For the co-operative movement depended for its success upon a two-fold achievement.

In order to get it started at all, its principles and working details had to be grasped by the Irish peasant mind and commended to his intelligence.

Its further development and its hopes of permanence depend upon the strengthening of character, which, I must repeat, is the foundation of all Irish progress.
The Irish Agricultural Organisation Society[28] exerts its influence--a now established and rapidly-growing influence--mainly through the medium of associations.

The Gaelic movement, on the other hand, acts more directly upon the individual, and the two forces are therefore in a sense complementary to each other.

Both will be seen to be playing an important part--I should say a necessary part--in the reconstruction of our national life.