Never speak to the feet while the head is alive.

Written and donated by:  Ciarán Ó Duibhín
This is an updated version of Chapter 17 of Down: History & Society, ed. Lindsay Proudfoot, Dublin: Geography Publications, 1997.  That chapter, in turn, is an extended rewrite of my booklet Irish in County Down since 1750, Cumann Gaelach Leath Chathail, 1991, but with a few small items from that publication omitted for reasons stated in the text and notes below.)
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The Gaelic languages are conventionally divided into Irish, Scottish-Gaelic and Manx, and form one branch of the modern Celtic languages; the other branch consists of the British group, containing Welsh, Cornish and Breton. I will use the name Gaelic interchangeably with Irish, to emphasize the similarity of the three members of the Gaelic group, especially in such contact areas as County Down, Galloway and the Isle of Man.
Gaelic was the sole or dominant language in County Down from the earliest recorded times (7th century AD) until the plantation at the beginning of the 17th century, and remained strong in the southern half of the county for a further two hundred years. Between 1750 and 1900, as happened in large parts of Ireland and Scotland, Gaelic in County Down was steadily replaced by English. Its more tangible legacy today includes almost all our placenames,[1] and a high proportion of our surnames.[2] And folk memory has not entirely forgotten Boirche, the shepherd and piper of the benns; Domhanghort, the eponymous hermit of Slieve Donard; or Deaman, the king whose name occurs in Rademon near Crossgar.[3]

A thumbnail linguistic history of County Down to 1600

 One of the earliest known events of Irish history is the defeat of the Ulaidh (Ulstermen) by southern invaders known as the Oirghialla, and the destruction of their leading site, Eamhain Macha, in the 4th or early 5th century AD. The Ulaidh (also known as Clanna Rudhraighe) now retired eastwards to the modern counties of Down, Antrim and Louth, while central and southern Ulster was ruled by the Oirghialla. At around the same time, another southern group, the Uí Néill, took over the north-west and made their base at Aileach. Within East Ulster, a group called the Cruithin are also distinguished.

Although we thus have four identifiable population-groups in Ulster at this time, all of them were Gaelic-speaking, at least by the time of the earliest written records in the 7th century AD. Foremost amongst these early texts is the Táin Bó Cuailgne, thought to date from the 8th century, which deals with conflicts between the Ulaidh and their southern neighbours, supposed to have taken place around the start of the Christian era. While it is just possible that the Cruithin, and even the Ulaidh, originally spoke a British (i.e. Welsh) form of Celtic, or¾less likely¾were not Celtic in speech at all, no traces of any pre-Gaelic language have survived. Gaelic was also the language carried into Scotland by the Dál Riata of north Antrim from the late 5th century onwards.

By the 4th–5th century AD the main tribes or clanns in the County Down area were the Uíbh Eachach Cobha (of the Cruithin) in the west; the Dál Fiatach (of the Ulaidh) in the east, but extending westwards to the Bann in the north, with their capital at Dún Dá Leathghlas (‘English Mount’, Downpatrick); and the Dál nAraidhe (of the Cruithin) in the far north, as well as in much of modern County Antrim.

With the coming of Christianity, monasteries were founded, of which the principal in County Down by the 6th century were Dún Leathghlaise (Downpatrick), Aondruim (Nendrum),  Magh Bhile (Movilla, Newtownards), Beannchair (Bangor), Rath Murbholg (Maghera), Druim Mór (Dromore), Domhnach Mór (Donaghmore) and Linn Duachaill (Magheralin).[4] It was in seats of learning such as these¾and perhaps including some of them¾that the great manuscript compilations of Latin and Gaelic literary, genealogical and historical material were made, over the succeeding centuries.

From the 6th century, the kingship of Ulster (i.e. of counties Antrim and Down) was shared between the Dál Fiatach and the Dál nAraidhe and occasionally with the Uíbh Eachach Cobha. Around the 8th century, the Dál Fiatach expanded northwards into the south of County Antrim at the expense of the Dál nAraidhe, and established a new capital at Duneight in the 9th century. From 972, the kingship of Ulster remained with the Dál Fiatach.

