DUBLIN
The Talbot Press Ltd.
89 Talbot Street
LONDON
T. Fisher Unwin Ltd.
1 Adelphi Terrace
| Page | |
| INTRODUCTION | 1 |
| NOVELS OF IRISH LIFE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY | 7 |
| A CENTURY OF IRISH HUMOUR | 23 |
| LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES: | |
| I.—THE SHANACHY | 44 |
| II.—THE LIFE OF A SONG | 51 |
| IRISH EDUCATION AND IRISH CHARACTER | 65 |
| THE IRISH GENTRY | 83 |
| YESTERDAY IN IRELAND | 97 |
My publisher must take at least some of the responsibility for revivingthese essays. All bear the marks of the period at which they werewritten; and some of them deal with the beginnings of movements whichhave since grown to much greater strength, and in growing have developednew characteristics at the expense of what was originally moreprominent. Other pages, again, take no account of facts which to-daymust be present to the mind of every Irish reader, and so are, perhapssignificantly, out of date. Nobody for instance, could now complain thatIrish humour is lacking in seriousness. Synge disposed of thatcriticism—and, indeed, the Abbey Theatre in its tone as a whole may beaccused of neglecting Ireland's gift for simple fun. Yet Lady Gregorymade the most of it in her "Spreading the News," and Mr. Yeats in his"Pot of Broth."—How beautifully W. G. Fay interpreted an Irish laughterwhich had no bitterness in it.
But the strong intellectual movement which has swept over Ireland hasbeen both embittering and embittered. These last five and twenty yearshave been the most formative in the country's history of any sinceIreland became the composite nation that she now is, or, perhaps, hasyet to become. At the back of it all lies the great social changeinvolved in the transfer of ownership from the landlord to thecultivators of the[Pg 2] soil—a change which has literally disenserfedthree-fourths of Ireland's people. Yet the relations are obscure,indefinite, and intangible, which unite that material result to theoutcome of two forces, allied but distinct, which have operated solelyon men's minds and spirits. These are, of course, the Gaelic revival andthe whole literary movement which has had its most concrete expressionin the Irish theatre, and