Gaelicism

In his poem "Dalta," written in memory of Padraig O hIceadha, the founder of Daonscoil na Mumhan, Michael Davitt praises O hIceadha for trying to bring the Irish language alive for ordinary Irish people: "Nior theist ghaelachais riamh agat i; / Na ceist teangan ar fad fiu, / Ach na ligfi lomchnamha / Na sinsear i ndearud / Mar gur lom leat fhein an mana / Gur treise duchas na oiliuint" (It was never a question of gaelicism for you / Nor even entirely a question of language, / But rather that the bare bones / Of our ancestors not be forgotten / For you yourself always found stark the slogan / That nature is stronger than nurture).

Violent republicanism, Gaelicism, and socialism were certainly strands of the revolution, but self-determination was an important focus as well.

In this light O'Malley's intriguing attitude towards Gaelicism can be explained.

and salutary, Fitzmaurice presents Gaelicism as unhealthy and

(2) Hutchinson, meanwhile, has argued that the league in its mass phase became "a movement of the relatively educated young against both the established and relatively uneducated strata--farmers, publicans, and shopkeepers." (3) Men and women of the younger generation, according to Hutchinson, turned to Gaelicism (and ultimately to Sinn Fein) because they were frustrated by limited career opportunities and faced the choice of being incorporated into a modern "scientific state" or remaining loyal to their traditional culture.

Yet the Gaelicism of Wintering Out in 1972 seems like such a nationalism in another form: proud, possessive of the four green fields ("hoarder of common ground"), bitterly resenting the "lost fields" and the hard times with the "strangers" in the house.

[He] was ignorant by English standards and used the language ineffectively and at times ridiculously, with Gaelicisms sprinkled throughout his speech.(20)