Viking incursions began at the start of the 9th century—Bangor was attacked in 810, and Movilla was plundered in 824. The final defeat of the Vikings in Ireland is traditionally assumed to have come at Clontarf in 1014. The Vikings spoke Norse, which contributed a quantity of loan-words to Gaelic, but in Down almost the only toponymic record of their presence is the name of Strangford (though the lough continues to be known in Irish as Loch Cuan). This is in contrast to the extensive place-name landscape which they bequeathed to northern and western Scotland and the Isle of Man, and to the possible persistence of their spoken language until Norman times in some small areas of southern Ireland.

The Uí Néill had meanwhile spread across central Ulster from the west, gaining control over the ecclesiastical centre of Armagh and moving their principal sites to Tulach Óg and Dungannon. The demise of the Vikings perhaps mattered less to the Ulaidh than the relentless pressure of the Uí Néill. Nonetheless, the first quarter of the 12th century saw an Irish renaissance. When the lands associated with the various monasteries were consolidated into larger dioceses at the Synod of Rath Breasail in 1111, their boundaries reflected the contemporary Irish tribal territories, with the lands of the Uíbh Eachach Cobha forming the diocese of Dromore, those of the Dál Fiatach forming the diocese of Down, and those of the Dál nAraidhe forming the diocese of Connor.[5] Bangor monastery was restored in 1124 and brought under Augustinian rule in 1137, and new monasteries were founded, including that of the Cistercians at Newry in 1144.

The Normans under Strongbow came to southern Ireland in 1170, and John de Courcy arrived in Ulster in 1177. The Normans were composed of both French and English speakers, with the former socially dominant. They too added to the quota of monasteries, including Blackabbey (St Andrew’s, Ballyhalbert), Inch, Greyabbey, Comber and new Benedictine and Franciscan establishments in Downpatrick. The king of Dál Fiatach, Ruaidhrí Mac Dhuinnshléibhe, was slain by de Courcy in 1201.

At its greatest extent, the Norman Earldom of Ulster covered the former territories of the Dál Fiatach, the Dál nAraidhe and the Dál Riata, or at least their coastal areas, as well as the north coast of the present County Derry.[6]  The only groups east of the Bann who maintained an independent existence in the interior were the Uíbh Eachach Cobha and, in County Antrim immediately to the north of Lough Neagh, the Uí Tuirtre, a group of the Oirghialla who had earlier been located in south Derry, and some of whom later appear as the O’Flynns of the Ards Peninsula.

The Normans in East Ulster gradually faded out in the 14th century, and left little permanent linguistic effect in County Down, whereas their language extensively influenced the Irish dialect of Munster. In Ulster the return to Gaelic is well documented in place-names; in the Ards, for example, Philipstown and Talbotstown of the 14th century had become Baile Philip and Baile Thalbóid by the early 17th century, whence modern Ballyphilip and Ballyhalbert.[7]

At this period surnames are coming into use, as we have already seen with Mac Dhuinnshléibhe (McAleavey, Dunleavy) of the Dál Fiatach, whose power was effectively ended by the Normans, although the name continues until the late 13th century as king of the ‘Irish’ of Ulster. Some of this family later attained prominence as physicians to the O’Donnells, and in Donegal they were given the sobriquet ‘Ultach’, whence possibly Mac an Ultaigh (McNulty). The surname Mac Dhuinnshléibhe is also common in Argyll, where it may be shortened to ‘Mac a’ Léigh’ and is anglicised to Livingstone.  The Mac Giolla Mhuire (Gilmore) name is also of the Dál Fiatach.

By the 14th century, the Mag Aonghusa (Magennis) and Mac Artáin (McCartan) families had emerged from the Uíbh Eachach, and their territories are reflected in the extent of the later baronies of Uíbh Eachach (Iveagh) and Cineál Fhaghartaigh (Kinelarty) respectively.[8] The Mac Aonghusa clann seem to have had a ceremonial centre at Knockiveagh near Rathfriland,[9] while the Mac Artáin lands contained the ecclesiastical site of Loughinisland.  Names such as Savage and Fitzsimons attest to the assimilated Norman presence in the east of the county.

