Douglas Hyde
A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664573841
Table of Contents
PREFACE
The present volume has been styled—in order to make it a companion book to other of Mr. Unwin's publications—a "Literary History of Ireland," but a "Literary History of Irish Ireland" would be a more correct title, for I have abstained altogether from any analysis or even mention of the works of Anglicised Irishmen of the last two centuries. Their books, as those of Farquhar, of Swift, of Goldsmith, of Burke, find, and have always found, their true and natural place in every history of English literature that has been written, whether by Englishmen themselves or by foreigners.
My object in this volume has been to give a general view of the literature produced by the Irish-speaking Irish, and to reproduce by copious examples some of its more salient, or at least more characteristic features.
In studying the literature itself, both that of the past and that of the present, one of the things which has most forcibly struck me is the marked absence of the purely personal note, the absence of great predominating names, or of great predominating works; while just as striking is the almost universal diffusion of a traditional literary taste and a love of literature in the abstract amongst all classes of the native Irish. The whole history of Irish literature shows how warmly the efforts of all who assisted in its production were appreciated. The greatest English bard of the Elizabethan age was allowed by his countrymen to perish of poverty in the streets of London, while the pettiest chief of the meanest clan would have been proud to lay his hearth and home and a share of his wealth at the disposal of any Irish "ollamh." The love for literature of a traditional type, in song, in poem, in saga, was, I think, more nearly universal in Ireland than in any country of western Europe, and hence that which appears to me to be of most value in ancient Irish literature is not that whose authorship is known, but rather the mass of traditional matter which seems to have grown up almost spontaneously, and slowly shaped itself into the literary possession of an entire nation. An almost universal acquaintance with a traditional literature was a leading trait amongst the Irish down to the last century, when every barony and almost every townland still possessed its poet and reciter, and song, recitation, music, and oratory were the recognised amusements of nearly the whole population. That population in consequence, so far as wit and readiness of language and power of expression went, had almost all attained a remarkably high level, without however producing any one of a commanding eminence. In collecting the floating literature of the present day also, the unknown traditional poems and the Ossianic ballads and the stories of unknown authorship are of greater value than the pieces of bards who are known and named. In both cases, that of the ancient and that of the modern Irish, all that is of most value as literature, was the property and in some sense the product of the people at large, and it exercised upon them a most striking and potent influence. And this influence may be traced amongst the Irish-speaking population even at the present day, who have, I may almost say, one and all, a remarkable command of language and a large store of traditional literature learned by heart, which strongly differentiates them from the Anglicised products of the "National Schools" to the bulk of whom poetry is an unknown term, and amongst whom there exists little or no trace of traditional Irish feelings, or indeed seldom of any feelings save those prompted by (when they read it) a weekly newspaper.
The exact extent of the Irish literature still remaining in manuscript has never been adequately determined. M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has noted 133 still existing manuscripts, all copied before the year 1600, and the whole number which he has found existing chiefly in public libraries on the Continent and in the British Isles amounts to 1,009. But many others have since been discovered, and great numbers must be scattered throughout the country in private libraries, and numbers more are perishing or have recently perished of neglect since the "National Schools" were established. Jubainville quotes a German as estimating that the literature produced by the Irish before the seventeenth century, and still existing, would fill a thousand octavo volumes. It is hard to say, however, how much of this could be called literature in a true sense of the word, since law, medicine, and science were probably included in the calculation. O'Curry, O'Longan, and O'Beirne Crowe catalogued something more than half the manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy, and the catalogue of contents filled thirteen volumes containing 3,448 pages. To these an alphabetic index of the pieces contained was made in three volumes, and an index of the principal names, etc., in thirteen volumes more. From a rough calculation, based on an examination of these, I should place the number of different pieces catalogued by them at about ten thousand, ranging from single quatrains or even single sentences to long poems and epic sagas. But in the Academy alone, there are nearly as many more manuscripts which still remain uncatalogued.
It is probably owing to the extreme difficulty of arriving at any certain conclusions as to the real extent of Irish literature that no attempt at a consecutive history of it has ever previously been made. Despite this difficulty, there is no doubt that such a work would long ago have been attempted had it not been for the complete breakdown and destruction of Irish Ireland which followed the Great Famine, and the unexpected turn given to Anglo-Irish literature by the efforts of the Young Ireland School to compete with the English in their own style, their own language, and their own models.
For the many sins of omission and commission in this volume I must claim the reader's kind indulgence; nobody can be better aware of its shortcomings than I myself, and the only excuse that I can plead is that over so much of the ground I have had to be my own pioneer. I confidently hope, however, that in the renewed interest now being taken in our native civilisation and native literature some scholar far more fully equipped for his task than I, may soon render this volume superfluous by an ampler, juster, and more artistic treatment of what is really a subject of great national importance.
National or important, however, it does not appear to be considered in these islands, where outside of the University of Oxford—which has given noble assistance to the cause of Celtic studies—sympathisers are both few and far between. Indeed, I fancy that anybody who has applied himself to the subject of Celtic literature would have a good deal to tell about the condescending contempt with which his studies have been regarded by his fellows. "I shall not easily forget," said Dr. Petrie, addressing a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy upon that celebrated example of early Celtic workmanship the Tara Brooch, "that when in reference to the existence of a similar remain of ancient Irish art, I had first the honour to address myself to a meeting of this high institution, I had to encounter the incredulous astonishment of the illustrious Dr. Brinkley" [of Trinity College, President of the Academy] "which was implied in the following remark, 'Surely, sir, you do not mean to tell us that there exists the slightest evidence to prove that the Irish had any acquaintance with the arts of civilised life anterior to the arrival in Ireland of the English?' nor shall I forget that in the scepticism which this remark implied nearly all the members present very obviously participated." Exactly the same feeling which Dr. Petrie encountered was prevalent in my own alma mater in the eighties, where one of our most justly popular lecturers said—in gross ignorance but perfect good faith—that the sooner the Irish recognised that before the arrival of Cromwell they were utter savages, the better it would be for