it more than ordinarily 
 vivid. I always see the rider untouched by 
 any wind except the draught of his way, and 
 yet I feel the keen spring wind blow on me 
 out of the quarter behind him, and see the 
 bowed clumps of heather on the wind-swept 
 hills. But in the main it strikes fresh because 
 used freshly. 
 
 This quality of reality is in general very 
 marked in the metaphors of the Gaelic tales. 
 
 201
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 They have the real smell of the brine upon 
 them and are steeped in the colours of Irish 
 nature. Thus, as we read, bits of Irish scenery, 
 rise to our minds. It is a mark of their 
 originality that they thus imply locality. The 
 realization of local colouring on each occasion 
 stamps the oft-used metaphor afresh as it issues 
 from the mind. 
 
 Local colour marks the old Irish romances 
 in another way. In them events all happen 
 in particular places which can be identified 
 to-day. Locality seldom becomes blurred and 
 uncertain, as it does, for instance, in the great 
 Teutonic epic of the Nibelungen Lied. Handed 
 down from generation to generation, the Gaelic 
 romance takes hold on the imagination of each 
 narrator with its local circumstance all dis- 
 tinct and clear. Here we have obviously the 
 same liveliness of imagination which accounts 
 for the robust vitality of Celtic metaphor. In 
 both qualities we see the excellence of the 
 graphic gift. 
 
 And the graphic gift in its essence is this : 
 
 202
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 that the eye works closely with the trains of 
 thought, acting with them, reacting on them, 
 picturing out the idea in images, and so stimu- 
 lating it to the birth of more ideas by the 
 enlarged vitality thus given to it. With this 
 goes another poet's secret, the eye open always 
 to Nature, quick to take impressions, accurate 
 to observe. The illustration of thought in 
 imagery is rooted thus in the truth of Nature, 
 and is instinct with that penetration and 
 accuracy of sight which as much distinguishes 
 the works of imagination from those of fancy 
 as it distinguishes science from mere specula- 
 tive activity in thought. The common Irish, 
 or Highland, peasant resembles so far as he 
 goes the great literary artist in that his 
 pictorial imagination is always active and 
 always sane. His images are in terms of 
 Nature as she is — his eye always open to her 
 truth. \ 
 
 Now, if the Celtic quality were mere activity 
 of imagination this would not be so. It may 
 become that by allowing the mental energy to 
 
 203
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 centre itself in imagery to such an extent that 
 imagination ceases to be responsible to its 
 masters — to sense on the one hand, to the unity 
 of thought on the other. This is like the state 
 of the dreamer in sleep ; and it can easily 
 happen under the exhilaration of great imagina- 
 tive activity. In such case observation is in- 
 accurate, imagery fanciful, ideas falsified rather 
 than particularized in imagination ; fiction, 
 everywhere, predominates over fact. 
 
 But the imaginative gift which proceeds 
 from the concreteness of mental activity — 
 all the mind at work, with stimulus to the sense 
 organs, when at work at all — is a very different 
 matter. It is open-eyed and sane on the side 
 of sense, controlled by the outer reality. It is 
 controlled no less by the inner reality of 
 thought demanding logical unity in all mental 
 manifestations. Celtic imaginativeness has this 
 sanity, and thus it may be argued to proceed 
 from that wholeness of reaction, or concrete- 
 ness, which, as we have seen, accounts in so 
 many other ways for the observed charac- 
 teristics of the Celt. 
 
 204
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 I may seem to have spoken of imagina- 
 tion as if it were concerned only with visual 
 creation ; but this was merely for clearness 
 of ideas so far, and the activity of the ear, 
 no less than that of the eye, is concerned in 
 the concreteness of mental action as here con- 
 sidered. The gift of words is in part a gift 
 of ear, and, as a whole, is no doubt related 
 closely to oral imaginativeness. This plays 
 on the organs of articulation, on the one hand, 
 and keeps them even during silence in a con- 
 dition of nascent varying activity. On the 
 other hand, it reacts on the central speech 
 centre, where, to put it metaphorically, thought 
 is coined into words, under the stimulus, in this 
 case at least, of oral imagination. In this 
 stimulus and the guidance that goes with it lie 
 the secret of the melodies of speech. If the 
 speech centre be dominated solely by thought, 
 then thought is expressed, but with little or 
 no music in the expression. If it be dominated 
 by the oral imagination— the ear, as we say- 
 then musical effect prevails over meaning ; 
 
 205
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 we have the melodious periods of empty 
 oratory. But if mental action is closely knit, 
 then the word-selections of thought are in- 
 fluenced by the melodious imaginings of sense, 
 and yet the word-selections of ear are kept 
 subordinate to the necessities of thought : 
 thought speaks in numbers, for the numbers 
 come. I 
 
 When a song is written to music, the ear 
 plainly leads the thought. When philosophic 
 thought is written in verse, the position should 
 be reversed, though the oral imagination has 
 influence even then, reshaping itself freely to 
 fall in with the thought, but apt in the end 
 to effect a compromise only. An ordinary 
 person with some power of versification may 
 observe, when he has something: to express 
 in verse, how he casts about for a metre and 
 rhyme into harmony with which it naturally 
 falls. When thought is hammered out into 
 a definite metre, the life fades in both thought 
 
 * No doubt the muscles of articulation also are largely 
 concerned in this disposition to metrical speech. 
 
 206
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 and rhythm. Verse has radiant eloquence only 
 
 when thought and verse spring to life together 
 
 in one complete act of mind. In writing prose, 
 
 too, the ordinary man may notice in himself the 
 
 reaction on each sentence of the listening ear 
 
 that claims some pleasure of melody in the 
 
 sound. This pleasure maintains the feeling 
 
 and stimulates the thought. Unmelodious 
 
 prose jars on the ear like slight noise, and 
 
 displeases just as inharmonious colours do. 
 
 For literary composition the ear plays a 
 
 much smaller part than the eye in the supply 
 
 of metaphor and illustration. In so far as it 
 
 does play this part the same conditions of 
 
 accurate and impartial observation apply to 
 
 it. There rises to my mind that fine image 
 
 of the four seas of Ireland roaring in sympathy 
 
 whenever a blow was struck on the high king's 
 
 shield. The full force of that image is not 
 
 enjoyed by us unless the mighty noises of the 
 
 sea which we have heard re-echo in our ears. 
 
 But do most of us recall sounds as they really 
 
 were, with half the vividness of remembered 
 
 207
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 sights ? Are not our images of sight more 
 realistic than those of sound? 
 
 Do we not, on the other hand, exercise our 
 pure creative fancy much more in the region 
 of sound than in that of sight? It is natural 
 that this should be so, since we carry about 
 with us always our own objective sound organ, 
 i.e., the voice. Certainly the ear, as the 
 external controller of literary expression, works 
 mainly by reference to what might almost be 
 called structural laws of musical form. In other 
 words, it has a special literary function as the 
 organ of music rather than as an organ of 
 observation. Indeed, in listening to the out- 
 side world, the good literary ear selects rather 
 the musical sounds and neglects to hear at all 
 the noises. Its literary quality turns on this 
 selectiveness. Without this habit the ear, re- 
 acting on the words and sentences suggested 
 by thought, would be apt to let the unmusical 
 pass readily into being. But the fastidious 
 ear rejects — I.e., inhibits — the inharmonious 
 
 phrases ; and the literary ear is fastidious in 
 
 208
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 this emphatic sense that it prevents unmusical 
 phrases from being created at all. This pre- 
 vention of them is effected by not listening to 
 them. The ear in such case listens for music, 
 and only music passes into being through it. 
 The literary ear has a habit of not imagining 
 the inharmonious, and this goes with the habit 
 of not listening to the same. 
 
 For one right way there are two wrong. The 
 unliterary ear may be an ear that cannot help 
 being impartial, that listens to all things, 
 imagines all things, and has no habit of select- 
 ing the musically beautiful. Or it may be 
 simply an unlistening ear that takes little part 
 in the control of the word-flow, leaving that 
 entirely to the higher powers of thought. 
 There are writers, no doubt, with good thoughts 
 to express who do not hear their sentences as 
 they write them down. The intelligence is 
 at work while the lazy ear takes its rest. In 
 difficult matters of thought, when concentration 
 of energy on subject-matter is imperative, it 
 is right that no attention should be given to the 
 
 209 O
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 ear, but a good instinctive ear would do its 
 work unheeded in a mind of the concrete type. 
 'We may indeed go further : its activity seems 
 to react as stimulus on the mental powers. 
 
 So much for literature as a fine art per se. 
 How does concreteness of mental reaction show 
 itself in the logical treatment of difficult sub- 
 ject-matter to be expounded intelligibly? Does 
 the Celt differ from the Teuton in this respect ? 
 The difference of French from German exposi- 
 tion in science and philosophy rises to mind 
 as the notable example. The English look 
 on and admit the difference. The Germans 
 are great in learning, in discovery, in specula- 
 tion. Judged by their output so far, they 
 are the greatest. But as exponents of their 
 own wisdom they are difficult to follow : we 
 travel through the land, but do not easily find 
 the Pisgah from which to get the compre- 
 hensive view. The French author brings you 
 into sight of Pisgah at the earliest possible 
 moment, and makes you climb it as soon as he 
 can : then he conducts you, not too slowly and 
 
 210
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 in order, over the varied slopes and through 
 the valley shades. Metaphor apart, this fine 
 quality of exposition is not simple : it seems 
 to turn chiefly on aptness to seize the central 
 idea of the theme, to keep it well in view 
 throughout the whole development of the 
 subject, and to give the reader a grasp of 
 it finally as a single whole. 
 
 Contrasts of intellectual method such as this 
 tend to disappear, or to be toned down, as 
 communication between the intellectual classes 
 increases internationally. When my father was 
 a student in Trinity College, Dublin, the dis- 
 tinctive character of French mathematical text- 
 books was much more marked than it is now. 
 Nothing to compare with them was written 
 in English at that time, and they were the 
 books prescribed for the Dublin students of 
 that generation. When these men grew up, 
 however, they broke the long silence of their 
 University by writing great books on mathe- 
 matics themselves, which soon became popular 
 in England also, and stimulated improvements 
 in method there. Several of these books — the 
 
 211
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 works of the late Dr. Salmon in particular — 
 were translated into French and became, for 
 the subject of which they treat, the text-books 
 used in French Universities. These Dublin 
 books and the older French books stand now 
 on my library shelves. They are old friends 
 to which I owe much. In style and method 
 they have the same lightness of touch and 
 swiftness of movement, advancing with much 
 less concrete illustration and practical applica- 
 tion than do the English books, to reach more 
 rapidly the culmination of the argument. This 
 quality affects one like plot-interest well- 
 sustained and quickly developed in a story. 
 Hence that sense of unity in subject-matter, 
 with corresponding intellectual grasp, which 
 soothes and charms the mind. 
 
 It is in scientific, rather than in literary, 
 work that this trait should be observed, because 
 it goes without saying as a characteristic of 
 fine literature. What has been said so far 
 amounts in fact to this, that French scientific 
 work is expounded in a literary manner. I 
 think the same quality will be found to charac- 
 
 212
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 terize Irish work of the same kind, so far as 
 it goes. The Irish skill in teaching is cognate 
 to it. But the contrast between Irish and 
 English is a very small matter as compared 
 with the contrast between German and French. 
 
