It is difficult to forecast the political future of this island. I speak not as a politician, but as a student of history when I say that the conglomeration of countries and islands that are marked red on our present maps, and called the British Empire, will not always cling together. The Roman Empire had far stronger bonds of union than the British, and yet that great Empire, even in the zenith of its power, had clay mingled with its feet of iron and nurtured the seeds of disruption, which grew strong in time and shattered it to a thousand fragments. The British Empire will burst up as the Roman did. Nay, the bonds of constitutional government that unite this island to the larger island across the Channel have no perpetuity in the nature of things. These two islands have been united under the same monarchy for three hundred years. But what are three hundred years in the life of a nation. The day may come, it may not be far distant, when this island may have to lead a separate political life, or enter into some new combination and form part of a new Empire. The day may come when the prestige and importance of the English language will not be what it is now. Even now, as a literary language, English is fast waning. The past fifty years have witnessed a deterioration in the quality of English literature which has no parallel since the 48 age of Chaucer, and which seems on the increase as years go by. There seems no chance of an aftermath of English literature, till youthful nations infuse their vigour into dialects of that language. Imagine the state of things that may exist a hundred or two hundred years hence. The British Empire shorn of most of its territory. Ireland and England no longer under the same government. New Empires, new dynasties sharing between them the sovereignty of the civilized world. The English language melting down in the crucible and new dialects springing up. Imagine, if you can, the loss, the incalculable loss to this country if every vestige of living Irish shall have been wiped out. Three or four hundred years spent under the shadow of the British constitution, and we emerge bearing the most unmistakable of all badges of slavery, the badge of a slavery that not only enslaved the body, but that also corroded the mind — the very accents, the tone, the speech of our masters. When we have lost our language — then, and not till then, shall we be veritable slaves. Try to imagine the loss to our country if, in these no very distant days, perhaps, all she can point to as memorials of her antiquity, as evidences of her pedigree among the nations of the earth, as proofs of her past greatness, be a few old manuscripts in a disused character, a few old ruins, a few inscriptions on stone, while that living voice of Irish speech that re-echoed amid her hills for three thousand years is hushed into silence for ever. That voice might have been preserved as a living witness to the high antiquity of our people, to their ancient lineage among the nations, as the living nurse and fosterer of immemorial traditions and dreams of a glorious past. Consider the advantage of a living witness over a witness that is dead and gone. The evidence of a dead witness may be misrepresented. You cannot cross-examine him. You cannot piece together his story with all the colouring of time and place. You may question a living witness. Each new question may reveal truths long hidden, may drag to light evidence of the utmost moment.

The living tongue, even though the area over which it is vernacular be circumscribed, is an energising power in the land. It is a compendium of our history, it is our fierce war-cry in the conflict of nationalities, it is our title-deed in the court of nations. It is the voice of promise alluring us to a higher and nobler national existence. Its reviving tones salute our ears at the opening of the new century as a trumpet-call reminding us that we have been dwelling in Babylonian bondage, warning us not to eat the unclean meats, not to quaff the sorcerer's cup proffered to us by our captors, telling us that already many of our people are drunk to swinish drunkenness with the alluring wine of a foreign civilization, that already many of them are sunk hopelessly in all that is vulgar and barbarous of foreign customs and habits. That living speech will train up the rising generation in all the traditions of their ancestors, it will keep alive the characteristics that individualize our race; it will keep alive our spirit of chivalry, of heroism, of generosity, of faith. It will nurse the simplicity of character v/hich distinguished our forefathers; it will waft across the centuries the breeze of romance and enthusiasm from the days when kings held high festival at Tara and at Cruachan, when gay huntsmen from Eastern climes gambolled on the green sward of Meath and of Kildare, when men revelled with the new wine of life, of beauty, and of strength.

Woe to us if ever that living nurse of our ancient traditions is lost to our race ! Woe to us if we let the national spirit of our children perish from want of being duly nursed in our history through the living accents of Irish speech ! Woe to us if we are forced to nurture our national spirit merely on the dry bones of a dead and neglected tongue. I remember once hearing a folk-tale. A mother who was on her deathbed had two daughters, one of whom she loved while she hated the other. Both were present at her bedside. She gave several heads of advice to them, but that advice was put in enigmatical language in order that the daughter [50] whom she disliked may attach the wrong meaning to it. One point of advice was this:— “Always keep old bones under your children.” It happened contrary to her expectations. The daughter she loved failed to penetrate the mystery of this advice, and took it in the literal sense; she had her children constantly seated on a heap of old bones with the result that they caught cold and drooped and died. The other daughter was wiser; she, too, procured old bones for her children, but they were living bones, for she provided them with a careful old nurse who had them constantly in her arms. If the Irish nation of to-day discard the living Irish speech, contenting themselves with its remains in books and manuscripts, we shall be following the example of this foolish daughter, and our children shall lose their national spirit. If, on the contrary, we secure a living old nurse — the nurse of living Irish for the rising generation, they will grow up sound in mind and body, and perpetuate the historical traditions of their race. She is truly an old nurse, but though old, full of the vigour and sprightliness of youth, full of the glad music of happier days, full of the spirit of independence and self-reliance.

Let none believe our lovely Eve outworn and old;
Fair is her form, her blood is warm, her heart is bold;
Though tyrants long have wrought her wrong, she will
not fawn, Will not prove mean, our Caitlín Ni Ualacháin.