Page:Irish Made Easy - Shán Ó Cuív.pdf/14



The Editor has been entirely too flattering in his references to the “Irish Made Easy” page of “The Packet.” I have not the slightest title to be regarded as an expert; I am merely the figure-head for the moment of extensive movement amongst Gaelic speakers, scholars, and students in favour of the use of the ordinary, Roman alphabet and of bringing the spelling of Irish into harmony with the living speech, and my name appears at the head of this page simply as a guarantee of good faith to the Editor and the public that this is a genuine attempt to remove some of the difficulties which are preventing the use of Irish for commercial purposes and retarding the spread of the language as a living tongue. What we expect this page to do is to make the learning of Irish very much easier than it has been heretofore and to make the reading of Irish by Irish speakers simplicity itself. The changes which the system upon which our Irish will be written will effect are two—(1) the use of the Roman alphabet, and (2) the spelling of the words as they are pronounced.

The use of the Roman alphabet has been advocated at various times within the last