But it was a branch of the Uí Néill, the Clann Aodha Bhuidhe (Clandeboy), who took over from the Normans in North Down, moving down both sides of Belfast Lough by the 14th century. There must have been many smaller population movements too, one of which concerns the Uí Tuirtre (with their principal surname Ó Floinn), who are found from the 15th century in Inishargey parish in the Ards.[10] Also worthy of mention is the 12th-century migration of the Mughdhorna, a tribe of the Oirghialla, from Cremourne in County Monaghan to the south of County Down, where they gave to the Mourne Mountains their name in English.

Down was once again entirely Irish-speaking at the close of the 16th century, on the eve of Plantation.[11]

Plantation

In most parts of the island where the Normans remained, they became, in the famous phrase, ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’, but in the area known as the Pale, around Dublin and northwards along the east coast to Dundalk, the Norman colonies formed a bridgehead for continuing English involvement in Ireland.

Ulster was considered to be now the most Gaelic of all the provinces, and the most resistant to English rule. The English of the Pale mounted many expeditions against it and finally defeated the Gaelic forces under Ó Néill and Ó Domhnaill at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. This defeat broke the old order in Ulster, terms were agreed in 1603, and in 1607 the chiefs of the leading Ulster clanns emigrated to the Continent in the ‘Flight of the Earls’. Ulster was now wide open to the Plantation schemes of James I, whereby loyal English and Scots were settled on the confiscated lands of the native clanns in the escheated counties of Armagh, Tyrone, Derry, Donegal, Fermanagh and Cavan.

We should recall that large-scale population exchange between Ulster and Scotland was nothing new. Under the Gaelic order it was rather the norm.  The Scottish bardic families of the MacMhuirichs and Morrisons, for example, were of Irish origin; while in the other direction, Scottish gallóglaich participating in the Irish clann wars came to form important clanns themselves, including the MacDonnells in Antrim and the MacSweeneys in Donegal. But these Irish and Scots shared a common Gaelic culture, whereas the intent of the Jacobean plantation was to destroy the Gaelic culture and replace it with an English one. To the plantation mentality highland Scotland was no less barbarous than Ulster.

Down and Antrim already shared ongoing diffusion of population with Scotland and these counties were not included in the Jacobean plantation. An abortive English attempt had been made to plant the Ards in 1571, but then, beginning in 1605, Montgomery and Hamilton, two Lowland Scots from northern Ayrshire, came to an agreement with Conn O’Neill by which they took over the Great Ards and half of Conn’s Castlereagh estates in return for getting him a royal pardon, and over the next few years Conn sold off most of his remaining lands.[12] Montgomery got Newtownards, Greyabbey, Comber and Donaghadee, while Hamilton got Bangor, Holywood, Killinchy and Ballyhalbert and settled them mainly with Lowland Scots in 1606–7. Hamilton also acquired the Dufferin estate around Killyleagh from the Anglo-Norman Whytes in 1610.[13]

English estates in County Down included those of the Hills (Downshires), who acquired Hillsborough and much of northern Uíbh Eachach from Mac Aonghusa, and continued to encroach on Uíbh Eachach throughout the 17th century, as far south as Newry. Newry itself had been granted to the English Bagenals in the mid-16th century. Lecale was another centre of English settlement: Downpatrick, Ardglass and Strangford ‘reverted to the crown’ in 1599 and eventually found their way into the possession of Mountjoy. The Cromwells had holdings including the abbey lands of Down, Inch and Saul acquired from Mountjoy, which passed to the Southwells in 1687; and in 1636 they sold Dundrum to the Blundells, from whom it passed by inheritance to the Downshires. The Cromwells obtained one-third of Cineál Fhaghartaigh from Mac Artáin, and this passed to the Fordes in 1637. The Conways, whose main estates were in south Antrim, owned Dromore in 1635, and a corner of County Down around Moira.[14]

