[ 177 ]The Central Committee of the Gaelic League is now endeavouring to bring about the formation of committees to take care of the Irish language movement in each of the Irish-speaking counties. All subscribers to the Gaelic Journal and all members of the League resident in these counties are invited to join the committees. The Gaelic League has issued a circular with reference to this important step, and also a circular dealing with the formation and conduct of local branches. The circulars show what is to be done in very plain and practical terms. Those who desire to assist in the development of the movement in the provinces ought to apply to the secretaries for copies of these documents. The result of this action of the Gaelic League, if properly sustained, will be to place the movement in a position of strength that it has never hitherto reached.
The proposal to organize a revival of Irish music has now taken definite shape. A committee has been formed to set on foot a festival of Irish music under the Gaelic name of Feis. The president of the committee is Dr. Stanford. The Gaelic League has entered into the project in the hope of securing a prominent part in the vocal music for songs, etc, in the Irish language. We trust that, if only from the musical standpoint, the superior claims of our national tongue, with its great adaptability to music, and its uniquely melodious forms of lyrical composition, will commend themselves to those in charge of the project. We are confident that the result will command their approval and that of the public. The Gaelic tongue, which in its full and sonorous vowel-sounds and rounded utterance resembles the southern Romance languages, has been truly described as “melting into music,” whereas English, as Mr. Alfred Perceval Graves, one of the chief promoters of the Irish musical revival, has said, is “an essentially unmusical language.” The fact that many of the vocalists may be ignorant of Irish, we need hardly say, constitutes no insuperable difficulty. Among the members of the committee who will be expected to see justice done to our native language at the Feis, are Dr. Annie Patterson (the leading spirit of the revival), Miss E. C. Atkinson, Dr. Sigerson, Mr. O’Neill Russell, Mr. George M‘Sweeney, Mr. J. H. Lloyd and Mr. John MacNeill, all of them members of the Gaelic League.