“In reason all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery; but in fact eleven men well armed will certainly subdue one single man in his shirt....  Those who have used to cramp liberty have gone so far as to resent even the liberty of complaining, although a man upon the rack was never known to be refused the liberty of roaring as loud as he thought fit.”—­JONATHAN SWIFT.

The loss of her language by Ireland was, politically, the worst calamity which could have befallen her, for it lent colour to the otherwise unsupported assertion that she was a mere geographical expression in no way differing from the adjoining island.  The manner in which the revival of the Irish tongue has been taken up by the whole country with, literally, the support of peasant and peer is one of the most remarkable phenomena of modern Irish life.  That it has any direct political significance is untrue, for the aim of its pioneers in the Gaelic League has been fulfilled, and it remains strictly non-sectarian and non-political.  From the purely utilitarian point of view, no doubt a polytechnic could provide a dozen subjects in which a more profitable return could be made for the money and time invested than does the study of Gaelic, but book-keeping or shorthand would not have roused the enthusiasm which this revival of a half dead language has evoked and which is incidentally an educative movement in that the learning of a new language is of a direct value as a mental training, while as a social organisation it has done more in inculcating a public spirit and a proper pride than could otherwise possibly have been achieved.  The revival of the Czech language when almost dead, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the eminent success of bi-lingualism in Flanders, are hopeful signs for the preservation of a National characteristic, the disappearance of which would have been welcomed only by those who hold that Ireland as a nationality has no existence apart from Great Britain, and the preservation of which will produce the mental alertness characteristic of a bi-lingual people.

The temperance work done by the Gaelic League in providing occupation of a pleasant nature and social intercourse of a harmless kind is one of its chief titles to distinction, for in this aspect it has encouraged the preservation of Irish songs, music, dances, and games.  One other thing it, and it alone, can do.  One-half of the emigrants from Ireland go on tickets or money sent from friends in the United States, and in my opinion one of the most powerful influences in staying the present lamentable tide in that direction will be to foster in the branches in America the notion that the time has come when every Irishman and woman who can by any possible means do so should be persuaded to remain in Ireland, and not to emigrate.