the Gaelic Union

Gaelic Union, the (Aondacht na Gaeilge), founded in March 1880 by a group of Irish-language activists and scholars who had previously been members of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, including David Comyn, Thomas O'Neill Russell, and Canon Ulick Bourke. Dissatisfied with what they judged to be the lack of dynamic popular impact of the former society, the Gaelic Union founder-members wished to implement practical measures that would arrest the decline of Irish as a living vernacular. It published a bilingual journal, Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge, which was influential in laying the basis for a new literature in Irish.