disaster has not been able wholly to efface or wholly to disrupt.

To discover the Europe that existed before Rome we must turn to the
East, Greece, and to the West, Ireland.

Ireland alone among western lands preserves the recorded tradition,
the native history, the continuity of mind, and, until yesterday, of
speech and song, that connect the half of Europe with its ancestral
past. For early Europe was very largely Celtic Europe, and nowhere
can we trace the continuous influence of Celtic culture and idealism,
coming down to us from a remote past, save in Ireland only.

To understand the intellect of pre-Roman Gaul, of Spain, of Portugal,
and largely of Germany, and even of Italy, we must go to Ireland.
Whoever visits Spain or Portugal, to investigate the past of those
countries, will find that the record stops where Rome began. Take
England in further illustration. The first record the inhabitants of
England have of the past of their island comes from Roman invasion.
They know of Boadicea, of Cassivelaunus, the earliest figures in
their history, from what a foreign destroyer tells them in an alien
tongue.

All the early life of Celtiberians and Lusitanians has passed away
from the record of human endeavor, save only where we find it
recorded by the Italian invaders in their own speech, and in such
terms as imperial exploitation ever prescribes for its own
advancement and the belittlement of those it assails. Ireland alone
among all western nations knows her own past, from the very dawn of
history and before the romance of Romulus began, down to the present
day, in the tongue of her own island people and in the light of her