 The same bent for unity of composition 
 shows itself in the Celtic stories as compared 
 with the Norse. The Norse saga is in form 
 as Teutonic as a modern German treatise on 
 theology. It begins not merely at, but before 
 the beginning, and tells you how things came 
 to be what they were when they began. With 
 all its fine qualities, and they are fine, it has 
 not that swift characterization which carries us 
 into the feeling of the story at its outset and 
 bears us quickly on. 
 
 The Celtic taste for lyric is perhaps 
 
 associated with the same quality. The unity 
 
 of a poem is, in part, unity of mood — one 
 
 mood, or a correlated group. The lyric closes 
 
 back on itself swiftly, and is complete, as one 
 
 might say, in a single sweep of thought. It 
 
 is in one movement, and brief enough to be 
 
 complete before the opening mood dies down. 
 
 213
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Hence it is dear to that instinct for unity which 
 is difficult to satisfy when the necessary labour 
 is long. An epic must be built up part by 
 part. It cannot be created with the psycho- 
 logic unity of the lyric, or idyll, or other shorter 
 poem. Tennyson's treatment of the Arthurian 
 legend is very happy in this respect, and it 
 follows the originals. Each idyll is complete 
 in itself, and all together have as much 
 unity as some epics. To carry this continuity 
 through a great epic is an achievement much 
 more difficult than to carry it through a great 
 and detailed work on philosophy. Unity of 
 reason there is between one spell of work and 
 another, but mood in the nature of things varies 
 from time to time. 
 
 That there is some connection between 
 eloquence and the emotions we all know. The 
 eloquent speaker or writer is stirred 
 emotionally, and stirs others into sympathy 
 with him. Without this he may be great, but 
 he is cold, and fails to stir his hearers. Strong 
 emotion, however, very commonly produces the 
 
 effect of paralysing or confusing the intellect 
 
 214
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 and making a man speechless. Eloquence 
 implies a wide-reaching and ready play of 
 feeling about thought, without any loss of 
 thought in feeling. It implies just the well- 
 balanced, concrete state of mind, thought dart- 
 ing out into feeling, but self-sustained, feeling 
 reacting directly on thought in stimulus to 
 higher efforts. A magnificent control of words 
 may be given in this case by the spur of 
 emotional excitement, which thus escapes from^ 
 itself as mere feeling, moving all the circles 
 of mind to more activity. A nature merely 
 prone to emotion — the sentimental nature — 
 melts into feeling out of thought, and is silent 
 in proportion as it is moved. To be emotional 
 merely is to be not eloquent. Eloquence is 
 present when the mental manifestation is so 
 whole and at one that thought is born no less 
 out of a matrix of feeling than it is clothed 
 as it rises in words, images, and harmonies. 
 That the Celt is eloquent is obvious enough. 
 It is not at all so well known that he is not 
 sentimental. 
 
 According to all this, it would appear that 
 
 215
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 the concrete-minded Celt is, so far as his brain 
 power goes, the born literary artist of Europe. 
 This has been said of him before now, and 
 attempts have not been lacking to show that 
 English literature in particular owes the better 
 part of its existence to his presence in the 
 background of British heredity. But genealo- 
 gies of genius form an obscure and difficult 
 subject, not to be argued here. My impres- 
 sion is that English literature is great because 
 there were giants of literature in the land, 
 not because they were persons of any particular 
 racial strain. Our concern is with the ordinary 
 Celtic Irish and the literary facility, apart from 
 greatness, in which they abound — a facility 
 which is the more remarkable when considered 
 in relation to their average educational oppor- 
 tunities in the nineteenth century. It is some- 
 times said, however, especially by Irishmen, 
 that there is such a thing as Celtic literary 
 ineffectiveness — a lack of proportion between 
 the promise and the fruit. What of this? 
 
 In the first place it is obvious that where 
 most people have some turn for literature, 
 
 216
 
 The Gael in Literature 
 
 without being equally superior in other 
 respects, there must be great possibilities of 
 literary ineffectiveness. The first thing in 
 writing or speaking is, after all, to have some- 
 thing to say. A race with the gift of expres- 
 sion requires the more assiduous culture of 
 solid attainment and literary criticism. The 
 Celt has in this sense a greater need of 
 education than the Teuton. 
 
 And this leads us to the second point. The 
 Celt in Europe is represented most clearly by 
 the Irish, and Irish education is even now by 
 no means satisfactory. Till quite recently the 
 great majority of the people have had no higher 
 educational chance at all, and the surprising 
 thing is, not that they have produced so few 
 men of letters, but that out of so small an 
 educated minority there should have been 
 anything like so many. The chance of the 
 majority will come later on. 
 
 But, in the third place, it should be admitted 
 that, apart from these conditions, there is a 
 possibility of apparent ineffectiveness in the 
 Celtic quality of mind. A mind of facile con- 
 
 217
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 sciousness, well-knit and ready for action at 
 all points, makes a good show for itself always 
 up to a certain point. It seems better than 
 it really is, judged by any other standard. 
 Teutonic concreteness co-exists only with much 
 mental power, but Celtic concreteness is con- 
 sistent with very little, and so the dispropor- 
 tion of real power to the ideal of positiveness 
 and breadth brings about the phenomenon of 
 ineffectiveness. The ideal is present, but the 
 real behind it is not strong enough. 
 
 Other Celtic qualities, too, which add to 
 the flavour of literary genius, become objec- 
 tionable when the mental power is actually 
 small. The confidence and dash, the spirit 
 and personality which mark the Celtic page 
 and Celtic speech — these delight us when 
 the thing itself is good, displease us other- 
 wise. In truth, it might almost be said of 
 the Celt that not only does he require more 
 education than others, but that he has also 
 a greater demand for brains. With his gift 
 for unity of mental manifestations he could 
 
 certainly put them to excellent use. 
 
 218
 
 VII 
 
 THE CELT 
 
 IN RESPECT OF 
 
 SPIRITUAL 
 
 INSIGHT
 
 And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air. 
 And the blue sky and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 Wordsworth.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CELT IN RESPECT OF SPIRITUAL 
 
 INSIGHT 
 
 The title of this chapter indicates a subject 
 that cannot be dealt with adequately in general 
 terms till such time as careful study has been 
 devoted to its elucidation by duly qualified 
 observers in each of the Celtic countries, 
 These should be persons of sufficient analytic 
 intelligence and accuracy as observers, who 
 have also themselves experience of the psychic 
 gift, as to the presence of which in others 
 they have to weigh the evidence. Of literature 
 on the subject in this sense there is little, so far 
 as I know, although there is without doubt in 
 all countries containing a Celtic population 
 a clear consensus of opinion among those who 
 
 221
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 have occasion to know. This opinion may, in 
 the first instance, be fairly summed up with 
 common-sense emphasis as reflected in the 
 Lowland Scot's admiration for his Highland 
 compatriot's spiritual " gift." Both are 
 characteristically religious ; and as to creeds, 
 morals, and institutions they are agreed. By 
 both the path of life is trodden with a sense of 
 sacred responsibility to the One Eternal. But 
 there is a difference. It is not in zeal, it is not 
 in faith, it is not even in prayerfulness. It 
 appears to consist in some differentiation of 
 everyday temperament, or habitual psycho- 
 physical attitude, which prevails in the Gaelic 
 Scot and tends to make easy that uplift of the 
 whole nature in a single act of spiritual aspira- 
 tion, the achievement of which is the inner way, 
 of religious illumination psychologically con- 
 sidered. As the graphic Lowland phrase 
 describes it, he gets " further ben " in the 
 effort to feel after and find the presence of 
 God. If this be so, the characteristic of the 
 Highlander in the eyes of his Lowland co- 
 
 222
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 religionist is of the nature of that " mystic 
 gift " — so-called as hidden from consciousness 
 in respect of its causal origin — that gift of 
 supernal spiritual insight which is fully 
 described by those who have studied, on the 
 inside, the development of Christian life in 
 the lives of the saints, from St. Paul himself 
 onwards . 
 
 The case of the Gaelic seer — as, for example, 
 the Highlander who prays in the name of the 
 congregation with " gift " so penetrating that 
 even the careless ones, losing touch of self 
 and mundane cares, feel themselves in the very 
 presence of the Eternal — his case, if this power 
 has come to him with less than the normal 
 amount of arduous training, is clearly that of 
 one so constituted by nature that in his act of 
 adoration — as, no doubt, also in other fervid 
 acts — his whole energy of consciousness is as 
 a matter of course absorbed. His spiritual 
 uplift is impassioned, and involves his whole 
 personality. A person of this kind would, 
 
 as I understand, be called a " natural mystic " 
 
 223
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 by those who are learned in the history and 
 have studied the psychology of Christian 
 mysticism. They would not, however, mean 
 more by this than that such a person, if self- 
 trained, as the great mystic saints trained them- 
 selves, to make the most of all his powers 
 for the apprehension and use of spiritual 
 truth, would come more easily into his vision 
 of the Eternal Reality, and be more effectual 
 also in communicating the sense of it to others. 
 The great mystics were great because the 
 whole nature in them was great and saintly, 
 not simply because they had, in the first in- 
 stance, an untrained facility to tread the 
 " mystic way." None the less is it a gift to have 
 this natural facility, since thus one is enabled to 
 make the most of such powers otherwise as 
 one may happen to have — to make the most 
 also, and this is more important, of that access 
 to grace, the transcendent life-force surging up 
 from the deeps where the Divine is immanent 
 in the human spirit. It is a gift to be able to 
 
 concentrate the psycho-physical energy at any 
 
 224
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 one point. The gift becomes precious indeed 
 when used habitually at the highest level. 
 
 As a fact in psychology looked at more 
 minutely, the gift appears in the first instance 
 to be a primitive facility in concentrating at 
 one time the whole energy of the psycho- 
 physical organism in subordination to the act 
 of spiritual apprehension, whether it goes out 
 thence to lift up all its desires and thoughts in 
 prayer, or is banked up to rise unspeakably 
 in adoring contemplation. It is not difficult 
 to conceive the probability in this latter case 
 of visions and the hearing of voices as the 
 expression of the climax welling up from the 
 subconscious. But these are not of the essence 
 of the experience, and, except when appearing 
 as guides to action,' are perhaps not greatly 
 to be prized. The perfected gift is much more 
 than all this : it implies nothing less than the 
 
 ' Such were to St. Patrick " the voices of the Irish " 
 which he saw written on the letters in his vision, and " the 
 children crying in the wood of Fochith " near the Western 
 Sea. Such also were the visions of St. Paul and the voices 
 heard by Joan of Arc 
 
 225 P
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 subordination of the whole nature in all its 
 acts of life throughout all its time to the life 
 ideals revealed in repeated experiences of such 
 spiritual apprehension. " I was not dis- 
 obedient unto the heavenly vision," said St. 
 Paul. To have the vision and to be constantly 
 obedient to it — this is the very definition of 
 a Christian saint. To have the vision in that 
 wide sense, whether expressed through sights 
 and voices, as in the case of St. Paul himself, 
 or by the quickening of all the powers of 
 thought in the normal way to spiritual con- 
 clusions — this is to be a mystic illuminated so 
 far as the vision goes. A person might have 
 great gifts, great opportunities in this sense, 
 but by neglect of their cultivation might let 
 them become of no effect. The deadliest kind 
 of neglect is disobedience to the vision ; and 
 this for the plain psychological reason that 
 a mind divided against itself — the doing of 
 it at war with the knowing — cannot maintain 
 its power of co-ordinate uplifting as a whole. 
 
