SEARC'S WEB GUIDE - Ernest Blythe (1889-1975)

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Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Ernest Blythe (1889-1975)

Ernest Blythe was born and educated near Lisburn, County Down. He became a clerk in the Department of Agriculture in Dublin where he also joined the Gaelic League. In 1905 Blythe met Sean O'Casey who recruited him into the IRB. Blythe went to Donegal to learn Irish for several months before working as a journalist in Bangor, County Down. In 1913 he joined the Irish Volunteers and in 1914 he was interned under the Defence of the Realm Act in Reading Gaol until December, 1916. Blythe joined Sinn Féin in 1917 and in 1918 he was elected to the First Dáil Éireann as Sinn Féin Deputy for North Monaghan and was appointed Minister for Trade and Commerce. Blythe supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and in 1922 he was appointed Minister for Finance and Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in the Free State Government.
Blythe was elected to the Irish Senate in 1933 and in 1939 he became Managing Director of the Abbey Theatre where he continued to work until his retirement in 1967.
Blythe wrote numerous articles, poetry and several volumes of autobiography, including: Trasna na Bóinne (1957).
The extract below is from Blythe's article 'The Signifigance of the Irish Language for the Future of the Nation' which was first published in
the University Review Vol.2. No.2, 1958. ©

left to right: W.T. Cosgrave, Ernest Blythe, Kevin O'Higgins
and James J. Walsh

In our own case, it seems to me to be clear and certain that if we allow ourselves to be left without a language of our own, the will to Nationhood which, for reasons lying entirely in the past, is at present strong amongst us cannot continue, and will not therefore, prevent our ultimate and fairly early absorption by our eastern neighbours. It is absurd to say that because Irish nationality is still with us after the onslaughts of seven centuries its continued existence may be taken for granted. A doctor might as well say that because a man has been bleeding for seven hours and because he was still alive though the lose of blood had increased in the last hour, there was no reason to be anxious about him or give him any treatment.
In the circumstances of modern life and in view of the geographical and economic situation of Ireland, which makes the impact of English thought and literature upon us so strong and constant, a general desire to remain a distinct people cannot, I believe, live for long on the idea of mere political consistency and without the unvarying atmosphere and pervasive support which only the National Language can provide.
Irrespective of political opinions or political interest a National language attaches everyone who speaks it, by an indissoluble bond, to the community of which he was born a member, and distinguishes him clearly and indelibly from the members of other communities. It imprints the influence of a definite tradition on his mind and acquaints him with a literature directly known only to his own countrymen. It gives him a background of home life so that whether he likes it or not a family feeling for his compatriots will, one way or another, affect his thought and actions throughout his life...
The wish and will of Irishmen to remain a separate people, that is to say, to preserve Irish Nationhood would, after the disappearance of the Irish language, find nothing to nourish it in the work of contemporary fiction writers or dramatists. Moreover, if we were not to have continual futile artificial quarrels with the British Government and to be continuously working ourselves up about the infliction or supposed infliction of new wrongs in Ireland, we could not expect a large new outpouring of the patriotic verse or the fiery journalism of former times or of the political oratory which, when not charged with anti-British incitement, was coloured with a utopian idea of Irish progress which suggested that it needed only a loosening of England's grip for all our fondest wishes to be realised... The development of the communist area on the one hand, and the economic consequence of the vast wealth and productivity of America on the other, make a great measure of economic integration in Europe a necessity.
However strongly political or particularist forces may fight it, integration will come, whether in the form of a great common market surrounded by its own tariff fence or in the form of an agreement which will ensure free trade throughout Western Europe in great ranges of commodities, and a large measure of guaranteed freedom of movement for capital and workers.
Economic integration, whatever form it may eventually take, will guarantee close and harmonious trade relations between Britain and Ireland. If by a strange chance Partition were ended, before, say the close of the century and if, because of delaying factors, a full common European market had not yet come into being, one of the prices of Northern consent to Re-Union, as anyone who will think honestly about the matter can see, would be bound to be our entry into a number of special commercial agreements with Britain which would bring about even closer economic co-operation than would have come from the general Free Trade plan.
In brief, Irish Nationality is not going to be underpinned in future by the psychological effect of protective tariffs or other economic restrictions. In passing I may remark that the ending of Partition tomorrow would not affect, one way or another, the problem of a survival of the Irish Nation. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008

20th Century Ireland (1924-1939) Irish History Index
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