PEARSE, P.H. Three Lectures on Gaelic Topics. By P.H. Pearse, President of the New Ireland Literary Society.

Dublin: M.H. Gill, 1898. pp. 59, [1]. Slim octavo. Green cloth, title in gilt on upper cover. A fine copy.
Contents: Gaelic Prose Literature; The Folk-Songs of Ireland; The Intellectual Future of the Gael. In the preface Pearse tells us that these three lectures were not originally intended for Publication. They were written to assist in spreading the reputation of the Society of which he had the honour to be President, and before which the lectures were delivered.

“As I am but a student of Irish myself - and young at that - I am aware that Gaelic scholars will find
little that is new in these papers; but it is not so much to the scholar they are addressed as to the
barbarian - to him, that is, to whom our National language, with its wealth of poetry, romance, and
folk-lore, is still a sealed book. The subjects of which the lectures treat are today far from being so
new, or so out-of-the-way, as they would have been even a very few years ago; for, thanks to the
Gaelic League, to the Oireachtas, to the Gaelic Journal, and to ‘Fáinne an Lae,’ Irishmen are beginning
to realize that they possess a language of their own, which, for antiquity, may vie with the languages of
Homer and Virgil, and, for youthful vigour and literary capabilities, with the languages of Dante,
Shakespeare, and Goethe”.