TODAY in Irish History ... 17 January, 1860 -- Dr. Douglas Hyde, Gaelic scholar and first President of Ireland, was born at Castlerea, County Roscommon (shown at right in the photo below). Hyde was the son of a Protestant minister and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He had a great facility for languages, learning Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French and German, but his great passion in life would be the preservation of the Irish language. After spending a year teaching modern languages in Canada, he returned to Ireland. For much of the rest of his life he would write and collect hundreds of stories, poems, and folktales in Irish, and translate others. His work in Irish helped to inspire many other literary lights, such as W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. In 1892 he delivered a paper to the National Literary Society, which he and Yeats founded earlier that year, titled The Necessity for de-Anglicizing the Irish people. In 1893, Hyde founded the Gaelic League along with Eoin MacNeill and Fr. Eugene OGrowney; Hyde was its first president, holding the post until 1915. Under Hyde the League flourished, spreading across the island and revived not only the language, which was perilously close to disappearing, but also encouraged a rebirth of Irish dance and other aspects of Irish culture. With this rebirth of Gaelic pride came a rebirth in Irish nationalism. Hyde was also professor of Modern Irish at the National University from 1908 to 1932 and was the driving force behind the regulation making Irish a compulsory subject. Hyde did not want the Gaelic League to be a political entity, so when the surge of Irish nationalism that the Gaelic League helped to foster began to take control of many in the League and politicize it, Hyde resigned as president. Hyde took no active part in the armed upheaval of the 1910s and 1920s, but did serve as a Free State senator in 1925-26. In 1938 he was unanimously elected to the newly created position of President of Ireland, a post he held until 1945. Hyde died in Dublin on July 12, 1949. A common language is perhaps the most important bond any culture can possess, and more than any other person, Dr. Douglas Hyde was responsible for saving the language of the Irish people. And for that, all lovers of Irish culture must say, Ar dheis De go raibh sé. (May he be at the right hand of God.) CLICK BELOW to read more from This Week in the History of the Irish ...
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 19:19:00 +0000
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