IRELAND

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 13725, 15 October 1908, Page 2

IRELAND

HER NEW ERA. BETTER FOOD AND HOUSES. (By Mrs Dryhurst.) The Gaelic League Festival and Exhibition in August last, to which the remotest parts of Ireland contribute a share, ended with an excursion to the gleno of Wicklow. Between 9 and 10 o'clock the leagues gathered at Harcourtktreet Station, whence a special train conveyed them to the glens. With perfect weather, and a choice of visiting the Devil's Glen, the Vale of Clara, and Glendulou'gh, with its seven churches and round tower, Ovoca, "in whose bosom the bright waters meet," or Gl-ninalue, the (.cent- of many a fierce battle, there we:e not many who stayed behind in Dublin.

This was ony the twelth Oireachtas, and yet not a word of English was to be heard. Dublin has at last shaken off the stigma of being completely ignorant of her native tongue. But it is not only tha language that has risen from the dustheaps of the past; there is also a marvellous quickening of Ireland's industrial and artistic life, and both craftsmen and artist* are marching shoulder to *.houlder, as in the days of trade guilds and widespread European commerce, such as .Mis Green, in her history of " Ireland and Its Undoing," describes.

I spent a day a mo "8 '' K> industries, and wua surprised * and delighted to find the advance all round in material and workmanship. My housewifely soul rejoiced also to find that nuny household god» I had long coveted were to be had in Ireland for halt or a third of too pric* wo give in London. Nor is. the result of •■»woating." the cur>e of modern labour; for on all hands one heard of the better tragi-* and the greater regularity of them, the better housing and the better feeding : factor* whicn, I believe, will do mole to reduce the number of consumpuves in lit land than any Tuberculosis 1 ill that mav be devised a 1 Wehlmin.iter. CAUSKS OF CONSUMPTION'. I have long thought, from a i"'dy cf Irish statistics, that the greater number of pulmonary disuses in Ireland resulted fium bad housing and exposure to weather, without proper clothing or proper feeding, just, at the same time when the human hotly nerds more care, tho time, between childhood and maturity. Kverynhere one seen h»re healthy, iutelligent" children, but the young men and womeu that, grow from them aio neither one nor th e other. The work tiny tak« up is uninteresting, and the |»y they tvceive if shamefully small. Neai (.'arlow, on the way Ui Dublin, I Uilfc-1 with a s-ul eyed miners daut;btor. who told me that the miners worked tw.-lvr hours a d.iy for 12s a wwl. 1 a«ked what rent they paid for their rot t.igi-«. and heard that, you could K er * .-»!*.ij;.' for 7d a week "The kind <.f rot t ;i er .an be imagined. It is n<> w..nd«-r that tin- *!--ady ntre.im u( •'inigr.ttii.ii t'"I!u: tiir 3inlu-.tr inl r-vjv.il indicate* a n-w spirt the •pin: »! equity—which i«

strangely like fellowship. At. Kilkenny Captain'Otway Cuffe has opened a- factory for wood-workers, in which .the conditions of labour are ideal. While looking, at the beautiful inlaid tables.and chairs displayed at the Oireachtas, I learned" that the" Kilkenny wood-workers were leading human, happy lives; that they had good wages, a nd w-ere renting pretty cottages standing in gardens, for 3s 6d a week; that suitable quarters, were provided for the unmarried men;- and that- they had a lecture-hall, library, concerts, classes, and playing 'fields. This is the new patriotism," which has hammered the pike heads into chisels, and lets the ash saplings grow to their full size for better purposes than lance-poles. Before Ireland can regain her full strength there remains much to be done. Her middle classes still stand too much aloof, a n d for that reason the new mid-dle-class school which opens next- September, -under the head-mastership of Mr H. S. Pearse, 8.A., is a. good omen. The prospectus shows that it will be on very up-to-date lines, but on purely Irish ones. The site is juet outside Dublin, on the south side. The railways are at present the greatest drawbacks, for they "are "wretchedly managed. The new line of steamers between Fishguard and Rosslare are the acme of comfort and swiftness, but the train service in connection on this side is ridiculous. The spirit of the majority or Irish railway officials is still too much like the porter at Limerick Junction, who, being asked if the next 'train went to Dublin, replied : 'lt laves here at 2 o'clock, but the divil a "bit do I know where it goes at all, at all."