irish storytelling...

A hard-working peasant in a remote glen in Tirconaill, and with only a slender education in a foreign tongue, can tell a tale in his native language with a literary grace and finish, and a perfection of style which not one in a thousand even of educated persons could hope to equal in English.

There are several passages in this tale where the language is of classic beauty....If Boyle had not had literary taste and appreciation most of the literary touches would have undoubtedly have been lost.

This is what Irish speakers possessed, and what English speakers do not possess; the Irish speaker was so steeped in songs, and lays, and proverbs and stories--was master of a whole literature in fact, that he easily recognized beauty of expression, and ambitioned it himself....