The Little Ards and parts of Lecale were still held by Gaelicised Anglo-Norman families, including Savage (Portaferry), Fitzsimons (Kilclief) and Audley (Strangford). Savage married Montgomery’s daughter and converted to Protestantism. The Fitzsimons sold their holdings piecemeal. In 1643 the Audleys sold part of their Strangford lands to the Wards, who acquired the remainder two centuries later. The Russells lost most of their estates around Downpatrick in Oliver Cromwell’s time. The southern part of County Down remained in the Mac Aonghusa family. Mourne was held by Anglo-Normans, with some Welsh and Scots settlement.[15]

The efforts of the natives to recover lost ground only resulted in further land confiscations. After the failed uprising of 1641, losses included the lands of the Laverys at Moira,[16] and the Mac Aonghusa and Mac Artáin lands were mostly granted to new Cromwellian settlers. Mac Aonghusa regained his title, but not his lands, after the restoration of the English monarchy but the title was finally forfeited after the Williamite Wars in 1691. It has been estimated that as many as 80,000 Scots settled in Ulster in the years following 1690.[17]

Petty’s ‘census’ of 1659 gives the numbers of ‘English, Scots and Irish’, but in County Down the English and Scots are counted together. The percentages of English/Scots in some baronies of County Down are as follows:[18]

Table 1: Percentage of English/Scots in Down baronies in 1659

These figures illustrate that many natives still remained as tenants in all areas at this period.

It is far from clear whether Petty’s classification is made on the basis of country of origin (as is ostensibly the case), or of language, or of religion, or of political sympathy. In most cases these factors will correlate highly, but not always: in analysing the 1659 data for the Ards and Castlereagh, Adams tries to interpret the census in linguistic terms, so that he can compare it with the virtually monolingual English situation in the same baronies around 1760, but he is forced to acknowledge the problems posed by the classification of Gaelic-speaking Lowland Scots, and likewise of the Gaelic-speaking Manx element.[19]

The question of the extent of Gaelic-speaking amongst the incomers is an interesting one. Highland Scots, including those of Kintyre, would have been thoroughly Gaelic-speaking, but in County Down it is to be supposed that most of the settlers came from the western part of the Lowlands: Renfrew, Ayr and Galloway. A good deal has been written about the survival of Gaelic in Galloway and Carrick (the southernmost part of Ayrshire), and the general opinion seems to be that Gaelic was extensively spoken in the area in the mid-16th century, but to have died out around 1760 (late speakers are located to Cultezron near Maybole; and to Glenapp, the glen where the road from Stranraer to Girvan leaves the coast).[20] So it is likely that the south-west contained substantial Gaelic-speaking and bilingual areas at the beginning of the 17th century and anyone from these areas settling in County Down would have had little difficulty in understanding the Gaelic of their adopted county.

Adams notes that some Manxmen were settled round the coast of County Down from Mourne to Belfast in the 17th century, and he lists Manx surnames found in County Down as including Crangle, McKisack, Quail, and Quekett.[21] The Isle of Man would have been solidly Gaelic-speaking at this time, and even in 1861 there were many monoglot Gaelic speakers there. In the census of 1911, Man was still 4.3% Gaelic-speaking, while in 1901 the overall figure was 8.1% with the west coast of the island ranging from 11% to 23%.

Religion and language: converting the Irish

The Church of Ireland, from Elizabethan times right through the 17th century and well into the 18th, had difficulty in deciding whether to use Gaelic in working with the native population, or whether cultural conversion should go hand-in-hand with religious conversion. Among the achievements of the party who favoured using Irish, the New Testament was translated under Bishop Daniel of Tuam in 1608, and the entire Bible in Irish was produced by William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, and belatedly printed in 1685. Bedell ‘had the Book of Common Prayer read in the Irish tongue in the church of K[ilmore, County Cavan] for the benefit of those that he had brought from popery, but understood not the English tongue’.[22]

