CELTIC RENAISSANCE is the name given to that comprehensive intellectual awakening, which manifested itself in a re markable revival of interest, displayed during the latter part of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and continued up to the present, in the languages, the literatures, the earlier history, the ethnological groupings, and the ancient religions, laws, customs, modes of life, ways of thought, and amusements of the native inhabitants of Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and the Isle of Man. Included under the general head ing is that splendid outburst of literature, writ ten in English, during practically the same period, by Irishmen and Irishwomen and deal ing with essentially Irish themes, on which, as a distinguishing designation, the specific title Irish Literary Revival has been con ferred. This part of the general movement is so important and so well and widely known that to it; exclusively, the title of Celtic Re naissance is sometimes given in error. To as sign a precise cause or an exact date as the be ginning of the Celtic Renaissance is difficult, if not impossible, for many causes and many dates, each inherently probable, might be named; but perhaps it may be here tentatively suggested that the publication, in 1853, of J. C. Zeuss's Celtica,) based on the Old Irish glosses which he rediscovered on the Continent, is an all-important philological fact. It is true that at no time, for several hundred years, were the cultivation and the study of some at least of the Celtic languages and literatures entirely neglected, and many Irish, Welsh, Scottish and European scholars consecrated themselves to such pursuits. The mention, in this connection, of Francis O'Molloy, Edward Lhuyd, Legonidec, H. B. MacCurtin, Vallancey, Bopp, Pritchard, Pott, Pictet, John O'Donovan, Eugene O'Curry and Whitley Stokes — to name no others — will be sufficient indication of what is meant. But Zeuss's epoch-making work which estab lished definitively, for the first time, that the Celtic group of languages belongs to the great Indo-European family, and was fortunate enough to have its conclusions accepted, gave an unprecedented stimulus to the examination of those languages in both their earlier and their later developments. On the literary 'side, Ernest Renan, in 1856, interpreted the Celtic spirit in his (La Poesie des races and Matthew Arnold's Oxford lectures, pub lished as 'The Study of Celtic Literature> in the Cornhill Magazine in 1867, insisted on the benefit to be derived from knowing the Celt and things Celtic more thoroughly. Thence
forward French, German and Italian savants, as well as enthusiastic scholars in Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland and America, gave increasing attention to the linguistic peculiarities of the various Celtic languages and dialects, and, almost as a necessary consequence, busied themselves in deciphering, editing and trans lating the many manuscripts in which the litera ture had lain enshrined but to a large extent buried away. Now, some of that literature was so wealthy, so noble, and so diversified, that soon its influence began to filter down from the desk of the scholar to the easy chair of the ordinary reader, and the movement, while re maining scientific in the hands of the trained linguist, took on, from another point of view, a decidedly popular tone. While old-established societies continued their work along traditional lines, but with increased vigor, new ones were formed, and periodical publications were issued, for the purpose of disseminating a wider knowl edge of the subject, and of still further de veloping its popular scope. In Ireland, the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Lan guage, established in 1877, was followed, in 1880, by the Gaelic Union, and this in turn, in 1893, by the Gaelic League. An organ for the necessary propaganda, namely, frisk abhor na Gaedhilge (The Gaelic Journal), was started in 1882, and this was in due course sup plemented by the official publications of the Gaelic League. Other Dublin publications, printed mostly in English but also partly in Irish, like The United Irishman, Sinn Fein and The Leader, gave hearty support, and even political daily papers found it to their advan tage to print a column or two in Irish. The Fels, or festival of Irish story-telling, poetry, song and recitation, as well as of Irish music, dances and games, was employed throughout the country as a further instrument for the re vival of the old Gaelic spirit. Since 1898, the Oireachtas (assembly), held every year in Dub lin, has been the culmination of those festivals. See GAELIC LEAGUE.