WAITAHUNA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 41, 8 February 1895, Page 15

WAITAHUNA.

(From an occasional Correspondent )

February 3rd. Last Suiday the Very Rev Father O'Leary spoke o a project be has long had at heart — the revival, among Irish settlers, of the Irish language — the language our forefathers spoke in. To thoss who had come from the west of Ireland, in particular from Galway, Cork, Kerry, and had, like himself, spoken Celtic in their childhood, he urged to teach their children their native language, to teach them by degrees to speak it in the home circle, beginning with the commonest and simplest phrases, and gradually extending their knowledge. They might also accustom themselves to saying the Boaary in Irish. The Gaelic movement is spreading over the world, particularly in Ireland and Americi, where genuine and successful efforts are being made to prevont the old language becoming cbsolete. In the national scbcols.in Irelaud, Irish is now placed on the curriculum side by side with ancient and m jdern languages, and the teacher receives result fees for the teaching of it as for French or Latin. Tbe Irish is a more beautiful more expressive language than any modern one, aid it ia an old 'anguage. When the English, which has so largely superseded it was n ) language at all the Irish was fully deve - lopad. But that was in the days whea Ireland, as a centre of learning sent forth her priestly sons 'to chase the o d world's night.' For the last three or foar hundred years our language has been at a standstill whilst the English language, derived from Anglo-Saxon, Norman Frmch, and Celtic, is advancing ; at a s'anistill fjr it was the policy of England to suppress the (Jeltic ton*ua and rear Irish children in ignorance alike of their n Uive language and their religion ; the days of the d3natiouaUiers, of thah-dja 80*1)01 misfcara, psnal laws and hunted oriests, the days of the oarraig an, afrion, when Irish schools were closed to Irish children, an I tueir endowments devoted to prcslyti in<r, and all this to samp out the Irish langU'ge for national faith would surely go with it. Colonial Irish youth, Faiher O'Lary rays, have an idea that Irish is synonmous wiib ignoraDce. Should we wonder at it ? IrißQ speaking people that Colonial children ki.ow are rarely educated. Thosa who speak it best can seldom real or wiite, and the majority of Colonial children do not know, only those who haveb3en educated in Citholic schools know and realise that the unlettered Irishman or woman in these days is bearing the nsult of centuries of persecution and that persecution borne to savo the faith to us. The denationalises went to work on the principle "ao educated country is necessirily a faithless countiy. Strange as it may seem the b.'st Irish scholars are German, French, Italian, an 1 Spanish. Tbe best Irish grammar and dictionary ever published were written by a G3rman. Tb a; continental scholars are enthusiastic philol (gists, anl in coitinsatal libraries there arq manuscripts left by old Irish misßion.rs from the days of St Columb? kille and St Columbanus. The Irish missioners, when they went over to re-organise Christianity in Continental Europe spoke and wrote in their own beru iful language, and dying, left manuscripts to become, cyn'uries after they then salves had passed a^ay, an active element in tbe Irish language ; for it is the | reeence of these manuscripts in foreign libaries that bring philologists over to Ireland to study the language they were wri t*.n in, and brings home to the Iriah people the painful fact that a few more decades of indiffjren!ism and their beautiFul languig j , tha root of all other?, the 'anguaga 'hat preserved, nay, enshrined Sc Patrick's priceless gif 1 , "the heritage of Faith," will soon be a thing of the past.

Particulars of the Government returns of land and mortgages will b<2 found in another place. Mr Petor Dick, Moray Place, may be referred to with co fi Jence by all who are in need of the services of tbe wwchmaker and j.iweller. Mr Dick also provides a stock of spectacles suitable to all requirements.