The Presbyterian Church, with its strong Scottish connections, had no reservations about the use of Gaelic. The Belfast Synod of 1710, for example, sent out six ministers and three probationers to preach in Irish all over Ulster. Interestingly, they also arranged that congregations who wanted Irish-speaking ministers ‘are to exchange members with those who can speak Irish’.[23] Restricting consideration to County Down and neighbouring areas, we may note that Rev Patrick Simpson from Islay was in charge of a school in Dundalk to train ministers in the use of Gaelic, and in 1717 he was instructed ‘to preach in any place of the County of Down where he may have an Irish congregation and audience’.[24] Adams records Methodist preaching in Gaelic in the market place in Lisburn in the second half of the 18th century.[25]  It was said of Rev Moses Neilson, minister of Rademon near Crossgar and of his congregation in 1784: ‘The Dissenters and Papists of this parish mostly speak in that language [Irish], and his prayers and discourses are made in it.’[26] In 1798 his son Rev William Neilson (of whom more later) was arrested after preaching in Gaelic there.[27]  And the Rev William Laing, a native of Perth, preached in Gaelic in the Newry district from 1780 to 1806, as well as to the Kintyre settlers about Ballymascanlon.[28]

Public preaching may be directed to any and all sections of the population, but the use of Gaelic inside Protestant churches can only mean that a large part of those particular congregations were Gaelic speakers.  Were they planters who came from Scotland already speaking Gaelic; or planters who came speaking English but adopted the language of the natives; or Irish-speaking natives who converted to Protestantism in the early days of the plantation? It is probable that all three explanations are involved. We have already considered the first, and two pieces of evidence bearing on the second are the remark just quoted about the people of Rademon in 1784; and also an incident related by Ernest Blythe when a Presbyterian relative from Castlewellan visited Blythe’s mother’s family in the early years of the 19th century: his English was odd as he usually spoke Irish.[29]

Regarding the conversion of native Irish to Protestantism, certainly Adams’ ‘spot-check’ on the surnames of the Saintfield First Presbyterian congregation of 1969–70 points in that direction; as he says, ‘one can change one’s religion in a year or two but it takes a generation or two to change a family’s language.’ He concludes: ‘a considerable part of the old Irish population [in east Ulster] seems to have been absorbed into one or other of the reformed churches, usually into presbyterianism, which in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century must have had a considerable Irish-speaking membership. The association of Irish language survival with strongly Roman Catholic areas belongs to a later period and to central and west Ulster.’ [30] In an article devoted to this subject, de Blacam writes: ‘The schism of the sixteenth century cut geographically across the Gaelic world. Scotland and that part of Ulster which was infiltrated, not planted, became Protestant even before the plantation of Ulster.’[31]

The response of the Catholic Church to the use of Gaelic by the Protestant Churches varied. In the early 17th century, a programme of Catholic religious publication in Irish was undertaken: Keating’s Eochar-Sgiath an Aifrinn appeared in 1615, but the main centre of activity was Louvain, where the Franciscan college of St Anthony issued three major works between 1611 and 1618. The third of these, Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAithridhe, is of particular interest to us, as its author was Aodh Mac Aingil, from County Down, whom we shall mention again. Two centuries later, Protestant Bible societies employed many native scholars, including Hugh Gordon of Loughinisland, to teach the people to read the scriptures in Irish.[32] In some areas, such as Antrim and Cavan, the result was that Catholics acquired a distrust of anything written in Irish.

Irish literature in County Down: bardic poetry

Since around 1200, the chief literary genre in Gaelic had been ‘bardic poetry’, which is poetry in elevated language and strict metre, often in praise of clann chiefs. There were hereditary bardic families, often associated with a particular clann, but not confined to writing in its praise alone. As well as poetry, the poets were expected to be well versed in genealogy and history, and much material of this sort has also survived, in the form of pedigrees and annals.

