NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 7 November 1918, Page 26

NOTES

Irish Songs The fact that the people who are most interested in oppressing Ireland do not like Irish songs is a very sound reason why we should love them. If they did not matter the enemies would not bother about them ; but when boys and girls are pursued over the hills and far away by the gallant British army because they sing Irish songs we come to think that the songs must be worth while. We can remember the time when in Ireland it was possible to attend a concert and hear no Irish song sung. That time is no more. The Gaelic League saw to that. One night, in the early days of the League, we heard Douglas Hyde lecture. And how do you think he began ? lie told us of the shock he got when on his way from Dublin that day he saw a young man in the train reading Comic Cuts. "Good Lord," he shouted, "Good Lord ! an intelligent-looking young Irishman reading that English rag!" That was the spirit of righteous anger that saved Ireland. For, make no mistake about it, Ireland is saved. Ireland may be oppressed by force; England may keep her in chains by might, but Ireland is stronger and more determined than ever that she will never serve as a slave. Her soul is safe. And

one of the things that helped to save her was the awakening of such a national pride in our own songs that it soon became impossible to hold a concert at which most of the items on the programme were not Irish. Then came the days when wo were to hear the heart of a nation beating in pride to the strains of a national music that inspired and encouraged yountr and old. Then it became a disgrace to listen to low English music-hall songs, and instead of them the rafters rang to the fiery strains of o'Donnell Abu or A Nation Once Again-; and the sweet pure, tender notes of the love y old melodies stirred the pulses of the children of the Gael and awoke slumbering souls to an appreciation of their own glorious heritage of r ■ Favorite Songs We all have our favorite songs, and no man shall argue us out of our fancies for them. l) c gustibus non est disputandum. If we were asked to name our own favoritesi we should put fust of all to*'Co«lin, into which all the sadness and all the beauty and all the tenderness of the heart of Caithlin Ni Houlihan have been breathed. It is good to hear it sung, but it £ unspeakably better to hear it played on a fine old violin by a. player who feels it in his soul and can sen it to your soul. Another air that wo love is that -Inch Handel u«cd to rave about old air of Eilcm A oon, which comes to us now in Gerald Griffin's words, drenched with the haunting loveliness of Irish H° man - Ce ' S ° ft and beautiful as the «>uUi v>md that blows D spring over the woods above the Ba row above winch Coolhill Castle, where the air ma%stv To* and P l T d ' StiU lo ° ks down m rui » ed majesty lor a third we would take a son* of a different type. / U no language have we ™ found the spirit •of i patriotism and the heart-breaking sense of nostalgia better expressed than in that grand war Ingram. *? *** *"* which ™ W Kdi, Some on the shores of distant lands lheir weary hearts have laid And by the stranger's heedless hands ineir narrow graves were made. But though their clay be far awav Beyond the Atlantic foam, In true men, like you men.' Their spirit's still at home. Then here's their memory, may it be For us a guiding light, To cheer our strife for liberty, And teach us to unite. Through good and ill, be Ireland's still 1 hough sad as theirs, your fate; And true men, be you men, Like those of 'ninety-eight. Padraic Pearse committed S reatK:t of ,f? the great blunders committed by the 'well-known fool general*' to whose tender mercies the lives of * the Irish waf the °killin the f E p S< T • Ri i mS was the killing of Padraic Pearse. G. B Shaw compgained in the English press of the crime of putting out of circulation" so much cenius and talent; and of that gifted band no one waf mo Z ab e and more talented than Pearse. His verse we ttTrff th ft ater P art ~ thr -gh translations from the Gaelic, but his prose has now won the admiration of the literary Wld. Even the bigoted English papers that clamored for his blood have been compelled to rcognise that he was a writer of beau tiful English and that his style has a delicate grace and charm that the world will miss, The style the man Pearse s writings remain to tell us of'his spiritual ideals and of d his dreams of beauty; but S?l Maxwell took good care that we shall know himself m

no more. Speaking in August at Rathfamham in -aid of St. Enda's College, Father Augustine, 0.5.F.C., who blessed Pearse for the last time on the day he went forth to meet the English rifles at Arbour Hill Barracks, told his hearers something about the soul of the brave young Irishman who founded the College and made it a success: "Padraic Pearse had much in common with Father Matthew, who, too, was a pioneer in education, who had a great love for the ways and sports of boys, whose ambition was to make as many boys as possible brave and good men. Padraic Pearse, I say, "had much in common with Father Matthew, or, to express my idea better, I would., say he had a very Franciscan outlook on life: he was steeped in the spirit of the Fioretti; and I could easily imagine every emotion of his soul crying out in the language of Tennyson : 'Sweet St. Francis of Assisi ! Would that he were here again.' ... Some one has said that the best clue to Franciscanism is found in these words: tic prayeth best who loveth beat A!! things both, great and small; For the dear God who loveth us Ho made and loveth nil!' • ■' Love is the. key to the character of Padraic Pearse, a strong and burning love, a manly and childlike love. Like Francis of Assisi, he loved simplicity and had all the charming straightforwardness of truth. Like Francis of Assisi. he loved to idealise his country, and he revelled in the feats of the Gaelic heroes of the past. Like Francis of Assisi, he loved the mountains, the hills and the valleys which spoke to him of the beauty and the power of God. - Like Francis 'of Assisi, he loved all wild animals, and would not harm even the river rats that fed upon the rabbits, nor the wily otter that swallowed the fish in the Hermitage stream. Like Francis of Assisi, he loved the feathered minstrels of the woods and used melodious speech of his brothers and sisters, the birds.' Like Francis of Assisi, he loved all men from his heart, and hated only the tyranny and injustice that enslave our race. Like Francis of Assisi, he was an orator who despised tho tricks of the rhetoricians and spoke from the abundance of his soul. Like Francis of Assisi, in fine, he was a poet who sang of all things bright and beautiful during life, who sang very softly and sadly when near to death, who never thought of death but as ' a friend of friends' and as the ' Herald of God,' and who, in very truth, died as one transformed and transfigured, with the fragrance of Christ's real presence in his heart." God help us all! Padraic Pearse was put to death, and Carson was made a Cabinet Minister.