esus' sake =f=orbeare,
To =d=ig the =d=ust enclosed here,
=B=lesst =b=e he who =s=pares these =s=tones,
And cursed =b=e he who moves my =b=ones."

[17] It has been computed that, in the petty princedom of Tyrconnell (now
Donegall county nearly) the real estate allocated to maintenance of the
_literati_ amounted in value to L2,000 yearly, present currency.

[18] Delivered before the Irish National Literary Society in Dublin,
November 25th, 1892.

[19] As an instance of this, I mention the case of a young man I met on
the road coming from the fair of Tuam, some ten miles away. I saluted him
in Irish, and he answered me in English. "Don't you speak Irish," said I.
"Well, I declare to God, sir," he said, "my father and mother hasn't a
word of English, but still, I don't speak Irish." This was absolutely true
for him. There are thousands upon thousands of houses all over Ireland
to-day where the old people invariably use Irish in addressing the
children, and the children as invariably answer in English, the children
understanding Irish but not speaking it, the parents understanding their
children's English but unable to use it themselves. In a great many cases,
I should almost say most, the children are not conscious of the existence
of two languages. I remember asking a gossoon a couple of miles west of
Ballaghaderreen in the Co. Mayo, some questions in Irish and he answered
them in English. At last I said to him, "_Nach labhrann tu Gaedheilg?_"
(_i.e._, "Don't you speak Irish?") and his answer was, "And isn't it Irish
I'm spaking?" "No _a-chuisle_," said I, "it's not Irish you're speaking,
but English." "Well then," said he, "that's how I spoke it ever"! He was
quite unconscious that I was addressing him in one language and he
answering in another. On a different occasion I spoke Irish to a little
girl in a house near Kilfree Junction, Co. Sligo, into which I went while
waiting for a train. The girl answered me in Irish until her brother came
in. "Arrah now, Mary," said he, with what was intended to be a most bitter
sneer; "and isn't that a credit to you!" And poor Mary--whom I had with
difficulty persuaded to begin--immediately hung her head and changed to
English. This is going on from Malin Head to Galway, and from Galway to
Waterford, with the exception possibly of a few spots in Donegal and
Kerry, where the people are wiser and more national.

[20] The following are a few instances out of hundreds of the mons