ARCHBISHOP WALSH ON THE IRISH LANGUAGE MOVEMENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 49, 6 April 1894, Page 31

ARCHBISHOP WALSH ON THE IRISH LANGUAGE MOVEMENT.

THE following appeared recently in the Dublin Evening Telegraph: His Grace tbe Most Eev Dr Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, has bad the kindness to give an interview to a repieseutative of the Evening Telegraph on the subject of the Irish language aod the movement now on foot to promote tbe study of it. Our representntive started tbe conversation by asking his Grace how long he has been interested in the work of making our national language more widely known. It is an old subject of interest with me, replied the Archbishop. I took it op as a student iv Maynooth during my theological course there. We had a class of Irißh. For the students from certain dioceses, where Irish was at all generally spoken, it was an obligatory study. Students could leora the language so as to be able tc preach in it or to hear confessions. For Dublin students the study of Irish wn quite optional. But as theie was an opportunity of learning something of tbe old language, I did not like to lose it. You did not know anything of Irish before you became a student in Maynooth, did yon ? No, I did not know a word of Irish when I entered the college, or when I joined the liish class. I remember it was through the kindness of a senior fellow-student, tbe present Bishop of Galway, that I got hold of an Irish grammar, a treasure by no means easy then for a student to secure. It was Father Ulick Bourke's Grammar, a book tha', I hear, is not thought very much of now. But I found it a ostfnl book. Besides, we had no better. Societies for the preservation of the Irish language, with their numerous primers as helps to the learner, were not as yet in existence. We, students of that time, who knew nothing of Irish, and wished to learn it. had to work bard. Few, indeed, joined the class who were not bound by the college regulations to join it. In my year there was, 1 think, only another and myself. Somehow we managed to pull through. By the end of the year we were able to perform what we considered notable feats. We could read printel Irish, provided it was not over-difficult. This, of course, included the pronunciation of it. In that, at all events, we had useful help. Our old professor spoke with the pure, Boft accent of the West. How did you progress in the more difficult work of translating from English to Irish ? We had, of course, learned enough of Irish to translate into Englißb any passage of not more than average difficulty. At the end of tbe year, we were expected to write in Irish a prize essay on a Bubject given to tbe class by the Professor. There were very few of us, I think, who did not make some attempt at that. But I fear I must add that, with me, tbe whole effort was very much in the nature of a ttv,r de force. My year in the Irißh class at Maynooth was 1862. The knowledge that I gained melted away, bit by bit. In about ten years it was nil gone. I had had no opportunity of turning it to account, and no motive for keeping it up. But though you lost your knowledge of it in tbis way, Your Grace did not permit your interest in it to die away ? No, 1 never lost my interest in it. When the " Society for the Preservation of the Irish L.u^uagc " was formed, I became a member of it, and a subscriber to its funds. Then some sort of " row "or "split" got up between the members. I had not the slightest idea of what it was all about. 1 was a member of the Council, and did not see my way to take sides with one party or the other. So I withdrew. Tnen tbe Society split up into two distinct organisations, one calling itself a Bociety, the other a Union. I was pressed by each party to join them. Knowing absolutely nothing of the points at issue between them, I did not feel mjS'lf free to join either. When I became Archbishop, one of the two conflicting organisations stnt me a draft address of congratulation. Written in Irish, I Buppose ? Yee, in Irish. But I declined to receive it. I sud that whenever the two societies joined I sbould be bappy to encourage their united work, and to aid them in every way in my power. But so long as they represented conflicting foices, I felt constrained to hold aloof. Mr Maurice Healy, whose recent letters in the Freeman's Journal and National Press have dont so much to awaken tbe dormant interest in tbe study of our Irish language, has remarked in one of those letters that, in all the addresses that have of late years been presented to prominent Irishmen, there was not one in tbe ancient language of our own country. Well, for tbis I am responsible to the extent I have mentioned. I have in my possession the draft of the address which it was proposed by one of tbe contending societies to present to me, in Irish, eight years ago. I have never abandoned the hope that I may yet have the honor of receiving that address from a united body. Your Grace has recently been taking an active part in the Irish language movement ; will you tell me in wbat direction your effort has been directed ? My recent effort has been directed towards the removal of what I hove always regarded as the great barrier to the study of Irish.

What use can there be in asking people to learn the language when, if they torn to any Irish grammer, they will rind page after page studded over with words like bheannuighe cular and d-teangvihadaoisi I have felt th« difficulty in my own case. I have, 1 may say, all bat forgotten the prooonnciation of Irish, and so have practically lost my hold upon the language. lam anxious to recover it. I have always felt that I could do bo only if the skilled Irish scholars who undertake 10 teach tbe language would adopt some easily-understood method of indicating the pronunciation of Irish words. I have always felt satisfied that the thiog could be done. I have recently suggested a way of doing it. I am happy to find my view adopted by Irish scholara like Dr Joyce. Mr Maurice Healy, Mr MacNeill, and Father O'Growney, the present professor of Irish in Maynooth. Your Grace is in favour of a phonetic system 1 It is something like that with which the name of Mr Pitman is associated. Yes ; my fundamental idea is to work upon Mr Pitman's scale of vowel-sounds. Apart from the niceties of Irish pronunciations, which cannot be adequately indicated in the letters of the English alphabet i the main point to look to is the representation of the vowel-sounds. Tbeie is absolutely no difficulty in indicating these by means of English letters, provided always that we work upon the basis of the " Pitman " system. In the Weekly Freeman of December 23 I fully explained my view. It has, in fact, now been adopted by Father O'Growney as the way of indicating the Irish pronunciation in his " Practical Course of Instruction in Irish," which he commenced in last week's issue of tht paper. You know a great many difficulties stand in tbe way of adapting the phonetic system to Irish sounds. How do you propose that this should be done t My suggestion was to indicate the Irish vowel-sounds by suitable English letters. That, I consider, has now been done. But I may mention to you that within the last few days I have had put before me a singularly interesting suggestion, in which my idea of employ* ing a set of phonetic symbols constructed on the basis of the Pitman system appears in a highly developed form. A working carpenter in Dublin has sent me a page of an Irish book written oat by him phonetically, not in Irish or English letters, bat in actual shorthand symbols of the Pitman phonography. This particular specimen, I believe, was recently put before a well-known teacher of shorthand in Dublin, and he, knowing nothing of Irish, at once read it off from the shorthand characters so as to be thoroughly understood by an Irißh-speaking person who was present. The symbols of tbe Pitman system of shorthand are, as you know, strictly phonetic. They represent sound, and nothing but sound. Each symbol— straight line or enrve, as it may be — always represents the same Bound. Every sound is always represented by the same symbol. Hence it is that in this ingenious use of the Pitman Phonography, as applied to the writing of Irish, we find a method, sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes, of indicating the pronunciation of Irish words in an exceedingly simple way. Irish words when co written can be read with very great correctness even by a person who does not know a word of Irish, or, for that matter, a word of English either. The Tdetjraph could hardly manage a reproduction of this, could U ? I think our artist could devise a way of doing it, said our representative. Toen you can have it with pleasure, rejoinei the Archbishop. For the purposes of Father O'Growney's weekly Lessons, however, we shall have to be satisfied with the use of the simple plan, now adopted, of a phonetic key, constructed out of ordinary English letters, but on the lines of Mr Pitman's admirable arrangement of the spoken vowel-sounds.