Since, however, Celtic art is the fad of the day, it is but natural that the Celtic tongue should claim some share of attention; but to expect it to make any serious inroads in the national life, or, indeed, in the lives of the “transplanted Irish” of America and elsewhere, is sheer folly. It were easier to have hoped for the success of Volapuk, which, itself, a dozen or more years ago, died of its own sheer weight of consonants.
Now that Ireland is supposedly prospering at the hands of a solicitous foster-mother, the “Board of Agriculture,” the demand for Irish products and the interest in Irish art and history are undoubtedly increasing. So, too, the interest in Irish literature, in the abstract; but the Irish tongue itself has a poor chance for popularity.
It is well to recall that the mass of the Irish people speak the English tongue alone, a tenth part, perhaps, being able to speak both Gaelic and English, with but a very few who know Gaelic alone. In the south and west the latter is much more spoken than in the north and east, where it is fast disappearing. The Irish Gaelic, or Erse, resembles both the Scottish and the Welsh Gaelic. Some common words frequently met with in travelling about Ireland are:
| Agh, field. Ard, eminence. Ath, ford. Aun, river. Bally, town. Ban or Bane, white or fair. Beg, little. Ben, mountain. Bun, base or bottom. Car or Cahir, city. Carrick, Carrig, Carrow, a rock. Cork, Corcagh, marsh. Clar, plain. Croagh, Croghan, peak. Clogh, Clough, stone. Curragh, moor. Clon, meadow. Col, Cul, corner. Deargh, red. Derry, oak grove. Dhu, Dua, black. Don or Dun, fastness. | Donagh, church. Drom, hill-range. Inch, Inis, island. Ken, head. Kil, church or burying-ground. Knock, hillock. Lick, flat stone. Lough, lake. Magh, plain. Main, collection of hillocks. Mor, great. Muck, sow. Rath, mound or fort. Ross, headland, also a wood. Shan, old. Sliebh, range of mountains. Teach, house. Temple, church. Tom, Toom, tumulus. Tra, strand. Tober, Tubber, well or spring. Tullagh, Tully, knell. |
In the little country towns, where the blue cloaks gather thick upon the platforms of the
