IRISH INDISCRETIONS.*
IN this book Mr. Warre B. Wells gives an account of events in Ireland between the outbreak of the War and the recent treaty of London. He has attempted not to write a continuous history, but rather to give a vivid impression of this troubled period by describing the chief personalities and the individual parts they have played.. There are also several instructive sketches of courts-martial, rebellions and elections. Mr. Wells has not confined himself to politics. A considerable section of the book is devoted to studies of the leading personalities of the artistic and literary revival, the position of the Roman Catholic Church and the history of the Abbey Theatre.
Mr. Wells writes with sympathy and fairness, but somehow gives the impression that he is telling us nothing that we did not already know. Irish Indiscretions is without exag- geration the most discreet .book we have ever read. The author himself truly says in his Foreword, "No reputation . . . will be the worse of anything found herein," which we may safely take to mean that the title is misleading. Here and there Mr. Wells shows real insight and shrewd observation, as when he describes the drift towards a nationalist outlook by the Southern Unionists, and again in his amusing account of the comically anomalous situation of Dublin society in the viceroyalty of Lord Aberdeen.
In view of the obviously sober, if somewhat timid, tone of the book, it is a little surprising to note the encouragement it gives to the general revival of the Irish language. For while only good can come of Irishmen having an academic knowledge of it, any movement tending to separate Ireland from the rest of the world, which would be the obvious and immediate result of the extinction of English sPeech, is surely to be deplored. After all, English is now not only the language of England, but that of America, and that of the overwhelming majority of the Irish race throughout the world. And it is a tongue whose literature has been magni- ficently enriched by Irishmen, from Dean Swift to Bernard Shaw.
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