 Unity of life at its highest level is the sage's aim. 
 
 226
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 The Christian way to attain such unity is life 
 in the sense of the Divine purpose throughout. 
 It will, I think, be clear to the reader that 
 however much or little significance may be 
 assigned to evidence concerning the vivid Celtic 
 sense of the unseen, there is an unmistakable 
 affinity between the Celtic characteristic of 
 mental facility and concrete unity of conscious- 
 ness, as discussed in the second chapter of 
 this book, and that capacity for concentration 
 of life on spiritual issues, involving the inter- 
 penetration of the seen with the unseen and 
 the sense of the eternal here and now, of which 
 we read in the books of those who have studied 
 the psychology of Christian mysticism. ' Such 
 study deals with the lives of those who were in 
 the foremost rank as saints and teachers — St. 
 Paul, St. Catherine, St. Francis, St. Teresa; 
 round these four the whole doctrine may be 
 profitably discussed. We know much less 
 about the inner history of the Celtic saints : 
 
 ' The Mystic Way, E. Underhill ; The Mystical Element 
 of Religion, Baron von Hiigel. 
 
 227
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 for the most part they were men and women 
 of action rather than writers, as far as we 
 know. This was especially the case with the 
 British Apostle of Ireland, St. Patrick. Never- 
 theless, we have some few reliques ' from his 
 hand, and with them we may begin our inquiry 
 into the evidence of Celtic spirituality. Two 
 documents in Latin are ascribed to St. Patrick 
 and written in his name — " The Confession " 
 and the " Epistle to Coroticus." It is the 
 former which reveals the inner nature of 
 the writer and with which we are concerned 
 here : — 
 
 *' I, Patrick, sinner, most unlearned of all 
 The Faithful and of many most despised, 
 
 I suffered capture, then not full sixteen. 
 
 I knew not the true God, and, led away 
 
 Into captivity, with thousands more, 
 
 Was brought to Ireland — fate too well deserved 
 
 For we from God had far withdrawn ourselves." 
 
 He goes on to recount how, in his six years' 
 
 ' The Remains of St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, Sir Samuel 
 Ferguson, translated into Enghsh blank verse. 
 
 228
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 captivity, the Lord had pity on his youth and 
 
 innocence : — 
 
 Yea, ere I knew to choose 'twixt good and ill, 
 Admonished me and gave me consolation 
 As father might a son." 
 
 ^to' 
 
 Thus he attains, without human aid, cast, 
 as it were, on his own resources — 
 
 " The touch and apprehension of my God," 
 
 and makes his " poor return " a full confes- 
 sion of adoring faith. 
 
 Again he is depressed by his ignorance, 
 then comforted by conviction of his mission 
 and God's choice of him to serve : — 
 
 " Therefore to-day it shames me to disclose 
 My ignorance ; because I have not learned 
 With brevity and elegance of speech 
 To treat deep things, as how the Spirit moves 
 The soul's affections and the human mind. 
 But were it given to me as it is to some, 
 I would not long be slow to sing His praise 
 Even though to some perchance in this I seem 
 Presumptuous with my rude and stammering tongue. 
 Yet it is written that the stammering tongue 
 Shall yet be swift to speak the words of peace. 
 
 229
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 How much the more then lies that charge on us, 
 
 Who, Christ's epistles^ to the world's far ends 
 
 Bear word of his salvation ; not indeed 
 
 Learned words, but words of power writ in om hearts, 
 
 Not with pen-ink, but by the Spirit of God. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Hear and inquire, who was it raised me up, 
 
 Me, foolish me, from midst of them esteemed 
 
 Wise men and law-learned and in power of speech 
 
 As in all else prepotent, and inspired. 
 
 Me, even me, the butt of this world's scorn, 
 
 Above the rest, to be what now I am. 
 
 Here whilst at least with fear and reverence 
 
 Faithful in heart and uncomplainingly 
 
 I serve this people, to whom the charity 
 
 Of Christ assigns me, for my rest of life 
 
 If I be worthy ; that with humble heart 
 
 And truthful lips I teach it." 
 
 He reverts to the history of his conversion 
 alone in the woods and on the mountains : — 
 
 " And holy fear and faith 
 Increased in me, that in a single day 
 I've said as many as a hundred prayers, 
 And in the night scarce fewer ; so that oft. 
 In woods and on the mountains I've remained, 
 And risen to prayer before daylight, through snow. 
 Through frost, through rain, and yet I took no ill, 
 Nor was there in me then aught slow as now, 
 For then the spirit of God within me burned." 
 
 230
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 One night in sleep a voice declares to him 
 that he shall see his land and home. Again it 
 says, " Behold, thy ship is ready." So he 
 escapes with many trials from his servitude. 
 Once more amidst his own people, there pre- 
 sently comes to him the call from Ireland in a 
 night vision, the psychological interest of which 
 is considerable : — 
 
 " In a night vision I beheld a man 
 Coming as 'twere from Ireland. Victor lie, 
 Innumerable letters brought he : one 
 He gave to me to read. I read one line, 
 'The voices of the Irish,' so it ran, 
 And while I read, methought I heard the cry 
 Of them that by the wood of Focluth dwell, 
 Beside the Western Ocean, saying thus, 
 ' Come, holy youth, and walk amongst us, come ! ' 
 All with one voice. It touched me to the heart. 
 And I could read no more, and so awoke. 
 
 , • • - • 
 
 And on another night, I know not, I, 
 God knows, if 'twas within me or without, 
 One prayed with words exceeding exquisite 
 I could not understand, till, at the close. 
 He spoke in this wise — ' He who gave his soul 
 For thee is He who speaks ! ' I v^^oke with joy. 
 And once I saw Him — praying as it were 
 Within me, and I saw myself as though 
 
 231
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 Within myself, and over me, that is 
 Over the inner man, I heard Him pray 
 Strongly with m-gent groans, myself the while 
 Amazed and wondering who should pray in me. 
 
 • • ■ • • 
 
 I awoke and called 
 To memory what His apostle says — 
 ' The Spirit helps the weakness of our prayer ; 
 For when we pray and know not as we ought 
 What to pray for, the Spirit Himself doth pray 
 For us with groanings inexpressible 
 Not to be put in words. ' " 
 
 Turning now to the early Christian Gaelic 
 poemSj attention may be directed first to the 
 invocation known as " St. Patrick's Breast- 
 plate," or " The Guardsma,n's Cry," in which 
 the strong concrete sense of Divine all-in- 
 allness is vividly illustrated. Saints, angels, 
 the forces of nature are all invoked to con- 
 tribute to the fulfilment of the prayer which is 
 addressed to the Triune God. The translation 
 is by Dr. Whitley Stokes :— 
 
 I upraise myself to-day by a mighty virtue, an 
 Invocation of the Trinity. 
 
 I believe in a Threeness, with confession of a One- 
 ness in the Creator of the elements. 
 
 232
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 I upraise myself to-day 
 
 By the virtue of the Birth of Christ, with his 
 
 Baptism, 
 By the virtue of His Crucifixion, with His Burial, 
 By the virtue of His Resurrection and Ascension, 
 By the virtue of His Coming to the sentence ot the 
 
 Judgment. 
 
 I upraise myself to-day 
 
 By the virtue of the Seraphim's love, 
 
 (The virtue that abides) in the obedience of Angels, 
 
 In the hope of Resurrection unto the reward, 
 
 In the prayers of the Patriarchs, 
 
 In the predictions of the Prophets, 
 
 In the teachings of the Apostles, 
 
 In the faiths of the Confessors, 
 
 In the innocence of Holy Virgins, 
 
 In the deeds of righteous men. 
 
 I upraise myself to-day 
 
 By the light of the sun j by the virtue of heaven, 
 
 The whiteness of snow, the force of fire, 
 
 The swiftness of lightning, the speed of the wind 
 
 The depth of the sea, 
 
 The stability of the earth, 
 
 The firmness of rocks. 
 
 I upraise myself to-day 
 By God's power to pilot me, 
 The might of God to uplift me, 
 The knowledge of God to lead me, 
 The eye of God to look before me, 
 
 233
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 The ear of God to hear me, 
 
 The word of God to make me eloquent, 
 
 The hand of God to defend me, 
 
 The path of God to he before me, 
 
 The shield of God to shelter me, 
 
 The host of God to guard me, 
 
 From the snares of demons, 
 
 From the temptations of vices, 
 
 From the desires of nature, 
 
 From all that meditate evil against me, 
 
 Afar and anear, 
 
 Alone and in a multitude. 
 
 So have I invoked all these powers 
 
 Between myself and every dangerous merciless power 
 
 Opposed unto my body and my soul — 
 
 Against the incantations of false prophets. 
 
 The black laws of heathendom, 
 
 The false laws of heresy, the craft of idolatry. 
 
 The spells of women, and smiths, and druids. 
 
 And all knowledge that hath defiled the soul of man. 
 
 Christ defend me to-day 
 
 Against poison and burning, against drowning and 
 
 wounds. 
 Until a multitudinous reward have fallen to me. 
 
 Christ be with me, Christ before me, 
 Christ behind me, Christ within me, 
 Christ below me, Christ above me, 
 Christ at my right hand, Christ at my left hand, 
 Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height. 
 
 234
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 Christ in the hearts of all who think on me ; 
 Christ in the mouths of all who speak to me ; 
 Christ in every eye that sees me ; 
 Christ in every ear that hears me. 
 
 I upraise myself to-day by a mighty virtue, an 
 Invocation of the Trinity. 
 
 I believe in a Threeness with confession of a One- 
 ness in the Creator of the elements. 
 
 Domini est salus, Domini est salus, Christi est salus. 
 Salus tua, Domine, sit semper nobiscum. 
 
 Side by side with this may be placed the 
 following on St. Columba in lona, translated 
 by Eugene O'Curry from an Irish MS. in 
 the Burgundian Library, Brussels. It seems 
 likely that this dates from the early period of 
 Irish missionary enterprise in Europe, w^hen 
 St. Columbanus and his companions tarried 
 for a time in Burgundy before they went up 
 the Rhine to Switzerland and afterwards to 
 Italy. 
 
 Delightful would it be to me 
 
 On a pinnacle of rock, 
 That I might often see 
 
 The face of the ocean ; 
 
 235
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 That I might watch its heaving waves 
 
 Over the wide sea, 
 When they chant music to their Father 
 
 Upon the world's course ; 
 That I might see its level sparkling strand, 
 
 It would be no cause for sorrow ; 
 That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, 
 
 Source of happiness ; 
 That I might hear the thunder of the clamorous waves 
 
 Upon the rocks ; 
 That I might hear the roar by the side of the church 
 
 Of the surrounding sea ; 
 That I might watch its noble surf, 
 
 Greatest of all wonders ; 
 That I might observe its ebb and flood 
 
 In their cycles ; 
 That my mystical name might be, i' faith, 
 
 " Cul ri Erin " ; 
 That on my heart contrition might fall 
 
 On looking upon her ; 
 That I might bewail my evils all, 
 
 Though it were not easy to number them ; 
 That I might bless the Lord, 
 
 Who orders all ; 
 Heaven with its countless bright orders, 
 
 Land, strand, and flood ; 
 That I might search in all the books 
 
 That which would help my soul ; 
 At times kneeling to the Heaven of my hearty 
 
 At times singing psalms ; 
 
 236
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 At times meditating on the King of Heaven, 
 
 Chief of the holy ones ; 
 At times at work without compulsion : 
 
 This would be delightful. 
 At times plucking duilisc from the rocks ; 
 
 At other times fishing ; 
 At times distributing food to the poor, 
 
 At times in a hermitage ; 
 The best guidance from the presence of God 
 
 Has been vouchsafed to me ; 
 The King whom I serve will keep from me 
 
 All things that would deceive me.^ 
 
 This little poem is given here partly for 
 its interest as descriptive of life from within 
 for the great Irish saint, the Apostle of 
 Scotland, at times of comparative leisure on 
 his sea-girt isle. It is relevant to the topic 
 of this chapter's discourse as characterized by 
 that feeling of intimacy between God and man 
 and nature, in all the little homely things and 
 simple ways of life, which is of the very essence 
 of the Celtic spirit in high and low alike. 
 As Patrick puts it in the " Confession," 
 " Unlearning also comes from the Most 
 
 ' Poem Book of the Gael, E. Hull, p. iii. 
 237
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 High." " God's runaway untaught " he calls 
 himself. 
 
