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. They sail
their new boats - their hookers - in English, but they sail a curagh
oftener in Irish, and in the fields they have the Irish alone. It
can never die out, and when the people begin to see it fallen very
low, it will rise up again like the phoenix from its own ashes.'
'And the Gaelic League?' I asked him.
'The Gaelic League! Didn't they come down here with their organisers
and their secretaries, and their meetings and their speechifyings,
and start a branch of it, and teach a power of Irish for five weeks
and a half!' [a]
'What do we want here with their teaching Irish?' said the man in
the corner; 'haven't we Irish enough?'
'You have not,' said the old man; 'there's not a soul in Aran can
count up to nine hundred and ninety-nine without using an English
word but myself.'
It was getting late, and the rain had lessened for a moment, so I
groped my way back to the inn through the intense darkness of a late
autumn night.
[a] This was written, it should be remembered, some years ago.
Part IV
No two journeys to these islands are alike. This morning I sailed
with the steamer a little after five o'clock in a cold night air,
with the stars shining on the bay. A number of Claddagh fishermen
had been out all night fishing not far from the harbour, and without
thinking, or perhaps caring to think, of the steamer, they had put
out their nets in the channel where she was to pass. Just before we
started the mate sounded the steam whistle repeatedly to give them
warning, saying as he did so -
'If you were out now in the bay, gentlemen, you'd hear some fine
prayers being said.'
When we had gone a little way we began to see the light from the
turf fires carried by the fishermen flickering on the water, and to
hear a faint noise of angry voices.
