Details
O'CASEY, Sean (1880-1964). Autograph letter signed ('Sean O'Casey'), to Desmond Fisher, Torquay, September 1956, in Gaelic, 2 pages, 4to, on personal stationery, with a typed English language translation.
SAD REFLECTIONS ON THE IRISH TONGUE. 'I make little use of the Irish language,' he tells Irish Press editor Fisher, 'since I seldom hear it spoken. Indeed, it is fifty years since I heard as much as the whisper of a word of it, since I am stuck in a small boat in the heart of a sea of English, with the Irish language far away across the clamour of waves on the North Channel. Ah, why am I grumbling! Ireland herself is in the same bad situation, as she sits between two English language Devils, powerful England on the right hand and all-powerful America on the left hand.' Fisher prompted these musings by sending O'Casey a clipping about the death of an Aran Islander, Michael Malone (the Aran fishermen spoke only Gaelic). O'Casey is amused by the part of the story that has the fisherman wondering what to do with his copy of The Age of Reason. Malone said he would give it to a young person or throw it in the fire. 'What to do with such books?' O'Casey says. It is the question 'in the minds of Irish people and on the mind of Ireland herself ... It is my prayer that Blessed Mary will guide the ruffian's soul to Heaven. Well, you in London and me down here in Devon, far from Ireland, and "out of sight, out of mind", and let's leave it at that.'
SAD REFLECTIONS ON THE IRISH TONGUE. 'I make little use of the Irish language,' he tells Irish Press editor Fisher, 'since I seldom hear it spoken. Indeed, it is fifty years since I heard as much as the whisper of a word of it, since I am stuck in a small boat in the heart of a sea of English, with the Irish language far away across the clamour of waves on the North Channel. Ah, why am I grumbling! Ireland herself is in the same bad situation, as she sits between two English language Devils, powerful England on the right hand and all-powerful America on the left hand.' Fisher prompted these musings by sending O'Casey a clipping about the death of an Aran Islander, Michael Malone (the Aran fishermen spoke only Gaelic). O'Casey is amused by the part of the story that has the fisherman wondering what to do with his copy of The Age of Reason. Malone said he would give it to a young person or throw it in the fire. 'What to do with such books?' O'Casey says. It is the question 'in the minds of Irish people and on the mind of Ireland herself ... It is my prayer that Blessed Mary will guide the ruffian's soul to Heaven. Well, you in London and me down here in Devon, far from Ireland, and "out of sight, out of mind", and let's leave it at that.'
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