Beginning in the 1870s, the more politicized Irish-Americans began taking interest in their ancestral language. Gaelic revival organizations like the Philo-Celtic Society began springing up throughout the United States. Irish-American newspapers and magazines also began adding columns in the Irish language. These same publications also circulated widely among Irish-Canadians. Furthermore, the sixth President of St. Bonaventure's College in St. John's, Newfoundland was not only a member of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, but also taught Irish-language classes there during the 1870s. Although the subject still remains to be explored, Kenneth E. Nilsen, an American linguist specializing in the Celtic languages in North America, argued in a posthumously published essay that "closer inspection would likely reveal a Canadian counterpart to the American language revival movement."
