sh,
typically Irish, than by any other fallacy; and we Irish have suffered
peculiarly by the notion that the typical Irishman is the funny man of
the empire. What I would permit myself to assert is, first, that the
truest humour is not just the light mirth that comes easily from the
lips--that, in the hackneyed phrase, bubbles over spontaneously--but is
the expression of deep feeling and deep thought, made possible by deep
study of the means to express it; and secondly, that literature, which
through the earlier part of last century never received in Ireland the
laborious brooding care without which no considerable work of art is
possible, now receives increasingly the artist's labour; and
consequently that among our later humorists we find a faculty of mirth
that lies deeper, reaches farther, judges more subtly, calls into light
a wider complex of relations. After all, laughter is the most
distinctive faculty of man; and I submit that, so far as literature
shows, we Irish can better afford to be judged by our laughter now than
a century ago.

1901.

LITERATURE AMONG THE ILLITERATES

I

THE SHANACHY

There is nothing better known about Ireland than this fact: that
illiteracy is more frequent among the Irish Catholic peasantry than in
any other class of the British population; and that especially upon the
Irish-speaking peasant does the stigma lie. Yet it is, perhaps, as well
to inquire a little more precisely what is meant by an illiterate. If to
be literate is to possess a knowledge of the language, literature, and
historical traditions of a man's own country--and this is no very
unreasonable application of the word--then this Irish-speaking peasantry
has a better claim to the title than can be shown by most bodies of men.
I have heard the existence of an Irish literature denied by a roomful of
prosperous educated gentlemen; and, within a week, I have heard, in the
same county, the classics of that literature recited by an Irish peasant
who could neither write nor read. On which part should the stigma of
illiteracy set the uglier brand?

The Gaelic revival sends many of us to school in Irish-speaking
districts, and, if it did nothing else, at least it would have sent us
to school in pleasant places among the most lovable preceptors. It was a
blessed change from London to a valley among hills that look over the
Atlantic, with its brown stream tearing down among boulders, and its
heathy banks, where the