 For another example, exquisite in its 
 simplicity and most racy of the soil, take the 
 Song of Manchan the Hermit, Abbot of 
 Lemanaghan, in King's County, who died 665, 
 of which I quote here the first five and the 
 last three verses ; the other three describe the 
 services of the hermitage. 
 
 I wish, O Son of the Living God, O Ancient Eternal 
 
 King, 
 For a hidden hut in the wilderness, a simple secluded 
 
 thing 
 
 The all-blithe lithe little lark in his place, chanting his 
 
 lightsome lay ; 
 The calm, clear pool of the Spirit's grace, washing my 
 
 sins away. 
 
 A wide wild woodland on every side, its shades the 
 
 nursery 
 Of glad-voiced songsters, who at day-dawn chant their 
 
 sweet psalm for me. 
 
 A southern aspect to catch the sun, a brook across the 
 
 floor, 
 A choice land rich with gracious gifts, down-stretching 
 
 from my door. 
 
 238
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 Few men and wise, these I would prize, men of con- 
 tent and power, 
 
 To raise thy praise throughout the days at each canoni- 
 cal hour. 
 
 Brief meals between, when prayer is done, our modest 
 
 needs supply ; 
 No greed in our share of the simple fare, no boasting 
 
 or ribaldry. 
 
 This is the husbandry I choose, laborious, simple, free, 
 The fragrant leek about my door, the hen and the 
 humble bee. 
 
 Rough raiment of tweed, enough for need, this will my 
 
 King allow ; 
 And I to be sitting and praying to God under every 
 
 leafy bough.' 
 
 Here you have expressed, in this seventh- 
 century poem, the antique spirit of joyful 
 content and pious aspiration which endures to 
 this day and dignifies Hfe in the cottage 
 homes of Western Ireland. 
 
 It must, however, be remembered that this 
 joyful contemplation, in tender kindly Irish 
 fashion, of nature and man and the interfusion 
 
 ' The Poem Book of the Gael, E. Hull, pp. 117-18. 
 
 239
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 of all with the presence of God belongs rather 
 to the rest-time of the practically energetic 
 Celtic saint. In this respect the early Church 
 of Ireland furnishes a shining example of the 
 Christian life-ideal in operation. For what 
 is that life-ideal closely considered? Religious 
 life in essence is life in the sense of the Divine 
 purpose — life in all its manifestations. This 
 implies : — (i) an inner life conformable to the 
 mind of Christ, so as " to make of the soul 
 a Divine instrument, a place where the Divine 
 power dwells and incarnates itself — the equiva- 
 lent of Christ " : I (2) it implies also an outer 
 life devoted to furtherance in the world of con- 
 ditions favourable to the development of the 
 life for all men — ^the accomplishment of the 
 Divine destiny to which the human race is 
 called. Nor must it ever be forgotten that 
 the pursuit of the outer result is effective, not 
 only for its own achievement, but also as a 
 necessary means— to minds of an extrospective 
 cast the chief means — of promoting the inner 
 
 ' The Mystic Way, E. Underbill, p. 65. 
 240
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 development. " Work is a kind of prayer," 
 provided it is God-directed work. The pursuit 
 of the inner or mystic way, " hidden with Christ 
 in God," is, on the other hand, necessary to 
 secure co-inherence of the man's Hfe-purpose 
 in the Hfe of God, and so to preserve him from 
 waste of energy and talent on tasks that have 
 no real significance. Such growth towards 
 the life of God must imply a growth in the 
 power of self-expression under two orders, the 
 eternal and the temporal, the contemplative 
 and the active. " Thus the truly illuminated 
 man," says Ruysbroeck, " flows out in universal 
 charity towards heaven and upon earth. He 
 is the intermediary between God and creation." 
 For, to use the matchless metaphor of St. 
 Paul, " the whole creation travaileth and 
 groaneth together waiting for the revelation 
 of the sons of God "—that revelation by 
 which, and by which alone, the long painful 
 process of evolution is enabled to enter on its 
 last great stage of development in accordance 
 with ideals of the end towards which it moves, 
 
 241 Q
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 ideals of a world moving freely in all its parts 
 towards the realization of spiritual communion 
 within itself and with God. 
 
 There was no lack of Pauline practical fire 
 in the Irish saints of these olden times. Their 
 pagan inheritance of heroic energy and enter- 
 prise was touched to new issues, but suffered 
 no diminution. Patrick's mission in effect 
 changed all, but destroyed nothing. Ireland 
 abandoned the role of the hero for that of the 
 saint, though invested still with the heroic 
 temper and its thirst for deeds. Her war 
 policy has ceased, and the peace policy of 
 missionary labour takes its place. Long after 
 Columba's time, his followers carry on their 
 spiritual warfare, and extend their conquests 
 over Northern England and the Midlands. 
 Monasteries tracing their origin to lona are 
 planted throughout Saxon Britain, and at one 
 time it seems likely that Irish rather than 
 Roman Christianity is likely to reign in the 
 English land. Columbanus, who was twenty- 
 two years younger than Columba, goes with 
 
 242
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 a mission-band to Burgundy, Switzerland, and 
 Northern Italy to combat paganism and 
 immorality in places which then were very 
 dark, by establishing, after the Irish fashion, 
 industrious and saintly communities, as ex- 
 amples and for instruction, in the people's midst. 
 The old passion for adventure and enterprise 
 which we may imagine to have possessed the 
 Milesians on their journey West, " moved by 
 an ancestral spirit, urging them to great 
 deeds " — that spirit is found anew in the Irish 
 missionaries. They visit all the islands on the 
 north-west British coast, they go north and 
 discover the Shetlands, they go farther north 
 and make a settlement in Iceland. " In a.d. 
 870, when the Norwegians came to Iceland, 
 there were Christians there who departed and 
 left behind them Irish books, bells, and other 
 things, from whence it may be inferred that 
 these Christians were Irish." So says an old 
 text which Zeuss quotes in his Grammatica 
 Celtica. In all directions they go forth, 
 some in search of missionary labours, some 
 
 243
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 moved by a desire for world-knowledge and 
 new fields of learning. 
 
 There is good reason, moreover, to think 
 that another Irishman, St. Brendan, carried 
 his labour farther and founded a church on the 
 American continent itself. The evidence of 
 such an Irish settlement comes from the Norse- 
 men who discovered Greenland for themselves 
 towards the end of the tenth century. " The 
 earliest Norse settlers in Greenland," writes 
 Mr. C. F. Keary, the historian of the Vikings 
 in Western Christendom, " heard tell from the 
 natives of that place of a settlement on the 
 coast opposite but far off of a body of strangers 
 whom the Eskimos described as walking to- 
 gether in processions, dressed all in white, 
 carrying long staves with cloths hanging from 
 them, and speaking or crying out in a peculiar 
 fashion." The opposite coast here spoken of 
 must have been some part of North America — 
 that Vinland or Wineland probably v/hich the 
 Norsemen afterwards discovered and partly 
 settled. By the Norse this country was also 
 
 244
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 called White Man's Land or Irland-hyt-mykla, 
 i.e., Greater Ireland.' 
 
 Such an enterprise as this would, however, 
 in all probability have sprung not so much 
 from the humanistic missionary impulse as 
 from desire to pierce the mysteries of that other 
 world beyond the ocean wave, the idea of 
 which had played so large a part in shaping 
 the images of Celtic pagan mythology. The 
 mission to Europe concerns us more. 
 
 The Irish grip on the Christian ideal in those 
 
 early days must have been something more 
 
 intimate and whole-natured than usual to 
 
 account for its effect in this abundant output 
 
 of heroic enterprise, this wide-spread fervour 
 
 dedicated to spiritual uses. Significant, too, 
 
 is the fact that, whereas the Celtic Church 
 
 organized itself on the model of the civil 
 
 institutions of the country and was friendly to 
 
 native tribal law and the bardic literature, the 
 
 ' The Vikings in Western Christendom^ C. F. Keary. 
 The reader who is interested will find in this book further 
 details as to the persistent Norse tradition about Irland- 
 hyt-mykla. 
 
 245
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 development of both was profoundly influenced 
 by the spirit of the Church, though without any 
 loss of their own essential character. And so 
 we get in after-days that unity of spirit, which 
 is so natural and yet so rare, between the 
 tradition of pagan hero and Christian saint 
 that was treasured so carefully by the people 
 throughout the succeeding centuries. "They 
 took to themselves two heroes to be centres 
 of the national hope," writes Mrs. Green, 
 " Finn the champion, leader of the Fiana, the 
 warbands of old time, and Patrick the saint. 
 A multitude of tales suddenly sprang up of 
 the adventures of Finn, the warrior worthy of 
 a king, the son of wisdom, the mighty hunter 
 of every mountain and forest in Ireland, whose 
 death no minstrel cared to sing. Every poet 
 was expected to recite the fame in life of Finn 
 and his companions. Pedigrees were invented 
 to link him with every great house in Ireland, 
 for their greater glory and authority. Side by 
 side with Finn the people set St. Patrick- 
 keeper of Ireland against all strangers, guar- 
 
 246
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 dian of their nation and tradition. It was 
 Patrick, they told, who by invincible prayer 
 and fasting at last compelled Heaven to grant 
 that outlanders should not for ever inhabit 
 Erin. . . . ' Around thee,' was the triumphant 
 Irish hope, ' on the Day of Judgment the men 
 of Erin shall come to judgment ' ; for after the 
 twelve thrones of the Apostles were set in 
 Judaea to judge the tribes of Israel, Patrick 
 himself should at the end arise and call the 
 people of Ireland to be judged by him on a 
 mountain in their own land." ' 
 
 Looking back across the Christian centuries, 
 let us inquire whether there may not have been 
 something in life for the pagan Gael, and in his 
 native intuition of its meaning, that harmonized 
 with the new vision of the supernal world, 
 and made it from the first intelligible as a 
 living reality — the presence of God and the 
 godlike in man, " above all and with all and 
 in you all," as the great Apostle says. 
 
 The student who searches out the marks of 
 
 * Irish Nationality, A. S. Green, pp. 90, 91. 
 
