IRELAND
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IRELAND
of William, it is unnecessary to mention that the
entire social fabric of Gaeldom fell with them, and
amongst other things the colleges of the bards and
brehons, which had existed, often on the same spot
and in possession of the same land, for over a thousand
years. The majority of the learned men were slain,
or driven out, or followed their masters into exile.
No patrons for the native arts remained in Ireland,
and, worse still, there was no security for the life of
the artist. The ancient metres, over three hundred of
which had at one time been cultivated, and which,
though reduced to less than a score in the Elizabethan
Eeriod, were still the property only of the le.irned and ighly educated, so intricate were the verse forms, now died away completely. There was, perhaps, not a single writer living by the middle of the eighteenth century who could compose correct verses in the classical metres of the schools.
On the other hand, however, there arose a new kind of poetry, in which the consonant rhyming of the old school was replaced by vowel chiming or vowel rhymes, and in which only the syllables on which the stress of the voice fell were counted; a splendid lyrical poetry sprang up amongst the people themselves upon these lines. The chief poets of these latter times were in very reduced circumstances, mostly schoolmasters or farmer.s, and very different indeed in status from the refined, highly educated, and stately poets who had a century or two before sat at the right hand of powerful chieftains advising them in peace and war. A usual theme of the new poets, who seemed to revel in their newly found liberty of expression, was the grievances of Ireland sung under a host of allegorical names, the chances of the Stuarts returning, and the bitterness of the present as compared with the glories of the past, or the vision of Ireland appearing as a beautiful maiden. The poets of the South used even to hold annual bardic sessions, though such attempts must always have been attended with great danger, for the poG- session of a manuscript was often sufficient cause for persecuting or imprisoning the possessor; many fine books were on this account hidden away or walled up lest they should bring the owner into trouble with the authorities. Even as late as 179S, the grammarian Neilson of County Down, who was a Protestant clergyman of the Established Church and perfectly loyal to the Government, was arrested by a dozen dragoons and accused of treason because he preached in Irish.
It is very difficult to convey in the English lan- guage any idea of the beautifully artistic and recon- dite measures in which the poets of the last two or three centuries have rejoiced, both in Ireltiud and in the Highlands of Scotland, where also iiey pro- duced a splendid lyrical outburst, abou* the same time as in Ireland, and on the same lines Suffice it to say that most of their modern poetry was written and is being written to this very day upon a wonderful scheme of vowel sounds, arranged in such a manner that first one and then another vowel will strike the ear at skilfully recurring intervals. Some poems are written entirely on the se sound, others on the o, others on the u (oo), f (ce), or 6, (au) sounds, but most upon a delightful intermingling of two or more of them. Here is a typical verse of Tadhg Gaelach O'Sullivan, who died in ISOO and who consecrated his muse, which had at first lo<l him astray, to the service of religion, his poems producing a profound effect for good all over the South of Ireland. The entire poem is made upon the sounds of ^ (a;) and o, but, while the arrangement in the first half of the verse is 0/6, 6/0, 6/0, o, the arrangement in the second half is o. 6/0, 6/0, 6/6. To miderstand the effect that this vowel rhyming should produce, we must remem- ber that the vowels are (lw('lt upon in Irish, and not pas.sed over quickly as they are in English: —
The poets we praise arc up-rn/sing the notes
Of their lays, and they know how their tones will delight. For the golden-haired lady so graceful so poseful
So Gaelic so glorious enthroned in our sight. Unfolding a tale how the soi/1 of a foy
Must be clothed in the frame of a lady so bright, Untold are her graces, a rose in her face is,
And no man so staid is but faints at her sight. Owen Roe O'Sullivan, the witty and facetious name- sake of the pious Tadhg Gaelach, is the best known of the southern poets, and Rafterv, who. like his famous Scottish contemporary Donnchadh Ban Mackintyre, was completely illiterate, but who composed some admirable religious as well as secular pieces, is best known in Connacht.
Irish Folk-Literalure. — If any country in the workl has ever undergone an educational martyrdom it is Ireland. From 1649, down to almost the pres- ent day, her Catholic population were either denied education by law or given an education which taught them to neglect their own country. Under the care- fully devised system of "National" education, as it was called, which came into being about the year IS.'iO, and which supplanted the hedge schools of the natives, the children, who over a great part of Ireland were still Irish-speaking, were deprived of the right of being taught to read or write the language of their homes. Over a great part of the island, schoolmasters who knew no Irish were appointed to teach children who knew no English. Needless to say, this entailed a horrible amount of useless suffering all round, and blasted for over two generations the life-prospects of many hundreds of thousands of Irish children, by insisting upon their growing up unable to read or write, sooner than teach them to read and write the only language that they knew. Up to this period Irish MSS., which hail, on the relaxation of the penal laws, ceased to be dangerous possessions, were commonly possessed and cherished, liut from this time forward the peasantry began to neglect them. The new generation, taught in the government schools, conceived that Irish was the mark of the beast, and grew a.shamed of it, and as a natural consequence the MSS. perished by hundreds and thousands. Admirable poets existed in Connacht and in Ulster in the middle and at the close of the eighteenth century whose works have absolutely disappeared, except a very few that were enshrined in people's memories. The books that contained them were lost, torn up or liurned. It is only a few years ago that an English gentleman stopping for the fishing at a farm-house in a midland county found a whole wa.shing-basket full of Irish MSS. thrown into the rivi to make room on the loft for his port- manteau. A friend saved for the present writer three MSS. which he found the children tearing up on the floor in a house in the County Clare, one of which contained one of the most valuable sagas known for elucidating the belief i.i metempsychosis of the ancient Irish, one for which d'Arbois de Jubainville, who was aware of its existence, had searched the libraries of Europe in vain.
The story continued thus imtil the rise of the Gaelic League and its rapid spread during the la.st few years. But in spite of the enormous loss of modern MSS. the memory of the people has preserved a very large quantity of excellent folk-poems on all the usual topics of folk -poetry, songs of religion, love, wine (or its Irish equivalent), and beauty; eulogies, laments, death-.songs, etc. The.se have only recently been to some exti'nt recovered. In prose also the ))('ople have a large unwritten literature of folk-stories, the equivalent of the German Marrhcn, l)ut as a rule much longer and better told. Many of these are stories of l'"inn and his Fenian warriors already mentioned, but many others are of pure