One of the bardic families in County Down were the Ó Ruanadha (O’Rooney) family, a number of whom were ‘pardoned’ in 1602.[33] The name of Ballyroney comes from this family. The Ó Ruanadhas were mainly associated with the Mac Aonghusa clann, but poems in praise of Mac Aonghusa also survive from many other pens, including those of Feargal Óg Mac an Bháird (fl. c1600) from the Donegal bardic family, and of Fear Flatha Ó Gnímh (before 1629).[34]

Not exactly in the native bardic tradition, but none the less interesting for that, was Rev Patrick Dunkin, Episcopalian vicar of Donaghmore parish (County Down) in 1649, who was banished to the Isle of Man by puritan reformers around the year 1650. He composed the song Truagh mo thuras ó mo thír on the occasion. He returned to Ireland after the Restoration, around 1666, when he became Precentor of Armagh and Rector of Killeavy.[35]

The Gaelic scholar and collector of manuscripts Énrí Ó Muirgheasa gave a list of Ulster poets and scribes,[36] and his earliest writer with County Down associations is Rev Cathal Mac Ruadhraigh of Drumgooland, who lived about 1650 according to O’Reilly (who calls him ‘Thomas McRory’).[37] He is the author of  Do chaill Éire a céile fíre, a lament for Eoghan Ruadh Ó Néill, which was translated into English in 1701 by the Hon. Arthur Brownlow of Lurgan.

In 1680, the chief of Clann Aodha Buidhe, Cormac mac Áirt Óig, ordered a collection to be made of the genealogies and praise poems connected with his clann.[38] Many of the pieces had been composed over a period of three centuries by members of the East Ulster bardic family of Ó hEachaidhéin (Haughian), who also wrote for the Mac Aonghusas.

Ó Muirgheasa also mentions Diarmuid mac Lughaidh Mac a’ Bháird, a native of County Down according to O’Reilly, who places his floruit in 1690.[39] Hughes counts this Diarmuid ‘among the last of the great classically-trained Irish poets’ in an article in which he points out that the bardic tradition lasted longest in East Ulster and in the highlands of Scotland.[40] It is possible that Ballyward may be named from this family. 

Irish literature in County Down: popular verse

The social dislocation of the native Irish in the 17th century meant that by the end of the century the clann chiefs were no longer in a position to maintain family bards and the market for praise poetry had dried up. With the demise of the bardic order, versifiers would henceforth write in simpler forms and would use the language of the common people, who were now their only audience.  One of the new breed was Colla Mac Seáin (Johnston) of Mourne, whom O’Reilly dates to 1726.[41] From the same period, and presenting both sides of the story, is a humorous but moving poetic contention between Donnchadh Mór Ó Labhraidh and Giolla-Mhuire Caoch Mac Artáin. Ó Labhraidh, a worldly farmer, mocks the art of the blind harper with country wit: ‘Cé an traona seo sa ghort?’, while Mac Artáin hits back at the materialism of ‘Donnchadh na mbó’.[42]

Although south-eastern Ulster was a centre of Gaelic literary activity in the eighteenth century, the nearest Down can come to claiming one of the major poets is the case of Pádraig Mac a’ Liondain (1665–1733). O’Reilly says he hailed from the Fews in County Armagh, but Ó Muirgheasa doubts this: ‘There are no Mac Alindons in the Fews to-day, while they are plentiful in Co. Down around Hilltown, Rathfriland and Mayobridge, and Irish was spoken in this district until quite recently.’ One of Mac a’ Liondain’s compositions is in praise of a Sliabh Crúb, and certainly the best known mountain of that name lies in County Down. Despite these indications, later scholarship supports the Fews theory.[43] By the same token, County Down would seem to lose its claim on Mac a’ Liondain’s daughter Máire, who engaged in a poetic contest with the County Armagh poet Peadar Ó Doirnín, and possibly on Feargus Mac Bheathaigh (McVeigh), who wrote Mac a’ Liondain’s grave-lay, though once again Ó Muirgheasa is correct in saying that McVeigh is a County Down surname.[44]

One surprising omission from Ó Muirgheasa’s list is Micheál Ó hÍr, who is named in a manuscript of Art Mac Bionaid’s as the author of Seachrán Chairn tSiadhail, the song of an itinerant journeyman. The song travelled as widely as its author and gathered new verses wherever it spread, so that no less than twenty-eight stanzas, ranging from Omeath to Donegal, were printed in a monograph by Seosamh Laoide.[45] The location in the title is Carnteel in County Tyrone and Laoide suggests that Ó hÍr may have come from the neighbouring part of County Armagh. Nevertheless a Down association is possible since the name O’Hare is a common one in County Down.