 247
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 pagan Gaelic religion in the workings of the 
 ancient Irish mind is doomed to disappointment 
 if his thoughts be bent on clear distinctions, 
 such as we find in the development of Teutonic 
 mythology. There is in the Gaelic myth no 
 tangible delimitation of sphere as between gods 
 and men and the demon hosts— nothing corre- 
 sponding to Asgard, Mannheim, and Jotun- 
 heim. We know not, for instance, whether the 
 Fomorians of story, who harried the coasts of 
 Ulster in the dim, distant past, were early- 
 coming invaders from over the northern seas or 
 demon hosts from the spirit-land below the 
 wave. Such enemies of men count for not 
 much, however, in the mythological outlook of 
 the cheerful Irish mind. More important are 
 the Tuatha De Danann, appearing sometimes 
 in the literature as a pre-Gaelic race of wise 
 and mighty men, sometimes as the divine 
 people of Ireland— the gods of the land— whose 
 special habitation is variously conceived, now 
 within the hills, now beneath the sea, and yet 
 
 again in the upper world of men, but visible 
 
 248
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 only to those who have the gift of vision— the 
 mystic racial affinity it may be, or relation by 
 spiritual fosterage, on which the gift depends. 
 Nor are these three conceptions of locality dis- 
 tinguished : they are present together in the 
 same story, fused in feeling, interchangeable 
 in thought. This, as has been well pointed out 
 by Miss Eleanor Hull, is one of the difficulties 
 of genuine Irish literature, " the curious feeling 
 that we are hung between two worlds, the seen 
 and the unseen ; that we are not quite among 
 actualities, or rather, that we do not quite know 
 where the actual begins or where it ends. 
 Even in dealing with history we may suddenly 
 find ourselves wafted away into some illusory 
 spirit world with which the historian seems to 
 deal with the same sober exactness as in detail- 
 ing any fact of ordinary life. 
 
 " There is in most literatures a meeting-place 
 where the mythological and the historic stand 
 in close conjunction, the one dying out as the 
 other takes its place. Only in Ireland we 
 never seem to reach this point ; we can never 
 
 249
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 anywhere say ' Here ends legend, here begins 
 history.' ... At first we are inchned to doubt 
 the accuracy of any part of the story ; but, as 
 we continue our examination, we are surprised 
 at the substantial correctness of the ancient 
 records, so far as we are able to test them, 
 whether on the historical or the social side. 
 The poet is never wholly poet, he is also prac- 
 tical man ; and the historian is never wholly 
 chronicler and annalist, he is also at the back 
 of his mind folklorist, lover of nature, dreamer. 
 It is the puzzle and the charm of Ireland," ' 
 
 Those whom it merely puzzles esteem it as 
 madness and confusion, except in so far as they 
 may be puzzled still more by the frequent sharp 
 outbreaks of shrewd wit, homely common sense 
 and keen observation of nature. Those whom 
 it charms will seek to understand it ; and it 
 can, I believe, be best understood as a natural 
 manifestation of the human mind under a pro- 
 found sense of some all embracing reality over- 
 lying and underlying our world of human 
 
 » The Poem Book of the Gael^ E. Hull, p. xxiv. 
 
 250
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 thought and natural things. The characteristic 
 of the Celtic literature is not that it has any 
 monopoly in this consciousness of a supernal 
 world immanent throughout nature. All 
 religious feeling springs from the dim begin- 
 ning of this ; all genuine religious thought 
 points to its development from twilight -dawn 
 to the full illumination of noontide. The 
 primary Celtic characteristic is the supernormal 
 intensity, and prevalence for the common folk, 
 of this consciousness, even in the morning of 
 knowledge when the races of northern Europe 
 were developing their ideas of the invisible and 
 eternal for themselves. No other pagan litera- 
 ture is at once so democratic in its operation, 
 or so deeply tinged by this general sense of 
 spiritual immanence and personality in natural 
 things.! The second and more important 
 characteristic is that in the development of 
 the race throughout history, under Christian 
 teaching and all the influences of Christendom, 
 
 ' See Introduction by Stopford Brooke to The High 
 Deeds of Finn, T. W. Rolleston. 
 
 251
 
 The Genius ot the Gael 
 
 this spiritual sense has preserved its original 
 grip on the everyday imagination, its asso- 
 ciation with homely things, its regard for the 
 little as well as the large in nature, while at the 
 same time it has been growing up into the 
 clearer vision of all that is implied— even out- 
 side particular religious ordinances and learned 
 definitions of doctrine— in the God above all, 
 working in all, and ever moving the spirit of 
 man to be co-operant with Him. As pagan 
 or as Christian the Celt has always, so far as 
 his light went, been " farther ben." 
 
 Throughout the centuries the Gaelic peasant 
 has evolved a rare intimate sense of unseen 
 realities in contact with his nature as a whole 
 and influencing his life in all particulars. He 
 does not, of course, express himself in large 
 generalizations like these, but with homely 
 directness and without self -consciousness. Let 
 us look at the evidence as it reveals the Irish 
 peasant of the West to-day. He it is who best 
 represents the characteristic Gael. Also I 
 think the Celt of Wales will concede to him 
 some standing as the characteristic Celt. 
 
 252
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 •We turn first to the priceless source of in- 
 formation which has been opened up to the 
 world by Dr. Douglas Hyde in his collection, 
 at first hand from Irish speakers, of the Reli- 
 gious Songs of Connacht. Dr. Hyde's know- 
 ledge of the people and their language is 
 profound. As a Gaelic speaker and their co- 
 religionist he has natural advantages. His 
 work for Ireland and Irish nationality is known 
 to them and gives him further access to their 
 minds. This is his estimate of their spiritual 
 endowment : — 
 
 " A pious race is the GaeHc race. The Irish 
 Gael is pious by nature. He sees the hand of 
 God in every place, in every time and in every 
 thing. . . . The spirit and the things of the spirit 
 affect him more powerfully than the body and 
 the things of the body. In the things he does 
 not see he does not believe the less for not 
 seeing them ; and in the things he sees he 
 will see more than a man of any other race ; 
 what is invisible for other people is visible for 
 him. God is for him a thing assured, true, 
 
 253
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 intelligible . He sees invisible powers before 
 him and by his side and at his back, throughout 
 the day and throughout the night. It is from 
 this feeHng that the ordinary expressions and 
 salutations of the Irish language come." 
 
 These he details : they speak for themselves, 
 and as you picture to yourself in imagination 
 the old man, the homely mother, the fresh lad, 
 or the dainty maiden who might be speaking, 
 you feel behind the words the pure sincerity 
 of direct intention in the mind. For " Good- 
 morning," the Irish Gael says " God salute 
 you," and the customary response comes, 
 " God and Mary greet you." To a person 
 engaged in any work he says, " Prosperity 
 from God on you," and for a blessing in 
 general, " May God life-lengthen you." In 
 such an interchange of courtesy as the taking 
 of snuff from you, his greeting extends charac- 
 teristically to kindred, and pierces the unseen : 
 " The blessing of God be with the souls of your 
 dead." Better known than most of these is 
 the phrase, " God rest his soul," which in 
 
 254
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 Catholic Ireland on all occasions, public as 
 well as private, follows the spoken reference 
 to the name of one dead. On great occasions of 
 national assembly, when speech turns to remin- 
 iscence of the heroes who have fallen by the 
 way, even the stranger, if sensitive to influence, 
 becomes aware of a deep, underlying note in 
 the corporate consciousness, a sense of the 
 eternal spiritual presence and of social solid- 
 arity with the honoured dead. I have in my 
 mind a speech at the Irish National Conven- 
 tion, 1 9 1 2, and a sudden passage in it on 
 the heroic dead, through which ran the refrain 
 instinctively breaking out at the end of every 
 period, " God be with the dead, I always say." 
 Nor is it to honoured friends alone that this 
 tribute is paid in token of sacred comradeship 
 between the living and the dead. Speaking of 
 a political foe who is dead, the simple prayer 
 " God rest his soul " springs naturally to the 
 hps of the Irish Nationalist at Westminster. 
 An English Member of Parliament once 
 described to me an occasion in the old fight- 
 
 255
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 ing days when the House was startled by this 
 utterance following the name of Mr. W. E. 
 Forster from the mouth of one who was at that 
 time a veritable scourge to all opponents of 
 Home Rule. My friend understood and was 
 touched, but there were those to whom at first 
 the words, unexpected as they were, seemed 
 a heartless mockery. But that was long ago. 
 
 Turn again to Dr. Douglas Hyde and his 
 Western peasants. Following on his examples 
 of salutation and blessing he says : — 
 
 " God is there in his mouth and before his 
 eyes day and night. He is the true son of 
 those old saints who spread the light of Christ 
 throughout the world. He is now by nature 
 a Christian from the day of his birth to the 
 hour of his death." 
 
 Thus this careful observer summarizes the 
 
 conclusions to which he is led by all the facts 
 
 of deed and word observed among the living 
 
 people themselves, from whom also he 
 
 laboriously collected by word of mouth a 
 
 miscellany of religious songs which fill two 
 
 256
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 volumes. I select a few examples as illustra- 
 tive of different aspects or stages in the life of 
 the pious soul. 
 
 Most of the religious poems — so their 
 collector and translator tells us — which he got 
 from the people in Connacht are giving advice 
 to do good works. The natural bent of the 
 people is to practical idealism, and the teach- 
 ing of the Church, with its emphasis for the 
 laity on attention to life rather than the under- 
 standing of doctrine, tends to the same effect. 
 'Here is an example simple to baldness : — 
 
 Do good deeds without lie or falsehood, 
 Do without lies good deeds on earth here, 
 That is the one straight road to follow : 
 That is the road and go not off it. 
 
 This might equally well pass for a Fenian 
 utterance or for an instruction of St. Patrick. 
 The practical spirit is seen again, but with 
 a deeper flavour, in all the songs — the prayers 
 in song — that are for use during the perform- 
 ance of homely tasks about the house and in 
 the fields. Each little hearth-song expresses 
 
 257 R
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 a sense of spiritual dignity and characteristic 
 blessing attached to the due performance of 
 the task. 'Here is a song for the girl who 
 rakes down the fire to save it for the night : — 
 
 As I save this fire to-night, 
 Even so may Christ save me ; 
 
 On the top of the house let Mary, 
 Let Bride in the middle be.' 
 
 The same vivid sense of the unseen company 
 and simple trust in their protecting love is 
 shown in the following morning prayer. One 
 need not be a Catholic to realize the comfort- 
 ing tenderness of this spiritual intimacy with 
 the friendly host unseen : — 
 
 God's angels be our company 
 And save us while we live, 
 
 May God and holy Mary 
 
 MacDuagh and MacDara 
 
 And Columcille protect us, 
 And save us until eve. 
 
 ' After this the Rosary would be said before going to 
 bed. Bride is another name for Bridget. 
 
 258
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 A special interest attaches to the evening 
 prayer, from which is given below the begin- 
 ning and the end. It was found in Innismaan, 
 in the island of Aran. Another version of 
 the same poem, and differing very slightly 
 from it, was found in L'ochaber, Scotland. It 
 would seem, therefore, that we may have here 
 an expression of Gaelic religious tradition that 
 dates back to very early times. 
 
 Comparing this prayer with the last, the 
 reader will notice the presence in it of a more 
 developed consciousness, the craving for God- 
 nearness as a shield from sin. Thus it 
 opens : — 
 
 I lie down with God, and may God lie down with me, 
 
 That I may not lie with the Evil, 
 
 And that the Evil may not lie with me. 
 
