SINN FEIN AND FRANCE

New Zealand Tablet, 7 November 1918, Page 18

SINN FEIN AND FRANCE

(By Jean Malye, in America.)

In the first half of the nineteenth century the debris ot time had covered many of the ancient landmarks ,of the. Holy City, and verbal tradition had acquired the unreliability with which long ages often endow it. So after a short stay in Jerusalem it was possible for Chinese Gordon—he who later added imperishable glory to England as the hero of Khartoum—to propose with some semblance of reason a reversal of many of the current beliefs concerning the identity of various holy places. Yet the doubt about landmarks, and even the complete disappearance of important sites, did not detract from the essential sanctity of the Holy City: Jerusalem still remained the city beloved of God, the cradle of our creed, the stronghold of our Faith. In like manner time had changed the outward aspect of France. The growth of materialism, which like a fungus spreads over our modern industrial civilisation, had covered the essential Catholicism of France: and Latin and other cultures with which as a continental nation we come in contact, had formed a veneer over the Celticism that is the essential racial attribute'of France. Excavators in Jerusalem uncovered the oldtime landmarks and verified the accuracy of our Biblical statements. Similarly, the upheaval of war once more brought to light in France the spirit which made men proudly point to her as the fillc aiuee et aimeo do VEf/isc, and revealed to a marvelling world the courage, the chivalry, and the genius for self-sacrifice that is France, a chaplet of virtues distinctive of our Celtic origin. This revelation of our Celtic- nature did not astonish me. I have always believed that France is a Celtic nation. Before war broke out I had only one aim in lifethe revival of the dormant Celtic national spirit of France. To fit myself for the achievement of this purpose it was necessary that I should study Celtism in a country which had not been contaminated by the alien cultures that had affected France. 1 therefore went to the land where Celtism has shown its greatest vitality, and where the Celtic genius reigns in its purest form. I went to Ireland and spent there a most happy and profitable year, studying the Gaelic language, learning Irish history, and gaining insight into the national traits of the Irish people. I was delighted to find in Ireland many souvenirs of the close friendship which for centuries has linked the Irish and the French. As a Frenchman I had been taught gratefully to remember the debt that the arms of France owe to the valor of the Irish ; the memory of Fontenoy and of the Irish Brigade is enshrined in the heart of every Frenchman. Similar memories are cherished to-day in Irish hearts. I chanced to spend a few weeks in an Irish-speaking district of Connemara. The peasantry there told me that I was the first Frenchman who had been in these parts since the days of the ’OB Rebellion. Old white-haired peasants, who had heard of these days at their mothers’ knees, streamed out to we’come me with a. cevd mdie faille , and escorted me amidst a forest of waving hats to a spot where a fine, tall, young fellow stood, singing in Gaelic, "The French are Coming on the Sea’’ for the sake of the Shan- Van , Vocht. These friendly relations between France and Ireland long antedate the Rebellion of 1798. It is from Franco that St. Patrick went to Ireland, and it is from the land' of the saints and the poets that St. Colum came to France. For centuries Irish missionaries, poets, and teachers gave freely to France the benefits of their unrivalled culture, and traces of their famous schools still remain to remind France of these bygone days of Irish greatness. In Ireland I soon became absorbed in the Irish national movement, in the unprecedented language and literary revival that was rapidly placing Ireland among the most notable of the cultured nations of the earth. I learned to know the Irish writers, poets, and thinkers —men like Yeats, Douglas Hyde,

"A. E.," Pach'aic Colum, P. H. Pearse, —men of whom any nation would be justly proud. I worked with, them, I played with them, I shared their hopes, and I felt their sorrows. They welcomed me to the Sinn Fein movement because I was a Frenchman, and because to their clear vision I was a unit of a nation that held ideals of nationalism identical with their own. " They were making a supreme and successful effort to change by their mystic power the poor old jaded woman into the young and beautiful Kathleen ni Hoolihan. They fought against the emigration that was draining them of their life blood ; against tuberculosis which was the consequence of their economic degradation ; and against the drunkenness in which the weak of heart sought to forget their state. They supported Irish industries and they encouraged co-operation among the peasantry. In other words, they strove to make Ireland young, healthy, prosperous, and free. Where is the true Frenchman who would not honor these patriots, who would not applaud such a national effort ? The Sinn Feiners were not pro-German, otherwise as a Frenchman I could not have found myself in harmony with them. On the contrary, as I have already mentioned, wherever I went in Ireland I found that my French nationality was a passport to their favor. And the Sinn Feiners were always eager to know France better and to be better known in France. Returning to France, I worked to make the Irish revival known in France ; I founded a small newspaper devoted to the interests of Celtism ; I established the Gaelic League of France; and I planned for young French students to go to Ireland ; and for Irish Gaels to come to France. Then war broke out ; and from the first day of the mobilisation I have had perforce no other interest than to aid in the defeat of Germany. I therefore lost touch with Ireland. But in the trendies I found the school of Celtism. There we daily learn that the racial attributes of the German are alien, and destructive, to the racial attributes of the Celt; and our gallant soldiers constantly reveal by their deeds that the Celtism of their ancestors is the fundamental force in their souls. They are indeed the inheritors of the chivalry of the knights of old, the knights of. the Holy Grail, the knights of the Fiana of Erin. They fight not for themselves, not even for their own, but for France and for liberty, that plain peoples everywhere may live and be free. This, then, is our eompellng reason. I conceive it to be also the essential purpose of the Sinn Feiners whom I have been privileged to know. At the end of the war, should I survive, I feel that as a Frenchman I can then best serve my country by returning to Ireland and by laboring there to strengthen the friend"ship that does exist, that has always existed, and that happily ever shall exist between the Irish and the French. That friendship contains much that is of good augury for the future of Ireland, and for the future of France. The nationalism which the Sinn Feiners were preaching in Ireland when-1 was among them is the nationalism, that France is now fighting to defend. I therefore consider that every true Celt is an enemy of Germany; and hence that every Sinn Feiner who is true to his essential principles is necessarily a friend of France in her present struggle.