IRISH AS A PICTURESQUE RELIC 19 



up with the past, not with the future. They may be, 

 and ought to be, preserved as relics, but it is the preserva- 

 tion of the mummy. Treat Irish as a picturesque relic 

 and you strangle it. 



I can appreciate beautiful manuscripts and ornamental 

 letters as well as the most orthodox opponent of reform. 

 By all means preserve them, and publish sumptuous fac- 

 similes. But that is not saving the modern spoken language, 

 or giving bilingual speakers and writers a fighting chance 

 of using it in competition with English. 



Just fancy an admirer of beautiful ornamental letters 

 going into the office of a Dublin merchant, busied -with 

 his correspondence, and urging the latter to give up writing 

 Dublin, one word of six plain letters, in favour of t)Aite &t& 

 CUAC, three words with a total of thirteen ornamental 

 letters ! Suppose he goes on, " Hallo ! what is this ? A 

 telegram form. You mustn't send telegrams. That would 

 never do. No telegraph operator in the world could express 

 by his tap-tap the beautiful semicircular curve of the c, 

 or the dot over it. Better write your message on a parch- 

 ment scroll, and send it across country by hand." At 

 this stage I should think the average merchant would 

 show our aesthetic friend an open door, and help him to 

 get through it too. 



But perhaps we may leave Dublin out of the question. 

 Imagine a bilingual speaker, a product of bilingual schooling, 

 in such a place as Ballina. You go to him and say, " I 

 entreat you not to write Ballina in your address. Spell 

 it t)6At At A ATI f?eAt>A.* Do this in the interests of 

 history and tradition, of art and science, of orthography, 

 etymology, Gaelic calligraphy, and Celtic philology ! " 

 You furnish hini with a bow and arrow in one hand and 

 a repeating rifle in the other. The bow may be richly 

 ornamented with interlaced bands, the arrow may be 



* This is the old name, see O'Donovan, Tribes and Customs of Hy 

 Fiachrach, page 424. It is now locally shortened to b^At An ACA, just as 

 mAinicif eAn tttuige (Fermoy) becomes An ttlAirufCip, and t)Aiie 

 i beAnA (Castletownbere) becomes t)Aile ATI C 



