Aet. 48, to George Earle Buckle, editor of The Times.
Queen Victoria visited Ireland 4-26 April 1900.
The Irish National Convention was a meeting of the Irish Parliamentary Party and other nationalist organizations. It was held in the Dublin Rotunda, 19-20 June 1900 to prepare for the forthcoming general election. It’s likely that the meeting of the Gaelic League, which George Moore recalled in Hail and Farewell! Ave, Chapter 14, was part of the Convention.
The Commissioners of National Education, also known as the Irish National Board of Education, controlled curriculum in schools and resisted the Gaelic League’s promotion of Irish language instruction.
On 19 July 1900 Gerald Balfour, Chief Secretary for Ireland, steered Irish education business through the House of Commons, including debate on the Intermediate Education (Ireland) Bill and the annual Irish Education Vote in Supply.
John Redmond led nationalist opposition to the Chief Secretary, pressing for decentralization and for the introduction of Irish instruction in schools while northern Unionist members resisted such changes.
The Intermediate Bill did not advance, and Parliament passed the Irish Education Estimates without provision for Irish-language instruction, thereby maintaining the legacy regulations of the Commissioners of National Education. It was this approval of the status quo which George saw as Parliament signing a “death-warrant.”
The English flag has been declared to be “the most valuable commercial asset in the world” echoes speeches of Joseph Chamberlain. I have not found the exact quotation.
Edmund Gosse’s defense of “small nations” was in keeping with his and George’s pro-Boer sentiments. I have not located Gosse’s writing quoted by George in this letter.
Latin was the dominant written language of Western Europe for roughly 800 years (800-1600). Thousands of medieval Latin manuscripts were extant when George polemically dismissed their literary value in this letter.
Dante wrote two Latin eclogues (pastoral poems) late in life. In this letter George mistook them for Cantos of the Divine Comedy which was written entirely in the vernacular.
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