It does not strike the traveller as singular that—while English is spoken by all—he hears so much of the ancient tongue in remote sections; there is the natural home for it: but I confess I was much astonished during a recent visit to Canada to find that, after one hundred and fifty years, from Montreal east, French is the language of the people. While in the larger cities English is of course spoken, it is not the prevailing tongue, and in all the small towns and rural districts French is the tongue, and thousands of the people cannot speak English at all. In one of the greater cities if a man would obtain a position in the police or fire departments he must be able to read, write, and speak French, but a Frenchman is not obliged to read, write, and speak English. All the estimates for public improvements are in French alone, though the bidders are all English or Americans, generally the latter. Of course, they must be translated into English by the bidders, and what an opportunity is here presented for breaking a contract by a claim of incorrect translation. In fact, it would seem to an outsider that Canada is much more loyal to France than to England, even after a century and a half of Saxon rule. Giving due allowance to the treaty with France and to the power of the Church of Rome, such a state of affairs at this date is singular to say the least.
As for the attempt in Ireland to revive the ancient Celtic amongst these people, personally I do not think it will be successful, nor do I understand the move; while it is well to keep it alive for students and savants, what possible good can it serve the desperately poor and ignorant of the land, how can they use it? At least so it appears to a looker-on. (I have not been able to extract a good reason for the move from any of its many advocates with whom I have conversed on this tour.)
Surely English is destined to be the language of men, not only in Ireland but all over the world, and to my thinking this is the greatest work accomplished by that nation. After all, is it not a case of the survival of the fittest, and can any one deny that that tongue is already the most widely spoken and more rapidly spreading than any or all others?
Go where you will you will find that next to the language of each country it is the one in use, and I believe that in generations to come it will wipe out all the trouble caused by the inhabitants of Babylon in their desire to get above high-water mark.
For professors and students it would be well to maintain these ancient tongues as long as possible, but surely the poor of Ireland could be benefited to a greater degree by other means than an attempt to restore to daily use the ancient, almost forgotten, and fast dying tongue of their forefathers.
As for the travellers in this land to-day it is confusing and irritating to be confronted by a sign-post of absolutely no value, intelligible only to those who know the Celtic tongue. The peasants cannot read them and do not require them, hence, to all concerned, they mean as much here as the verst posts do to a stranger in Russia.
As for the milestones, they tell a story hereabouts concerning what happened between two towns separated some eighteen miles from each other. The figures on the stones having become almost obliterated by time and weather an order was given to a workman in one of the towns to recut the lot. He took them up one by one and placed them in the proper order in his stoneyard, but when completed it is evident that, before the work of replacing them began, he must have celebrated the event in the usual manner. Certainly the fact remains that he began at the wrong end of the pile, placing the one marked "17" where the first stone should have been, and so on with the lot, the result being that sundry gentlemen the worse for wear coming from one town discovered that their utmost endeavours to reach home only took them farther afield—where they finally brought up is not related. As for the man from the other town, when at the end of the first mile "17" stared at him from the stone he became convinced that the devil was after him and shook his first at a solitary magpie which had just flown over his head. I must confess that I doubt these tales. However but for our maps we should have been completely astray in western Ireland for all the use the sign-posts were to us.
There is a charming little town at Recess, but unless you are a sportsman, not much of interest.