 Then follows the appeal to the more intimate 
 saints to gather round the couch : — 
 
 May the girdle of Brigit behind my back 
 And the mantle of Mary before me be, 
 
 And come to me, O Michael Og, 
 And by the hand lead me. 
 259
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 The last section opens and closes with the 
 penitent's prayer to Christ : — 
 
 I make my peace with the dear Son of God. 
 
 • • « • • 
 
 One drop on my heart of Thy mercy down-shower 
 For every sin I have sinned to Thee.^ 
 
 This next is more of the nature of a definite 
 act of contrition. The sense of sin is troubled 
 and deeper ; but its chief interest, to my mind, 
 lies in the first line, implying- as it does that 
 inner search for God and His thoughts, 
 " under," as the poem says, the thought of 
 the human mind : — 
 
 Under my thoughts may I God-thoughts find, 
 
 Half of my sins escape my mind : 
 
 For what I said or did not say, 
 
 At the throne of confession I stand this day. 
 
 Jesus sorely suffering, 
 
 • • • « • 
 
 1 turn to Thee again. 
 
 One more example claims attention. It is 
 
 a prayer to be said during Mass. It strikes, 
 
 ^ The intermediate lines invoke the aid of the Apostles, 
 in particular Peter and Paul by name. 
 
 260
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 as it should, a higher note of faith, and 
 breathes a deeper sense of that union of human 
 to Divine which is, on the one hand, dedica- 
 tion, on the other, inspiration — an act of grace. 
 As in the other prayer-songs, the saints — this 
 time the Virgin only — are invited to partici- 
 pate : — 
 
 I bestow Thee my soul, Thou King of grace, 
 
 And let it not fall out of Thy control ; 
 Bear witness, O Blessed Virgin Mary, 
 
 In the hands of thy Son do I lay my soul. 
 Countenance brighter than the sun, 
 Shield me from ill when the race is run. 
 
 These are a few illustrations out of many 
 that might be given. They are of the people, 
 homely, vivid, penetrating— fragmentary signs, 
 as it were, of a subtle spiritual storm-cloak to 
 wrap all life about and shield the soul from 
 woe. Coming out of church on Sundays they 
 often say : " Good-bye, Christ ; good-bye, 
 Mary. May the Apostles keep us till we 
 come again." 
 
 Another witness claims our attention, a just 
 
 261
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 observer, wise in thought and words. Here 
 
 is Miss Eleanor Hull's estimate of the case : 
 
 she reminds us of the part which Ireland 
 
 herself as homeland has played in the culture 
 
 of the race. 
 
 " Where the outward distractions of life are 
 
 few, the grave monotony of sea and moor 
 
 and bogland, the swirl of cloud and mist, and 
 
 the loneliness of waste places sink more deeply 
 
 into the mind. The visible is less felt than the 
 
 invisible, and life is surrounded by a network 
 
 of fears and dreams to which the town dweller 
 
 is a stranger. To-day, in the western isles 
 
 of Ireland and Scotland, the huntsman going 
 
 out to hunt, the fisherman to fish or lay his 
 
 nets, the agriculturalist to sow or reap his 
 
 harvest, and the weaver or spinner to wind 
 
 his yarn, go forth to their work with some 
 
 familiar charm-prayer or charm-hymn, often 
 
 beautifully called ' the blessings ' on their lips. 
 
 The milkmaid calling her cows or churning her 
 
 butter, the young girl fearful of the evil eye, 
 
 and the cottager sweeping up her hearth in the 
 
 262
 
 The Celt in Spiritual Insight 
 
 evening, laying herself down to sleep at night, 
 or rising up in the morning, soothe their fears 
 or smooth their way by some whispered paider 
 or ortha, a prayer or a verse or a blessing. 
 
 " The deep religious feeling of the Celtic 
 mind, with its far-stretching hands groping 
 towards the mysterious and the infinite, comes 
 out in these spontaneous and simple ejacula- 
 tions." I 
 
 More examples will be found under the 
 heading of " Religious Poems " in Miss Hull's 
 delightful book called The Poem Book of 
 the Gael. " They are," she tells us, " the 
 thoughts of such humble people as the poor 
 farm servant who ' had so many things to 
 do from dark to dark ' that she had no time 
 for long prayers, and knew only a little prayer 
 taught her by her mother, which laid ' our 
 caring and our keeping and our saving on 
 the Sacred Trinity.' " 
 
 Heaven forbid that the people of Ireland, 
 
 the Celtic peoples generally, or any other 
 
 ' The Poem Book oj the Gael, E. Hull, p. xxxvi. 
 
 263
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 people, should lay claim in a boastful presump- 
 tuous spirit to be a peculiar people in the 
 religious sense. I who write this am not 
 a Celt. The thoughts of the Gael, for his 
 part, are more concerned with his world than 
 with himself : he knows himself in his open- 
 eyed love of nature, his sociability, his enjoy- 
 ment of company, music, and literature. *His 
 common sense and sanity, his practical talent, 
 his social gifts, he uses liberally in reaction on 
 his world ; but he is more conscious of his 
 defects than of his merits in their respect. All 
 this is of a piece with that disposition to whole- 
 natured reaction on experience in every phase, 
 the highest manifestation of which is uplift of 
 the psychical energies as a whole in rapt atten- 
 tion and response to the things of the unseen. 
 This ability to concentrate all the psychical 
 energies in attention within or without — a 
 concrete attention in which the compositeness 
 of their varied reaction is not lost — this is 
 the quality which has been evolved by the 
 
 Celtic race more particularly in the course of 
 
 264
 
 The Gael in Spiritual Insight 
 
 its long and varied experience of life. In 
 the Celt of history, and especially of to-day, 
 it appears as a congenital endowment. But 
 he has no monopoly in it : like other talents, 
 it can be practised, it can be taught. In the 
 meanwhile, the race that has it most highly 
 developed has, in so far as it goes, a mission 
 to the world. Maybe it is not for nothing 
 that, to use the words of a good Irish 
 Australian priest, " God scattered our people 
 like seed o'er the lea." 
 
 WTiat we are concerned here to notice more 
 particularly is that the facility for uplift to 
 the supernal world, with which manifestation 
 of the Celtic genius this chapter is con- 
 cerned, is of the essence of the natural gift 
 which marks the " Christian mystic " in the 
 accepted sense of that term. " Life in its 
 wholeness is their aim," says one v/ho has 
 made a life-study of Christian psychology, " a 
 concrete and actual existence which shall 
 include both God and the world, and shall 
 
 raise to their highest terms, use for their 
 
 265
 
 The Genius ot the Gael 
 
 highest purposes, that power of receptivity, that 
 power of controlled attention, that power of 
 energetic response which characterize con- 
 sciousness." 
 
 Thus the Christian philosopher describes the 
 Christian saint, the supreme practical mystic. 
 In these pages it is intended to say no more 
 than that in the outlook over humanity, as 
 ranged in racial groups or nations, the Celtic 
 peoples have, by some happy instinct or 
 fortunate — though perhaps seemingly unfor- 
 tunate — combination of circumstances, been 
 shaping more than others for the realization 
 of the type ; and that not here and there on 
 the heroic scale, but in homely guise and 
 quiet ways on the ordinary scale of common 
 human nature. 
 
 266
 
 VIII 
 
 THE 
 
 GAELIC ETHOS
 
 This country of ours is no sandbank thrown up by 
 some recent caprice of earth. It is an ancient land 
 honoured in the archives of civilization, traceable into 
 antiquity by its piety, its valour, and its sufferings. Every 
 great European race has sent its stream to the river of 
 Irish mind. 
 
 Thomas Davis.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE GAELIC ETHOS 
 
 Throughout the preceding pages Celtic 
 character has been illustrated chiefly by refer- 
 ence to the facts of Irish human nature. 
 Welsh and French and Highland Scotch are 
 rightly held to have a clear share in the Celtic 
 heritage, but inevitably the mind goes back 
 to Ireland as to the Zion of the Celtic race. 
 There is the home of the Celtic idea. Are we 
 justified in treating its people as the typical 
 example of Celtic nature ? What has ethnology 
 to say on the subject? How far is Irish 
 heredity a fact of Celtic race? Are the Irish 
 more Celtic, or, let us say much more Celtic, 
 than anybody else ? 
 
 Ethnology does not return so very certain 
 
 269
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 an answer. The Scotch and Enghsh immigra- 
 tions we know. Some may be prone to over- 
 estimate them, but certain it is that, from the 
 twelfth century to the seventeenth, wave after 
 wave of that immigration invaded Irish shores. 
 If all those who came from the larger island 
 were pure Teutons, this dilution of the native 
 element might count for much. But the earlier 
 British races count for a good deal even in 
 Britain now, and especially in those parts con- 
 tiguous to the Irish sea. At least it is certain 
 that the British immigrants in Ireland were 
 considerably less Teutonic than if they had 
 been Germans or Dutch. 
 
 In earlier days " the Danes " made settle- 
 ments in Ireland, and there is no mistake about 
 the Norse admixture now as a racial element. 
 The Dane is strong along the east coast to-day. 
 The Norman invasion brought in once more, 
 under another form, a measure of his influence, 
 and he is present in the Scotch immigration 
 into Ulster. *He is not Celtic, though neither is 
 
 he pure Teutonic. The Norse-Celtic mixture 
 
 270
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 is probably one of the best, like a good 
 marriage in which each mate supplements but 
 reverences the other, each rejoicing to note and 
 encourage in the children the qualities that 
 are characteristic of the other. 
 
 Earlier still, was Ireland the home of the 
 undiluted Celt? All research goes to show 
 the contrary. As in other lands, so in Ireland, 
 it would seem that the dark-haired, dark-eyed 
 Iberian — industrious, patient, persistent, and 
 perhaps melancholy, was there before the Celt, 
 and was not outrooted by him. It may be that 
 the Celt of modern history is, for the most 
 part, racially a Celt-Iberian. The Celt of Gaul 
 in Csesar's time was, as Caesar tells us, fair- 
 haired and fair-skinned as well as tall and 
 blue of eye. He is marked out clearly from 
 the smaller dark Iberian. So we call them : 
 of their language in Ireland we have no trace. 
 But the modern Celt is more often than not 
 dark of hair, though the blue-grey of his eye, 
 set large and expressive between thick black 
 lashes, marks him like a label. In stature he 
 
 271
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 varies between the types. He is tall and he 
 is short, but nearly always of athletic build, 
 showing in slimness and clean, strong lines. 
 Either Celt has absorbed Iberian by inter- 
 marriage, or Iberian has absorbed Celt ; 
 samples of each race in comparative purity 
 appearing to be, however, by no means non- 
 existent. 
 
 Did the Celt become Iberian, or the Iberian 
 Celt? For the main argument in these pages 
 it matters little what the answer. If we have 
 been discussing Celt-Iberian, or even Iberian, 
 character instead of Celtic, this would only 
 mean that the Celt has disappeared and another 
 race has come to be called by his name and 
 to be identified with his language. It seems 
 hardly worth while to argue here the question 
 whether the race that preceded the Teuton and 
 Norseman in Western Europe was mainly 
 Celtic or mainly something else. It does not 
 matter much ; still, there are at least two good 
 reasons for regarding it as mainly Celtic, but 
 
 in some degree mixed. 
 
