ENPages
Leaf 1 recto
Scríofa agus mé i mo leaba i mBaile Átha Cliath. Eanair (?) 1918.
The advanced Nationalists of the Old Fenian type never took the slightest interest in the Irish language. John O Leary whom I knew intimately for years was even more than merely interested in it, he was I might say almost opposed to it. The following passage from an address of his in What Young Irishman should know will prove this - - - - - - - - [He] I frequently pointed out the illogical position of the Fenians or rather of their later sym-pathies, and never spared them. It was all to no purpose, however, until the G. League got so strong and its adherents so numerous that it seemed worth while to make an attempt to propritiate it. I hardly think that at the first there was any very definite idea of capturing it. I well remember the occasion when for the first time Arthur Griffiths (who had about this time propounded his Hungarian policy and was looking round
Leaf 2 recto
for support), [for the first time] at a great Gaelic League meeting in the Rotunda gave his [support] adherence to the Irish lan-guage movement and confessed that there could be no Irish nation without it. He spoke badly but plainly, and had obviously made up his mind that he could not get on without [the] making friends with the Irish language [movement] people. Indeed the ultra – nationalist movement was heavily [capp] handicapped by remaining aloof in an indefensible and illogical situation. From this forward the extremists who did not care one jot[?] about the language paid it at least his [service] homage, and an ever - increasing number [crowd] of the Ultra-Nationalists [took it] especially the young men gradually I am glad to say took these professions at their face value and adopted them in all seriousness. They were a great assistance to us, and as they had no arriere pensée but were quite sincere, they proved a great strengthening to the movement.
The Boer war had already [botún?] though nobody
Leaf 3 recto
noticed it – openly at least – been the first public happening since the foundation of the G League to give a real impetus to the language movement. It was something so wonderful so [amazing] unexpected so unheard of that [that] the English empire should be held up by a handful if[?] few[?] men that it gave every Irishman a thrill – in most cases a thrill of joy! It was the first glimmering of a ray of hope that England was not all clothed in brass and triple steel, invulnerable and invincible, but that like the image in the book of Daniel, it might really have feet of clay. For a couple of years the extraordinary courage and prowess[?] of the Boers were steadily pumping hope and self-reliance into Ireland; and it was the language movement, [it was] which reaped most benefit from it. I took good care never [seen] to hint at this scarcely even in private, but I was well aware of it at the time, and looking back now I do not think that I was mistaken.
Leaf 3 verso
ní seónnide é tá bearla air [?]
Leaf 4 recto
At the time the United Irishmen on one side and the Leader on the other were levering[?] the whole country, including the members of Parliament, with the spirit of nationality as distinguished from politics, a dis-tinction which in most of my speeches I took care to [harp on show] emphasize. Moran of the Leader published a well reasoned thoughtful statement upon Gaelic League lives entitled . . . . . . . . . which had a great effect upon its readers especially upon the clergy. If only matters had been allowed to progress quietly and normally I have hardly a doubt that the bulk of the members of Parliament would have come round to be warm supporters of the language movement, and of the movement for encouraging [the] native industries – capturing the Home Market” I used to call it. [But] The whole [national] thing as it then stood was a feeling, a sentiment, an influence, which was making