t important outcome
of the work of that movement.

The Gaelic League, which defines its objects as 'The preservation of
Irish as the national language of Ireland and the extension of its use
as a spoken tongue; the study and publication of existing Irish
literature and the cultivation of a modern literature in Irish,' was
formed in 1893. Like the Agricultural Organisation Society, the Gaelic
League is declared by its constitution to be 'strictly non-political and
non-sectarian,' and, like it, has been the object of much suspicion,
because severance from politics in Ireland has always seemed to the
politician the most active form of enmity. Its constitution, too, is
somewhat similar, being democratically guided in its policy by the
elected representatives of its affiliated branches. It is interesting to
note that the funds with which it carries on an extensive propaganda are
mainly supplied from the small contributions of the poor. It publishes
two periodicals, one weekly and another monthly. It administers an
income of some L6,000 a year, not reckoning what is spent by local
branches, and has a paid staff of eleven officers, a secretary,
treasurer, and nine organisers, together with a large number of
voluntary workers. It resembled the agricultural movement also in the
fact that it made very little headway during the first few years of its
existence. But it had a nucleus of workers with new ideas for the
intellectual regeneration of Ireland. In face of much apathy they
persisted with their propaganda, and they have at last succeeded in
making their ideas understood. So much is evident from the
rapidly-increasing number of affiliated branches of the League, which in
March, 1903, amounted to 600, almost treble the number registered two
years before. But even this does not convey any idea of the influence
which the movement exerts. Within the past year the teaching of the
Irish language has been introduced into no less than 1,300 National
Schools. In 1900 the number of schools in which Irish was taught was
only about 140. The statement that our people do not read books is
generally accepted as true, yet the sale of the League publications
during one year reached nearly a quarter of a million copies. These
results cannot be left unconsidered by anybody who wishes to understand
the psychology of the Irish mind. The movement can truly claim to have
effected the conversion of a large amount of intellectual apathy into
genuine