There are a lot of English people who have taken an interest in the Irish language (from Elizabeth I onwards!!!)

PUL gave the credit for the publication of Séadna to Norma Borthwick, who I believe was responsible for an early translation of Séadna into English and also for the Foclóir do Shéadna, which I can't get hold of.

Who was she? I thought she might have been a Corkonian, but no.

She was born as Mariella Norma Borthwick in Chester, England, 25 July 1862, and learned Irish as part of the Southwark Irish Literary Society in London, and entered the Gaelic League in 1895, where she served on the General Committee, and was also secretary of the Oireachtas in 1898. She was a talented artist as well as a linguist, and taught Irish to Lady Gregory, herself a leading light in the Gaelic revival. She performed in Irish in a play with Douglas Hyde. She won a Gaelic League prize for an essay she wrote under the name "Aodh Ruadh". Apparently she was wrongly accused of forgery and embezzlement in 1900 and temporarily imprisoned.

She strongly supported PUL and his Cainnt na nDaoine in the early disputes, and also opposed Pan-Celticism, which she viewed as incompatible with Irish nationalism.

She founded the Irish Book Company, which published many of PUL's books, and wrote her own Ceachta Beaga Gaedhilge.

She became an Irish nationalist, despite being English, after seeing forced evictions in Ireland in the 1880s, and was the author of the Irish language version of Drilling Guide for the Volunteers.

She left Ireland suddenly in 1919, thought to be due to her contracting encephalitis lethargic, an illness that eventually killed her, and she spent the remainder of her life on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.

She was the niece of the first and only Lord Glenesk, the owner of the Daily Telegraph in England, and the daughter of an English MP, which means that Peter Borthwick, the newspaper baron who founded the Morning Post that merged with the Telegraph must have been her grandfather, but I can't identify the son of Peter Borthwick who would have been the brother of Lord Glenesk and her father. It seems the family were newspaper people, one member of which was ennobled.

Thanks for that note.

Laoch eile is ea George Thomas, agus gan amhras Robin Flower (Bláithín).

Tá an stair i bhfad níos casta ná an leagan dubh is bán a chuirtear ar ár súile ró mhinic.

Mar sin féin, bhí leithéidí Spenser ann:

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/E500000-001/index.html

Ná dearúdaimsíst Nicholas Williams na haimsire seo ach chomh beag, duine eile go bhfuil breis is a chion déanta aige ar son na teangan.

Agus CorkIrish ar ndóin!

I see in archive.org two books of Norma
Borthwick in pdf.

- Ceachta beaga gaedhilge (Volume 2)
- Ceachta beaga gaedhilge (Volume 3) -

But, where can I found the first volume?

Thanks

Mikel, the only reaason volumes 2 and 3 are on archive.org is because someone scanned them in. Most books have never been scanned anywhere. You can find a copy of this book on abebooks.com - but it is more than 100 euros.

100 €? I guess wait!

In Catalonia, there have been libraries that have scanned all the books that the law allowed. I thought that would happen in Ireland something similar.