Page:Irish Made Easy - Shán Ó Cuív.pdf/15

 thirty years, but the sentiment in favour of distinctive letters for the Irish language has up to the present prevailed against any extensive use of the Roman letters. Canon Ulick Burke, writing in 1877, at a time when Irish was generally spoken throughout the West and south of Ireland, says:—

From experience the writer is of opinion that the use of the old angular letter has deterred many people from learning Irish. If the society now being formed in Dublin for the Preservation of the Irish Language retain the pointed character incorrectly styled “Old Irish,” they will not find many learners; they will have very few earnest readers after the present enthusiasm will have died out. In a few years the Society will be a thing of the past, like all kindred bodied who have, within the past forty years, arisen, played their part, and passed away. They will, merely, publish a few books or establish periodical for a year or two, and then when the object of some earnest workers will have been gained, the whole movement will cease and the organisation collapse.

The Rev. Dr. Hogan, S.J., M.R.I.A., who is well known in the Gaelic world at an Examiner in Irish for the Royal University, discusses the merits of the Gaelic type and the Roman type in his Irish phrase-book, published in 1891. Having mentioned the sentimental reasons for retaining the old type, which he admits that be, as an Irishman, felt the full force of, he gives other reasons for using the Roman type instead. Amongst these reasons are:—(1) Irish type is more trying on the sight; (2) the Irish letters are