and, which did not exist even politically, has
been stronger than all the races that existed scientifically. The
purest Germanic blood, the purest Norman blood, the purest blood of the
passionate Scotch patriot, has not been so attractive as a nation
without a flag. Ireland, unrecognized and oppressed, has easily
absorbed races, as such trifles are easily absorbed. She has easily
disposed of physical science, as such superstitions are easily disposed
of. Nationality in its weakness has been stronger than ethnology in
its strength. Five triumphant races have been absorbed, have been
defeated by a defeated nationality.

This being the true and strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible to
hear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among her
modern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. Who were the
Celts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? I defy any one to be
indifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great
Irish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirable
penetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race.
But he does not wholly escape, and his followers hardly ever escape,
the general objection to the Celtic argument. The tendency of that
argument is to represent the Irish or the Celts as a strange and
separate race, as a tribe of eccentrics in the modern world immersed in
dim legends and fruitless dreams. Its tendency is to exhibit the Irish
as odd, because they see the fairies. Its trend is to make the Irish
seem weird and wild because they sing old songs and join in strange
dances. But this is quite an error; indeed, it is the opposite of the
truth. It is the English who are odd because they do not see the
fairies. It is the inhabitants of Kensington who are weird and wild
because they do not sing old songs and join in strange dances. In all
this the Irish are not in the least strange and separate, are not in
the least Celtic, as the word is commonly and popularly used. In all
this the Irish are simply an ordinary sensible nation, living the life
of any other ordinary and sensible nation which has not been either
sodden with smoke or oppressed by money-lenders, or otherwise corrupted
with wealth and science. There is nothing Celtic about having legends.
It is merely human. The Germans, who are (I suppose) Teutonic, have
hundreds of legends, wherever it happens that the Germans are human.
There is nothing Celtic about loving poe