Hyde says Irish language thrown away ‘like dirty water out of a house’

Dundalk, 18 March 1915 - Ireland has made no sacrifices to save her own language and has instead thrown it away like one would throw dirty water out of a house, claimed the Irish language activist Douglas Hyde yesterday.

Mr. Hyde was speaking at a large public meeting held in Dundalk in support of the objectives of the Gaelic League.

By contrast, he said, the people of Poland, Hungary, Bohemia and Flanders had all made sacrifices for their native languages.

Mr. Hyde said, however, that he believed there was now a full awareness among Irish people of ‘the awful gulf into which they were going to slip blindfold - the gulf of a vulgarised Anglicisation, which was only another name for national extinction’.

He continued: ‘The Irish language movement is not founded upon hatred of England, but love of Ireland.’

Dr Regina Uí Chollatáin, UCD, discussing the politics within the Gaelic League

The decline of Irish

Mr. Hyde lamented the decline of Irish: ‘Seventy years ago every man in Co. Louth either spoke Irish or knew it.' It was the same with every county in Ireland and he did not think there was one parish in the whole of Leinster of which they could say today that Irish was the native speech of the children.

The war, he continued, offered an opportunity to Ireland because national politics had been brought to a standstill and during the lull the Gaelic League could properly advance its ideals.

Finally, he told the gathering that Co. Louth was the home of Cúchulain and that when he had dined with the President Roosevelt in America, he had said that he knew of the legend from two Irish servants.

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]