 272
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 Limiting ourselves to Ireland, we may in 
 the first place note that in mental type the 
 modern Gael of the Irish West answers well 
 enough to Caesar's description of the Gaulish 
 Celt, making allowances for the prejudices of a 
 conqueror, and one, moreover, who represented 
 a much more advanced and strongly organized 
 civilization. The characteristics of ingenuity, 
 quick wit, adaptability are specially unmis- 
 takable as hints. There is an atmosphere 
 about Caesar's Gauls that suggests the Irish- 
 man. Too much weight must not be attached 
 to his charge against this primitive people of 
 fickleness in purpose. But it cannot be passed 
 over : it stands out in marked contrast with the 
 idealistic tenacity, will-force, and persistence 
 in purpose shown so notably by both the Gael 
 and the Cymri to-day. This fickleness, which 
 Caesar notes in his Gauls of the century before 
 the first, may be accounted for as a natural 
 manifestation of the quick, adaptable, genial 
 temperament in the absence of a formative 
 political ideal. None the less do we get from 
 
 273 s
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 it, by contrast with the modern Welshman's 
 persistence, a hint for the presence in him of 
 Iberian quality as judged also by the light 
 of the Roman conqueror's experience. Here 
 we deal with a fact, not an opinion. The 
 stiffest resistance the Romans met with in 
 'Britain was from the Iberian Silures of South 
 Wales. No doubt the Silures are there still, 
 a patient, unforgetting people. In their stout- 
 ness as fighters they show moral, as no doubt 
 they had racial, affinity with those unfree tribes 
 in Ireland who, subjugated by the conquering 
 Milesians, were used by them in more constant 
 military service than could be required of free 
 tribesmen, and who made of their subjection 
 in this respect a great opportunity. The free- 
 men of the dominant race could not be com- 
 pelled to serve in the field for more than a 
 short time each year : like the modern Briton, 
 they had other things to do. The subject 
 races supplied the warrior caste, living by the 
 chase and by plunder of enemies as when, 
 under their masters' name of Scots and in 
 
 274
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 alliance with the Picts, they harried the coast 
 
 of Britain. Thus the unfree peoples supplied 
 
 to the High Kings the standing army, the 
 
 " Fianna of Erin/' under its own military 
 
 leaders, its own customs and social regulations. 
 
 In due course there sprang up among the 
 
 Fianna a cycle, now famous, of story and song 
 
 commemorating the great deeds and other 
 
 adventures of Finn and the warrior champions 
 
 surrounding him. This is the second great 
 
 cycle of Irish heroic literature, as the pre- 
 
 Milesian cycle of the Ulster heroes and the 
 
 Tain Bo Cooalney is the first. In this earlier 
 
 literature also we read of these people as 
 
 soldiers in the army of Meave, Queen of 
 
 Connacht, which she brought against the 
 
 Ulstermen. They were known under the 
 
 general name of Firbolg, but there were three 
 
 tribes, and the Fir Galian was one of them. 
 
 By her husband's anxious inquiries as to the 
 
 condition of their troops, Meave is compelled 
 
 to admit angrily that, as compared with the 
 
 Gailiana, little can be said for the rest. 
 
 275
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 " When the other troops halted to encamp, 
 
 the Gailiana had finished pitching their 
 
 bothies : when the others had set up their 
 
 shekers, the Gailiana had finished cooking : 
 
 when the others began to eat, the Gailiana had 
 
 finished their meal : while the others were still 
 
 eating, the Gailiana were in bed and asleep." 
 
 And this superiority being maintained in 
 
 courage, energy, and activity throughout, 
 
 Meave considers them to be a danger to 
 
 authority, and, lest they should become too 
 
 powerful, scatters them throughout the host. 
 
 The Milesians afterwards scattered them 
 
 throughout Ireland, probably as a lower, less 
 
 free class, and drew from them the armies 
 
 of whose prowess we hear in the fourth 
 
 century. It would seem that a taint of Firbolg 
 
 heredity is not likely to detract from the 
 
 character of the Gaelic race. All the old Irish 
 
 peoples appear to have been good fighters. 
 
 The Milesians of the histories stand out as 
 
 being wise rulers and social administrators 
 
 also ; and nothing we know of them is more 
 
 276
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 to their credit than the fact that the subject 
 races attained to position and honour under 
 them, and this in more ways than one. But 
 of this, more later. 
 
 As regards Irish ethnology, therefore, the 
 presence of the Firbolg must be fully, and 
 may be gladly, admitted. As to the physical 
 traits, one leans to the notion that the Celtic 
 heritage of blue -grey eye, seeing, too, how 
 expressive a feature it is, has more racial signi- 
 ficance than the dark hair that may be an 
 Iberian heritage. The fair skin, too, is a 
 mark of the Gael, but the soft climate of 
 Ireland goes far to make skins fairer than 
 they would be elsewhere. 
 
 The more fundamental fact for us is that 
 
 the language of the so-called Celt is the Celtic 
 
 language. In Ireland, Highland Scotland, and 
 
 the Isle of Man it is the Gaelic branch of 
 
 Celtic speech, with inconsiderable dialectic 
 
 variations in each of these centres. This fact, 
 
 though not conclusive as to race, throws the 
 
 burden of proof on those who would contend 
 
 277
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 that the Gael by language is not in the main 
 a Gael by nature also. The Gael by language 
 was the man to whom all Gaelic traditions of 
 culture, story, and manners came down. Into 
 that heritage all the races of ancient Ireland 
 entered at an early date, though equality before 
 the law and recognition at court of the subject 
 people's literature as a Gaelic classic did not 
 take place till the tenth century. This litera- 
 ture was the story of the Fianna of Erin : up 
 to the time of the great famine it was still 
 green in the West. 
 
 ■With the rise of the Fianna of Erin from the 
 subject races, intermarriage between the races 
 may have become more common than before, 
 though we hear of it even in the old Ulidian 
 stories. The daughter of Queen Meave is 
 affianced to the Firbolg champion Ferdiad. 
 Intermarriage has, in fact, been going on all 
 through the centuries. No one can feel sure, 
 but the final impression is that the Firbolg has 
 been for the most part absorbed, that it is 
 the Gael who looks out of the big violet eyes 
 
 278
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 and expressive countenances of the beautiful 
 Connemara children. 
 
 Whether this dominance of the Gael in the 
 western race-mixture be a simple ethnological 
 fact, or depends on the Gaelic social gift, we 
 cannot tell. Certain it is that the Gael in a 
 community is apt to be like the little leaven 
 that leavens the whole lump. His expres- 
 siveness, responsiveness, and interesting indi- 
 viduality make him a lively social force, 
 transforming others into or towards his own 
 likeness. In a family, if the mother is Irish, 
 the children are Irish : if the father is Irish, 
 the result is much the same. Indeed, it 
 happens not infrequently that the Celtic ex- 
 pressiveness so stimulates response as to 
 Celticize whole households and social circles, 
 by direct personal influence, and for the most 
 part unconsciously. An Irish nurse or an Irish 
 butler may be a potent influence on all the 
 juniors of a family. Men of English race who 
 have been brought up in Ireland are often 
 
 aware of this, and it is easy to understand. The 
 
 279
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 sociable Gael, imaginative and sympathetic, 
 is in all ranks of life a born educator. People 
 who know him, especially the young people, 
 confide in him, are stimulated by his interest 
 in them, listen to him with delight, become his 
 comrades, and profit by his manners. And 
 so, no doubt, in those distant times the Gailiana 
 and the other Firbolgs scattered through the 
 fighting host, or dispersed among the tribes as 
 rent-paying tenants on the land, enjoyed much 
 free converse with the lively minded Gael, 
 and caught from him the social spirit and 
 literary skill which bore fruit later in that 
 notable collection of story and song which 
 we can study for ourselves to-day. The 
 literary Gael, with his educational organiza- 
 tion of druids, bards, and brehon&y had no 
 doubt advantage over the gallant but more 
 primitive Firbolg. Other things being equal, 
 when two peoples mingle, spiritual dominance 
 is apt to go to the one that makes, or has 
 first made, the stories and the songs. 
 
 Briefly, this is how the Gaelic literary 
 
 280
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 honours stand divided, in view of the most 
 recent research into the origin of the Fenian 
 stories. Of the two great cycles of Irish heroic 
 romance, the earlier was the Ulidian series — 
 i.e ., the Tain 'Bo Cooalney and the other stories 
 of Cuchulain and the Ulster champions. This 
 is the Gaelic original, thoroughly Gaelic in 
 race as well as Gaelic in language. Its dis- 
 course is much of champions, a little of gods 
 or faery, a very little of wild nature spirits 
 and demon hosts. It moves in the setting of a 
 free province and a kingly court, to the honour 
 and preservation of which all manly virtues 
 and loyalties are devoted. This was before 
 the days of Tara and the Milesian High Kings, 
 to whom there is no reference in any of the 
 stories. The Milesians, coming later, succeeded 
 the Ulidians in power and military fame. They 
 made themselves masters of Ireland, but they 
 have no masterpiece of literature standing in 
 their name. From comparison of the evidence, 
 it appears that the Milesian bards adopted the 
 Ulidian hero-lore during the seventh century. 
 
 28l
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 The recovery of the Tain Bo Cooalney, which 
 was lost, is a poetic way of saying this. The 
 subject tribes, however — and no doubt the 
 Milesians also — must have been in touch with 
 some of it at least long before this time. It 
 is reasonable to assume that this contact for 
 them was their education in Gaelic social ideas, 
 and their original stimulus as artists in Gaelic 
 literature. Genuine literature, too, it is, this 
 Fenian cycle of story and song, telling not of 
 kings and courts, but of the people's heroes 
 and the things the makers knew. It tells of 
 the common people's heroes as masters of war 
 and the chase, lovers of animals and nature, 
 equal to the best in championship, the gentle 
 arts and all high courtesy, but just the Fianna 
 (or fighting bands) of Erin sprung from the 
 soil, and casting over hill and valley through- 
 out the land a vesture of song and story that 
 will last while Ireland lasts. ' 
 
 ' See " Celtic Texts," vol. vii. The Lays of Fionn, 
 
 Introduction, Eoin MacNeil, and also Text-Book of 
 
 Irish Literature, Eleanor Hull, Part II., chaps, i.-vi. 
 
 282
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 Thus the Gaelic ethos in those early days 
 worked on the subject people, and in the tenth 
 century their contribution to Gaelic literature 
 began to be adopted by the official bards of 
 Tara and written down by the Christian scribes, 
 who added to it their own fine story of Patrick's 
 meeting and friendship with the ancient Fenian 
 heroes, Oisin and Caoilte, who had wondrously 
 survived to his day. By the time that the 
 Milesian story of the invasions was made, 
 setting forth the doctrine that all the people 
 of Ireland sprang from the same stock, the 
 obvious facts were, as we may surmise, suffi- 
 ciently consistent with the story. The 
 Milesians were more than conquerors : they 
 absorbed into their body politic and spiritual 
 the good material which they found in the 
 land of their adoption. Ireland, before the 
 Norman came, may be described therefore 
 as Gaelic in mind no less than in speech, 
 with a fringe of more or less assimilated Norse 
 on the eastern coasts. 
 
