Page:Foras feasa ar Éirinn - Keating; Comyn, Dinneen.djvu/15

Rh Keating's works are "veritably Irish uncontaminated by English phrases, and written by a master of the language while it was yet a power," as Dr. Atkinson puts it. His vocabulary is so full and varied that one of a translator's difficulties must be to find equivalents for what appear on the surface to be synonymous terms or merely redundant phrases: and though we may admit an occasional lapse into verbiage unpleasing to critics, yet his style has a charm of its own which quite escapes in any translation, and can only be fully appreciated by native readers, among whom his works have always enjoyed an unrivalled popularity; and, in a less degree, by sympathetic students of Gaelic. His wealth of reference and illustration too, the result of much wider reading than might be thought possible under his circumstances, gives zest to the perusal of his books, and enhances their interest for people accustomed to a fuller and more extended range of inquiry than our ancient annals afford. The general neglect of the Gaelic language and of Irish history for more than two centuries has hindered that careful and critical study of Dr. Keating's narrative, to which the works of writers of his period and standing have, in other countries, been subjected, whereby difficulties have been cleared up, errors corrected and hasty conclusions modified; while the books themselves, where they are not absolutely superseded as texts, have been revised and in parts rewritten, and furnished with accessories to enable students of other generations to use and value them. All this has yet to be done for Keating.

"To live is to change," and the Irish language, like everything living, has changed, passing from what scholars know as 'old' Irish to 'middle' and 'modern' Irish. Modern Irish begins with Keating, and his model has been followed by the good writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including O'Nachtan and O'Donlevy; and it still guides us, allowance being made for inevitable change, not more noticeable in Irish than in any other language cultivated