"THE WISE MAN GATHereth knowLEDGE, AND RULETH HIS OWN

HOUSE."-Old Celtic Proverb.

No. 1., VOL. I.]

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1857.

[ONE PENNY.

THE MAP OF OUR JOURNEY.

A committee of the Celtic Union have this day entered upon a seriously responsible mission, and taken upon their shoulders a truly onerous duty. And though that mission and its duties be to some of them a "labour of love," with others a pleasurable pastime; yet all feel the seriousness of their position in relation to the work before them, the country for whom that work has been undertaken, and the chances which may bring failure to annihilate, or success to crown their ardent and honest hopes.

And let not those hopes be misunderstood. They are not boyhood's hopes for fame, or manhood's hopes of gain. What they really are time may develope, but this we will say for ourselves,-We write without pay. The success of the Celt can bring us no pecuniary reward: and whatever we may lose by its failure, if it do fail, shall be small in comparison to the loss of the glorious hope we have alluded to.

Our mission will carry us into various departments, and amongst most dissimilar classes, it will entail a great variety of pursuits, and the collecting together of materials apparently incongruous and unsuited to each other. Yet, nevertheless, there shall be an end and an aim in all this, and we shall toil on to the goal.

The Celt will supply matter for the educated, as well as for classes. having fewer acquirements; hence there may, at times, appear to be an inequality in the tone, and a want of keeping in the material of its pages. The intention of its editors is, that every page, every article, every extract, shall all tend to a definite end, the common good of our common country, to make Irishmen love Ireland better, cling to

their old faith closer, value truth, virtue, honor, more and more venerating the past, acquiring knowledge and power into the future, burying old feuds and animosities in oblivion, and substituting in their place brotherly love and manly union.

Great difficulties hang around such a work as this. We may be misconstrued, misunderstood, laughed at or reviled; bitter antagonisms may be stirred up against us, and men interested in obstructing may plant barriers before us. Secure in conscious integrity of purpose, we will not be deterred from the work we have marked out as fitting for us to do.

In some matters we may have to dissent from the opinions of great men and valued friends, but where we conceive we are right, we shall not hesitate to dissent and to press our own views upon our readers.

For example; while we admit as a fact indisputable, that Ireland is progressing in wealth and in knowledge, we deny that the progress so making is an evidence of real public prosperity, or truly valuable education.

The present appearance of comfort and wealth in the country is the result of that previous condition which has driven a million of our people into exile, and another million into premature graves; graves that should be marked with blood-red crosses.

A fourth of the whole nation has passed away, the three-fourths who remain have more to do, and therefore more to eat. Further, it is an enrichment arising from the concentration of the property of the many within the hands of the few. The cottiers are dead, or driven out, the graziers who now occupy huge farms are well to do and look prosperous.

The household living upon a scanty income can be maintained all the better in clothing and food, when the grave has closed over half its children; the survivors have as it were a double income. Such prosperity is a sham, the veriest make-believe.

Our own sweet poet of the Shannon, nearly a hundred years gone by, sang of such prosperity.

"Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,

Where wealth accumulates and men decay."

Were it possible to try this mock prosperity by the test of bringing up the population of the country to its mark in 1845, would the present position of the property of the country bear it? Assuredly no; and as population increases, the seeming wealth of the country will