The fountains whence they rose,
As filled by many a rivulet
The stately Shannon flows!”
And the fine verses of the Irish poet may be applied with almost equal propriety to the cosmopolitan population of the United States—more varied in race than even that of Ireland. No good citizen is less of an American simply because he scorns to forget, or to allow his children to forget, “the fountains whence they rose.” Anglo-Americans never forget it, nor do Franco-Americans, or Americans of Teutonic origin; or, in fact, Americans of any noted race. Americans of Irish birth or origin have quite as good a right to be proud of their cradle-land and their ancient ancestry as any other element in this Republic; and the study of impartial Irish history by pupils of all races would do much to soften prejudices and remove unpleasant impressions that slanderous, partial historians have been mainly instrumental in creating.
The language—Gaelic, or Erse, as it is called in our day—spoken by the Milesian conquerors of Ireland so many thousand years ago, is not yet nearly extinct on Irish soil; and it is often used by Irish emigrants in various parts of the world. More than thirty centuries have faded into eternity since first its soft, yet powerful, accents were heard on Ireland’s shore, but still nearly a million people out of four and a half millions speak it, and hundreds of thousands have more or less knowledge of the venerable tongue in its written form. Great efforts have been put forth of late years to promote its propagation throughout the island, and it is a labor of love in which all classes, creeds, and parties in Ireland cordially work together. It is not intended, of course, to supplant the English language, but to render Gaelic co-equal with it, as in Wales—a thoroughly Celtic country, in which the native language—Kymric—has been wondrously revived during the past and present century.
CHAPTER IV
The Religion of Ancient Ireland—Many Writers say it was Worship of the Sun, Moon, and Elements
WE have mentioned that sun-worship was one of the forms of ancient Irish paganism. There is much difference of opinion on this point, and the late learned Gaelic expert, Professor Eugene O’Curry, holds that there is no reliable proof of either sun-worship or fire-worship in antique Irish annals. On the other hand, we have the excellent historian, Abbé McGeoghegan, chaplain of the famous Franco-Irish Brigade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, supported by other authorities, instancing the sun as, at least, one of the objects of Irish pagan adoration. Other writers, including the painstaking McGee, seem to accept the startling assertion that human victims were occasionally sacrificed on the pagan altars. This, however, is open to doubt, as the Irish people, however intense in their religious convictions, have never been deliberately cruel or murderously fanatical. We quote on these sensitive subjects—particularly sensitive where churchmen are concerned—from McGeoghegan and McGee, both strong, yet liberal, Catholic historians. On page 63 of his elaborate and admirable “History of Ireland,” McGeoghegan remarks: “Great honors were paid to the Druids and Bards among the Milesians, as well as to those among the Britons and Gauls. The first, called Draoi in their language, performed the duties of priest, philosopher, legislator, and judge. Cæsar has given, in his Commentaries, a well-detailed account of the order, office, jurisdiction, and doctrine of the Druids among the Gauls. As priests, they regulated religion and its worship; according to their will, the objects of it were determined, and the ‘divinity’ often changed; to them, likewise, the education of youth was intrusted. Guided by the Druids, the Milesians generally adored Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Apollo, the sun, moon, and wind; they had also their mountain, forest, and river gods. These divinities were common to them and to other nations of the world.... According to the Annals of Ulster, cited by Ware, the antiquarian, the usual oath of Laegore (Leary) II, King of Ireland, in the time of St. Patrick, was by the sun and wind.”
McGee, writing of the same subject, on pages 5 and 9 of his “Popular History of Ireland,” says: “The chief officers about the kings, in the first ages, were all filled by the Druids or pagan priests; the Brehons, or judges, were usually Druids, as were also the Bards, the historians of their patrons. Then came the Physicians, the Chiefs who paid tribute to or received annual gifts from the sovereign, the royal Stewards, and the military leaders, or Champions.... Their religion in pagan times was what the moderns call Druidism, but what they called it themselves we now know not. It was probably the same religion anciently professed by Tyre and Sidon, by Carthage and her colonies in Spain; the same religion which the Romans have described as existing in great part of Gaul, and, by their accounts, we learn the awful fact that it sanctioned, nay, demanded, human sacrifices. From the few traces of its doctrines which Christian zeal has permitted to survive in the old Irish language, we see that Belus or Crom, the god of fire, typified by the sun, was its chief divinity—that two great festivals were held in his honor on days answering to the first of May and last of October. There were also particular gods of poets, champions, artificers, and mariners, just as among the Romans and Greeks. Sacred groves were dedicated to these gods; priests and priestesses devoted their lives to their service; the arms of the champion and the person of the king were charmed by them; neither peace nor war was made without their sanction; their own persons and their pupils were held sacred; the high place at the king’s right hand and the best fruits of the earth and the water were theirs. Old age revered them, women worshiped them, warriors paid court to them, youth trembled before them, princes and chiefs regarded them as elder brethren. So numerous were they in Erin, and so celebrated, that the altars of Britain and Western Gaul, left desolate by the Roman legions, were often served by hierophants from Ireland, which, even in those pagan days, was known to all the Druidic countries as the Sacred Island.”