WHY THE IRISH LIKE GREEN

Dunstan Times, Issue 1289, 12 November 1886, Page 3

WHY THE IRISH LIKE GREEN

Some oM Greek traditions tell how j Kadmus, n mi ghty leader and a wise man in all the arts and sciences, came : over from Asia and taught the Boeotians letters. 1 n Phoenician the j word Kadmus means the East-man while the word Europe, which gradually was applied to a vast extent of land, a continent, at first belonged only to the land just across from the Island of Euboea, on the other side of the ! narrow strait cal'ed Enripus, and means in Phoenician the Westland. So when you read of Kadmus coming to Europe, it is the Eastman coming to Westland. Over a'd ovei again in history we find names to which all sort of fanciful derivations have been given and beautiful legends and myths have been attached, turning out to be the simplest kinds of words. Thus, Ireland moans the Westland, and it comes from the Celtic word iar and our word land ; iir meaning the west. lar, before being need to denote the west, meant the back, and that fact lets us into an important secret concerning the religion of the Celts who first came over the Irish sea to the Emerald I do. It tells ns that those early men named the points of the compass according to the other directions when the observer faced towards the east. *0 the east was named fiom front, or forward, the west from back, or behind, the north from left hand, and the south from right hand. That means that the early Celts worshipped the dawn and sunrise. And so faithfully have the old traditi ns remained in men’s mind in th it big western island of the British Empire that to this day tho emblem on the coat of arms of Ireland is a sunburst, or rising sun. Another curious *th’ng is that it is more than probable th t the Irish preference of the colour green for their flag and their sashes arose from a mistake among those who had lost a thorough knowledge of the old Irish language. The sun. in Irish, is ca led by a word pronounced lik s our word “ green , ” and it is likely that the Irish fondness fir that col mr arose from tho word’s eruct likeness in sound to their word for the sun. In the same way, when we talk about greenhouses, we think they are called so because tho plants are kept green in them during winter. Yet is is far from probable that “ green ” here is the Irish word meaning, not (he colour, but tho sun, because green* houses are built so as to catch the sun’s rays and store them up whil -. it is hidden by clouds, as happens uin e than half the time in showery 1 1chunk 1 —St. Nicholas for June.