TO OUR READERS.
A very wide-spread demand on the part of that ever-increasing section of the public who take an active interest in the Irish language calls continually for the publication of this Journal under conditions that would bring it more within the reach of the many, and make it more popular with them. While we recognise gratefully the evidence of the general sense of the good work the Gaelic Journal has done, and is capable of doing, we confess that the prospect of meeting the demand causes us no small anxiety. As the only way possible of realizing this prospect, we propose making a covenant with our supporters. The terms we suggest are as follows:—
The supporters of the Journal, by personal canvass or otherwise, to extend the circulation of the Journal to at least 1,000 copies.
In return therefor, the Journal to be published monthly, with certain improvements which will tend to make it still more pupular, and at the lowest price which cost of publication will allow.
A little effort on the part of our present supporters will achieve all that is desired. Let each one introduce the Journal to one or two others who do not at present read it, and the thing is done. Those who undertake to extend our circulation in this way, would do well to collect personally the subscriptions of their friends, and to forward them in the usual way, with the names and addresses of the subscribers. We are not at present in a position to make any reduction in the subscription, but when our in creased circulation enables such a reduction be made, we shall continue to send the Journal to subscribers at the reduced rate until their subscriptions are exhausted.
The Journal will contain the following features, new and old:—
1°. A complete series of Lessons in Irish for beginners. These lessons will be prepared with the greatest care, so as to make them as simple and as generally intelligible as possible. In short, they will form a full course of Irish Self-Taught, covering grammar, composition, idiom and pronunciation in an easily graduated system.
2°. A series of Easy Readings in Irish.
3°. Folk-lore in prose and verse. The prose specimens will present to the student examples of the Irish language in common vernacular use from all the Irish-speaking parts of Ireland.
4°. Studies in the older periods of Irish. The student who wishes to understand the structure and genius of the Irish language must necessarily fall back on its older [ 242 ]literature. Those, too, who would become masters of the living idiom will do well to study it in the purity of its early days. They will thus be enabled to judge with certainty between the better and the worse in modern usage. They will also understand better the great and varied powers of expression with which our language is endowed.
5°. Notes and Queries on all matters of difficulty, obscurity, or curious interest in connexion with the Irish language. This department will enable many students to settle their own doubts and to bring information to others on the many knotty and uncertain points that necessarily arise in the study of a language circumstanced like ours. It will also place on permanent record many of the observations of the numerous acute scholars whose labours have hitherto been as writings on the sand. We cordially invite both classes to make the fittest use of this section of the Journal.
6°. The News of the Month, informing our readers of the most important things done, written and spoken, in regard of Irish Literature and of the movement to maintain the use of the Irish language, and also of the progress of kindred movements among our brothers of Scotland, our cousins of Wales, and other peoples.
7°. Original Contributions, especially in prose. To be candid, we have too many poets. It should be remembered that only a master of language can write poetry. Prose is much better material for apprentice work.
8°. Gaelic Life in general, past and present, history, archaeology, music, arts, games, and all the customs of our race, will find occasional space within our columns.
It now rests with our readers to enable us to fulfil all that we hold out. It is acknowledged on all hands that the Gaelic Journal has not hitherto been unworthy of its place as the representative in journalism of the cause of the Old Tongue in the Old Land. If brighter days seem now to be in store for the Old Tongue, the decade's work done by the Journal against very adverse circumstances has had no small part in bringing about that result. The issue of our present proposals will be an excellent test of the prospects of the language and of the reality of the revival in the movement for its preservation. The figure mentioned by us as a minimum ought not to be one-third of our normal circulation in this country. We may state that already promises of widely-extended support are reaching us. One reader undertakes to get twenty new subscribers in one one locality. Another promises ten. Another has brought in orders from three. There are few of our readers who are not in a position to do equal work in the cause of the national language.