Gadshill
a hill 3 miles N. W. of the Rochester, England, on the road to Gravesend. It is commemorated in Shakespeare's play, "Henry IV.," as the place where Falstaff had his encounter with the robbers and an inn at the place is called Falstaff's Inn. It is interesting in modern times for Gadshill Place, opposite the hill, which was long the residence of Charles Dickens and was the home in which he died.
GAETA language and Irish literature, and the reorganization of life in Ireland on the basis of the old Irish civilization. The Norman French who entered Ireland from England from 1169 onward speedily fell into Irish customs, learned to speak Irish in place of French, and became in the old phrase more Irish than the Irish. Two centuries later, however, when French among the educated classes in England began to give way to English, the English Government enacted laws, such as the Statute of Kilkenny of 1367, prohibiting the use of the Irish language, eland. dress and family names in Ireland . that time, however, English power in Ireland was confined to three or four counties in Leinster and even this restricted area was continually dwindling. Following the Reformation, however, and the Tudor wars, immense effort was put forth by the English Government to conquer Ireland and destroy its language and literature, and this effort found its culmination in the National Schools of 1833, in which English was introduced as the medium of instruction. Various efforts were made to preserve the national language, but without much avail till, in 1893, the Gaelic League was organized.
Branches of the league spread quickly through not only Ireland, but other countries, and side by side with the cultivation of the language there was a revival of Irish art, industry, and sport. Chairs in Irish were established at Harvard, Columbia, and the Catholic University, as they had long been established in numerous continental universities. The movement spread to Scotland and the Isle of Man where the language still persisted from the period of Irish colonization in the early centuries of the Christian era. At the present time the language shows great vigor in Ireland and the output of books in Irish is almost the o output of books in Irish is almost equal to that in English.