 The Nornian stayed and multiplied, and 
 
 283
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 bands of Englishry followed him century after 
 century, till the fairer lands of Ireland had 
 passed from Gaelic to English as they had 
 passed from Iberian to Gaelic hands. And 
 from time to time there came mighty breaths of 
 the English ethos too ; and in due course the 
 English power set up its Church and language, 
 its customs and its laws. So after long 
 struggle, and at the cost of much loss in 
 national vitality over-ruled and wasted, the 
 language and the laws and even the literature 
 of the English came to be fairly established. 
 But the English institutions which flourish best 
 to-day are those within which the English 
 ethos is being replaced by the workings of 
 the Gaelic spirit upon them. Such are the 
 language and the literature of the English- 
 speaking Irish. The new social order which 
 is coming in has the old Gaelic ideals at its 
 core. A great work remains to be done in 
 the transformation of national education. 
 The adjustment of institutions in Ireland to 
 
 Irish ideals is indeed far from complete, but we 
 
 284
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 may hope that the struggle in the old unhappy 
 way is nearly over. We have still to see 
 what Irish ideals will do as applied to our 
 new modern Ireland in a state of liberty. 
 
 Meanwhile, what has happened in the per- 
 sonnel of that mixture of races which has been 
 forming for these six centuries since the 
 Norman invasion? Whatever the politics of 
 the Anglo-Irish, what is their mental type? 
 In the racial mixture does the Gael contribute 
 the larger share of spiritual heritage ? In the 
 social mixture does his type act on other types 
 to educate them in his likeness ? 
 
 These questions have been answered before. 
 It is from the history of the English in Ireland 
 that we know what the power of the Irish idea 
 is. The Irish nation of to-day is indeed a 
 racial compound mixed and mixed again, 
 but the dominating quality of the Gaelic 
 ethos, the educative genius of the Gaelic 
 nature, has tramed the alien elements for 
 the most part into conformity with the spirit 
 of the Gael. 
 
 285
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 An objection, however, suggests itself and 
 demands a reply. Celtic, and therefore Gaelic, 
 nature as described in these pages seems to 
 turn upon a very essential characteristic rooted 
 in racial physique. If this be so, how is it 
 possible that it should be acquired by an alien 
 under any educative process ? 
 
 In the first place, it is a quality — a notably 
 human quality — that under favourable circum- 
 stances can be developed. We can give our- 
 selves a worse or a better chance of developing 
 it. In the second place, that better chance 
 is probably best given by the stimulus of 
 personal contact with those pre-eminent in the 
 quality. And in the third place, the Anglo- 
 Irishman, unless he be of superior mental 
 calibre, seldom has it in the same degree and 
 with the same instinctiveness as the Irish Gael. 
 The non-Gael left to himself reverts to his 
 racial type. He must return again and again to 
 his source of stimulus in Gaelic circles if he 
 would maintain his character as quasi-Gael. 
 
 And this I say from personal experience, 
 
 286
 
 The Gaelic Ethos 
 
 having claim to but a small share, if any, in 
 the ancient Gaelic stock. 
 
 To the Gael himself it is not the racial stock 
 in the flesh that seems to matter, but the ideals 
 of the race and their preservation for the Irish 
 people, and, though he may not think of it, for 
 the world. It is to the spiritual Ireland, as 
 to the " spiritual Israel," that the promises 
 are fulfilled. 
 
 Before the first Norman set his foot upon 
 
 Irish soil, the Irish nation had achieved a 
 
 spiritual reality — a grip on the eternal truth 
 
 of real civilization — that could not be 
 
 annulled. It had fused all elements of the 
 
 prehistoric and older historic stock, it had 
 
 assimilated the Danish settlers, it did in time 
 
 absorb the Normans and the train that followed 
 
 them. Then came the long dark centuries 
 
 during which, to all outward seeming, the 
 
 Irish nation suffered shipwreck and was 
 
 destroyed. But the ideals of Irish civilization 
 
 were never destroyed, and worked like leaven 
 
 in the superincumbent alien mass. The seed 
 
 287
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 of life — the spiritual Ireland — grew secretly 
 through all those darkened times. Now it 
 has grown to fuller manifestation than ever 
 before, and stands forth tall and strong in the 
 field of the world, with the alien elements once 
 more grafted into it. This is the triumph of 
 Irish nationality : it is the triumph of the Celtic 
 spirit in history : conquering nothing, it wins 
 by consent. The spiritual Ireland was too 
 real to die — too true to human type. Out of 
 long tribulation it arises and renews its 
 strength, using now in the wider circles of the 
 English-speaking world its gift of drawing out 
 the fine humanity of others, which in practice 
 is the essence of the genius of the Gael. 
 
 288
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 EARLY HISTORY, INSTITUTIONS, AND 
 CIVILIZATION 
 
 " Epochs of Irish History" : Eleanor Hull. (David Nutt, 
 1904, etc.) 
 
 1. " Pagan Ireland." 
 
 2. " Early Christian Ireland." 
 
 '' The Making of Ireland and its Undoing " : A. S. Green. 
 
 (Macmillan, 1908.) 
 "Irish Nationality": A. S. Green. (Home University 
 
 Library, 191 1.) 
 " Social History of Ancient Ireland " : P. W. Joyce. 2 vols. 
 
 (Longmans, Green & Co.) 
 " Celtic Scotland " : W. J. Skene. (Edmonston & 
 
 Douglas, 1886, 1890.) 
 " Celtic Ireland " : Sophie Bryant. (Kegan Paul, Trench 
 
 & Co., 1889.) 
 " The Welsh People " : J. Rhys and Brynmor Jones. 
 
 (Fisher Unwin.) 
 " Ireland and the Celtic Church " : G. T. Stokes. (Hodder 
 
 & Stoughton, 1886, 1907.) 
 " The Vikings in Western Christendom " : C. F. Keary. 
 
 (Fisher Unwin, 1891.) 
 "Early History of Institutions": Sir H. Maine. (John 
 
 Murray, 1875, 1890.) 
 
 289 T
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 " Reports of Commissioners for publishing the Ancient 
 
 Laws and Institutes of Ireland," 1886-98. 6 vols. 
 " Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish " : E. O'Curry, 
 
 with Introduction by W. K. Sullivan. (Williams & 
 
 Norgate, 1873.) 
 " Early Christian Art in Ireland " : Margaret Stokes. 
 
 (Chapman & Hall, 1875.) 
 "Ancient Music of Ireland": E. Bunting. (Hodges & 
 
 Figgis, 1840, 1887.) 
 " History of Irish Music " : Grattan Flood. (Brown & 
 
 Nolan.) 
 
 EARLY LITERATURE AND FOLK-LORE 
 
 " Text Book of Irish Literature " : Eleanor Hull. 2 vols. 
 
 (Gill & Sons, 1906-8.) 
 "Bards of the Gael and Gall" : G. Sigerson. (Fisher 
 
 Unwin, 1907.) 
 "The Poem Book of the Gael" : E. Hull. (Chatto & 
 
 Windus, 1912.) 
 " The Religious Songs of Connacht " : Douglas Hyde. 
 
 (Fisher Unwin, 1906.) 
 " The Love Songs of Connacht " : Douglas Hyde. (Fisher 
 
 Unwin, 1893.) 
 " The Remains of St. Patrick " : Sir S. Ferguson. (Sealy 
 
 Bryers & Walker, 1887.) 
 " Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race " : T. W. 
 
 Rolleston. (G. G. Harrap & Co., 191 1.) 
 " Cuchulain : the Hound of Ulster " : Retold by Eleanor 
 
 Hull. (G. G. Harrap & Co., 1909.) 
 
 290
 
 Bibliography 
 
 " The High Deeds of Finn " : Retold by T. W. Rolleston, 
 
 with Introduction by Stopford Brooke. (G. G. Harrap 
 
 & Co., 1910.) 
 " History of Ireland : Heroic Period " : Standish O'Grady. 
 
 (Sampson, Low & Marston, 1878, 1880.) 
 "Publications of the Irish Texts Society": 13 vols. 
 
 (David Nutt, 1899, etc.) 
 
 A FEW BOOKS ILLUSTRATING 
 THE MODERN IRISH LITERARY REVIVAL 
 
 The Works of John M. Synge. (Maunsell, complete 
 edition, 1910.) 
 
 Vol. I "Riders to the Sea." 
 
 "The Tinker's Wedding." 
 
 "The Well of the Saints." 
 
 " In the Shadow of the Glen." 
 Vol. II "The Playboy of the Western World." 
 
 " Deirdre of the Sorrows." 
 Vol. Ill "The Aran Islands." 
 Vol. IV " Wicklow and West Kerry." 
 
 The Works of W. Butler Yeats, especially : — 
 " Poems." (Fisher Unwin, 1899.) 
 " Cathleen Ni HouUhan." (Bullen, 1909.) 
 "Seven Short Plays" : Lady Gregory. (Maunsell, 1903.) 
 " The Land," a Play ; and Poems : Padraic Colum. 
 
 (Maunsell, 1909.) 
 "The Drone" and "The Troth," Plays: Rutherford 
 
 Mayne. (Maunsell, 1909.) 
 " Irish Idylls " : Jane Barlow. (Hodder & Stoughton.) 
 
 291
 
 The Genius of the Gael 
 
 THE IRISH POLITICAL REVIVAL 
 
 Life of Charles Stewart Parnell : R. Barry O'Brien. 2 vols. 
 Gladstone and Ireland : Lord Eversley. (Methuen, 1912.) 
 The Framework of Home Rule : Erskine Childers. 
 (Edward Arnold, 191 1.) 
 
 THE GAEL IN THE NEW WORLDS 
 
 " Irish American History of the United States " : Canon 
 
 O'Hanlon. (Sealy Bryers & Walker, DubHn, 1903.) 
 "The Irishman in Canada" : N. Flood Davin. (Sampson, 
 
 Low & Marston, 1877.) 
 " The Irish in Australia" : J. J. Hogan. (Ward & Downey, 
 
 1887.) 
 " Life and Progress in Australasia " : Michael Davitt. 
 
 (MejKuen, 1898.) 
 " Througli Jhe New Commonwealth": W. A. Redmond. 
 
 (Se^ji Bryers & Walker, 1906.) 
 
 Read^s ^interested in the study of Christian Mysticism 
 are advised to turn first to " The Mystic Way," by Evelyn 
 Underhill, (published by Dent & Sons, 1913), in which 
 book they will also find competent guidance to the other 
 literature, both old and new, on the subject. 
 
 The Geographical Distribution of Irish Ability : D. J. 
 O'Donoghue (O'Donoghue & Co., 1906), is an interesting 
 study of the facts denoted by the title. 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
 
 -iAtUBRARYOc^ -jAlUBRARYQr^ ,55\EUNIVERy/A ^lOSANCfl^y. 
 
 ""'^t iunri ii-ci 1^^^ 
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
 1^ 
 
 aofcaui 
 
 1 
 
 yomm |g,0CT19 mi 
 
 " f . 
 -^dimr. / ) D / "03 
 
 ,v 
 
 -m-m^y 
 
 JlB I i; 
 
 %»»« 
 
 ^iUBRA' 
 
 u 
 
 %Mnv: 
 
 ^OFCAUI 
 
 
 ^^MWSOl^ %a3AINfta«^ 
 
 ,5MEUNIV!RS/A ^vlOSANGE^r;. ^AjUBRARY^^, ^iUBRARYQ<-
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 CAllFOff^ ^OF 
 
 
 
 
 007 720 974 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 394 028 5 
 
 O IX. 
 
 -r p 
 
 <=s u. 
 
 JR 
 
 .'^ 
 
 -CrtEl'