A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day

CASE OF MOLAISE'S GOSPELS
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE GAELIC LEAGUE, THE ONLY BODY IN IRELAND WHICH APPEARS TO REALISE THE FACT THAT IRELAND HAS A PAST, HAS A HISTORY, HAS A LITERATURE, AND THE ONLY BODY IN IRELAND WHICH SEEKS TO RENDER THE PRESENT A RATIONAL CONTINUATION OF THE PAST,
THIS ATTEMPT AT A REVIEW OF THAT LITERATURE WHICH DESPITE ITS PRESENT NEGLECTED POSITION THEY FEEL AND KNOW TO BE A TRUE POSSESSION OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE.
DO CHONNRADH NA GAELDHEILGE. A Chonnradh chaoin, a Chonnradh chóir , Rinn obair mhór gan ór gan cabhair , Glacaidh an cíos a dlighim daoibh , Guidhim, glacaidh go caoimh mo leabhar. A cháirde cléibh is iomdha lá D'oibrigheamar go breágh le chéile , Gan clampar, agus fós gan éad , 'S dá mhéad ár dteas', gan puinn di-chéille. Chuireabhar súil 'san bhfear bhi dall , Thugabhar cluas don fhear bhi bodhar , Glacaidh an cíos do bheirim daoibh , ——Guidhim, glacaidh go caoimh mo leabhar.

The present volume has been styled—in order to make it a companion book to other of Mr. Unwin's publications—a Literary History of Ireland, but a Literary History of Irish Ireland would be a more correct title, for I have abstained altogether from any analysis or even mention of the works of Anglicised Irishmen of the last two centuries. Their books, as those of Farquhar, of Swift, of Goldsmith, of Burke, find, and have always found, their true and natural place in every history of English literature that has been written, whether by Englishmen themselves or by foreigners.
My object in this volume has been to give a general view of the literature produced by the Irish-speaking Irish, and to reproduce by copious examples some of its more salient, or at least more characteristic features.
In studying the literature itself, both that of the past and that of the present, one of the things which has most forcibly struck me is the marked absence of the purely personal note, the absence of great predominating names, or of great predominating works; while just as striking is the almost universal diffusion of a traditional literary taste and a love of literature in the abstract amongst all classes of the native Irish. The whole history of Irish literature shows how warmly the efforts of all who assisted in its production were appreciated. The greatest English bard of the Elizabethan age was allowed by his countrymen to perish of poverty in the streets of London, while the pettiest chief of the meanest clan would have been proud to lay his hearth and home and a share of his wealth at the disposal of any Irish ollamh. The love for literature of a traditional type, in song, in poem, in saga, was, I think, more nearly universal in Ireland than in any country of western Europe, and hence that which appears to me to be of most value in ancient Irish literature is not that whose authorship is known, but rather the mass of traditional matter which seems to have grown up almost spontaneously, and slowly shaped itself into the literary possession of an entire nation. An almost universal acquaintance with a traditional literature was a leading trait amongst the Irish down to the last century, when every barony and almost every townland still possessed its poet and reciter, and song, recitation, music, and oratory were the recognised amusements of nearly the whole population. That population in consequence, so far as wit and readiness of language and power of expression went, had almost all attained a remarkably high level, without however producing any one of a commanding eminence. In collecting the floating literature of the present day also, the unknown traditional poems and the Ossianic ballads and the stories of unknown authorship are of greater value than the pieces of bards who are known and named. In both cases, that of the ancient and that of the modern Irish, all that is of most value as literature, was the property and in some sense the product of the people at large, and it exercised upon them a most striking and potent influence. And this influence may be traced amongst the Irish-speaking population even at the present day, who have, I may almost say, one and all, a remarkable command of language and a large store of traditional literature learned by heart, which strongly differentiates them from the Anglicised products of the National Schools to the bulk of whom poetry is an unknown term, and amongst whom there exists little or no trace of traditional Irish feelings, or indeed seldom of any feelings save those prompted by (when they read it) a weekly newspaper.