He began to criticise Archbishop MacHale's version of Moore's Irish
Melodies with great severity and acuteness, citing whole poems both
in the English and Irish, and then giving versions that he had made
himself.
'A translation is no translation,' he said, 'unless it will give you
the music of a poem along with the words of it. In my translation
you won't find a foot or a syllable that's not in the English, yet
I've put down all his words mean, and nothing but it. Archbishop
MacHale's work is a most miserable production.'
From the verses he cited his judgment seemed perfectly justified,
and even if he was wrong, it is interesting to note that this poor
sailor and night-watchman was ready to rise up and criticise an
eminent dignitary and scholar on rather delicate points of
versification and the finer distinctions between old words of
Gaelic.
In spite of his singular intelligence and minute observation his
reasoning was medieval.
I asked him what he thought about the future of the language on
these islands.
'It can never die out,' said he, 'because there's no family in the
place can live without a bit of a field for potatoes, and they have
only the Irish words for all that they do in the fields.
