5.
We are great Gaelic scholars in this office.
Talking of Gaelic scholars brings me to an easy and natural transition to speak of the great Celtic renascence of late years. I think it has its bad and its good points; its bad points are, in my opinion, only accidental to the movement and were well got rid of. They consist in the attempt to exclude all other methods of culture, to deny the value of all other literature and the worth of all other peoples, and in general to make our Irish youths and maidens too self-centered.
I believe the Gaelic movement has great promise of life in it, but that promise will only be properly fulfilled when it naturally works its way into the life of the nation, side by side with every other agency making for a regenerated people.
The chief enemy of a Celtic revival today is the crushing force of capitalism, which irresistibly destroys all national or racial characteristics, and by sheer stress of its economic preponderance reduces a Galway or a Dublin, a Lithuania or a Warsaw to the level of a mere secondhand imitation of Manchester or Glasgow.
In the words of Karl Marx, “Capitalism creates a world after its own image,” and the image of capitalism is to be found in the industrial centers of Great Britain. A very filthy image indeed.
You cannot teach starving men Gaelic; and the treasury of our national literature will and must remain lost forever to the poor wage slaves who are contented by our system of society to toil from early morn to late at night for a mere starvation wage.
Therefore, I say to our friends in the Gaelic movement: Your proper place is in the ranks of the Socialist Republican Party, fighting for the abolition of the accursed social system which grinds us down in such a manner; which debases the character and lowers the ideals of our people to such a fearful degree that to the majority of our workers, the most priceless manuscript of ancient Celtic lore would hold but a secondary place in their esteem beside a rasher of bacon.
Help us secure to all our fellow countrymen a free, full, and happy life; secure in possession of a rational, human existence, neither brutalized by toil nor debilitated by hunger, and then all the noble characteristics of our race will have full opportunity to expand and develop. And when all that is good in literature, art, and science is recognized as the property of all—and not the heritage of a few—your ideals will receive the unquestioned adhesion of all true Irishmen.
I do not ask you to cease for a moment your endeavors on your present lines of education, but only to recognize in us your natural allies, as you should recognize that those who, under any pretext, however specious, would ask you to help them perpetuate British capitalism—which now thwarts you at every turn—is your enemy and the enemy of your cause.
The success of our cause is certain—sooner or later. But the welcome light of the sun of freedom may at any moment flash upon our eyes, and with your help we would not fear the storm which may precede the dawn.
Workers’ Republic, October 1, 1898