Proceedings of the third Oireachtas festival held in 1899

An extract (page 9) from the proceedings of the third Oireachtas festival in Dublin in 1899. The Oireachtas was established by the Gaelic League in the Revival period and continues to this day to be a celebration of Irish language, literature, song and dance.

The style of the text is illustrative of the style parodied in lines 897-938 of the Cylcops episode in Ulysses.

The Oireachtas.

Third Festival.

The third Oireachtas was held in the Rotunda, Dublin on Wednesday, June 7, 1899, opening with the competitions which took place during the earlier part of the day, and which were attended by large numbers of interested spectators. At four o'clock an informal reception of delegates took place in the Gresham Hotel. Here the sweet accents of the native tongue could be heard on all sides. The public festival, presided over by His Eminence Cardinal Logue, commenced at half-past seven o'clock. The Round Room of the Rotunda, the largest public hall in the city, was filled by an enthusiastic audience, which followed the proceedings throughout with the keenest interest, testifying to the power which the movement for the preservation of the native speech has become in the land. Those who had previously doubted the possibility of saving our language, there had all doubts dispelled, feeling assured that a movement which, in spite of so many difficulties, had in so short a time grown to the proportions of which the assembly there present was an evidence, must surely in the end achieve success. True, this was not the first year of the Oireachtas, but it may be said that the festivals of 1897 and 1898 were merely trials. Now, however, it was felt by all that the Oireachtas had become an institution, and that its influence for good in the fight for the language would be enormous.

Amongst those present on the platform or elsewhere in the hall were: -Right Rev. Monsignor Gargan, D.D., President St. Patrick's College, Maynooth; Very Rev. Monsignor Walsh, Rev. Edmund Hogan, S.J., F.R.U.I., D.Litt.; Douglas Hyde, LL.D., President Gaelic League; John MacNeill, BA, Professor of Irish, St. Patrick's Training College, Drumcondra; David Comyn, Alfred Webb, Dr. J. P. Quinn, John Hogan, Manager, Gaelic Journal; Miss Norma Borthwick, Hon. Sec., Oireachtas; Miss Edith [end of page]