Irish literature in County Down: scribes

The popular Gaelic literature of southeast Ulster in the eighteenth century spawned a scribal tradition which continued through the third quarter of the following century. We now mention some scribes with Down connections, but this list is likely to be very incomplete.

The last name on Ó Muirgheasa’s County Down list is that of Pádraig Ó Pronntaigh (Patrick O Pronty), ‘a great Irish scribe, but also wrote a few religious poems’. Ó Casaide  notes that his mss. date from 1732 to 1763, and that he was probably of Fermanagh extraction and was probably living at Ballymascanlon, County Louth about 1738. But he finds no evidence to connect him with another Louthman, Hugh Prunty, whose son Patrick (born 1777, between Rathfriland and Loughbrickland) was the father of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë.[46]

Eoin Ó Gripín, of Ballymagreehan in Drumgooland has extant manuscripts including some dated between 1796 and 1799. He may have been a hedge-schoolmaster in the area. Seosamh Laoide had at one time in his possession a manuscript of an Ossianic tale rewritten in Ballymagreehan.[47]

Two scribes from Newry are named by Ó Casaide as Aodh Ó Néill (mss. 1785, 1806), and Pádraig Ó hEithir (mss. 1795, 1797).[48]

The Ó Loingsigh (Lynchy or Lynch) family of Loughinisland were also of the scholarly and scribal tradition, and ran a school which was famed for Irish and classical learning. The last of the Lynchys was Pádraig Ó Loingsigh, some of whose Irish manuscripts still survive in various libraries. He is found teaching Irish in Belfast Academy in 1794, and taking private classes also. His pupils included Thomas Russell, ‘the Man from God knows where’, who was working in the Linenhall Library. Some of Ó Loingsigh’s work found its way into print, though not bearing his name: Irish conversations in a magazine called Bolg an Tsolair (1795), and a phonetically-written translation of St Luke’s Gospel (1799). He seems to have returned to Loughinisland about 1801, but in 1802 he made a celebrated trip to Connacht to obtain the words of Irish songs for Edward Bunting, and gathered more than three hundred of them. In 1803, Ó Loingsigh was made to testify at the trial in Downpatrick of Thomas Russell, who was hanged for high treason.  No more is heard of Pádraig Ó Loingsigh after this, but it is thought he may be buried in Loughinisland.[49] The Patrick Lynch who was secretary of the Gaelic Society in Dublin in 1806 is shown by Ó Casaide to be a different person.[50]

Irish literature in County Down: religious literature

Turning from poetry to religious literature, the 17th-century translations into Gaelic of the New Testament by Daniel, and of the complete Bible by Bedell, have been mentioned earlier. We now return to that period for the first of two County Down authors of religious works.

Aodh Mac Aingil (Hugh McCawell) was born in Downpatrick or possibly in Saul in 1571. He was educated locally and in the Isle of Man, and returned to Ireland about 1592 as tutor to the two sons of Hugh O’Neill in Dungannon. He accompanied Henry, the elder of the two boys, to Salamanca University in 1600, where they both studied. Aodh entered the Fransciscan order there in 1603. He was made a professor at the newly-founded College of St Anthony in Louvain in 1605, and in 1618 he published his major work, Scáthán Shacramuinte na h-Aithridhe, a treatise on penance. Mac Aingil’s prose style has been highly praised. In 1623 he moved to Rome, where we may imagine that he often visited the grave of Hugh O’Neill who had died there in 1616. He was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1626, but while he was preparing to return to Ireland to take up the post he contracted a fever and died on 22 September, and was buried in Rome. Besides the Scáthán, Mac Aingil is the author of a number of theological works in Latin, and of several religious poems in Irish, most notably of the Christmas carol Dia do bheatha, a naí naoimh.[51]

Here is a short anecdote from the Scáthán: [52]

Do bhí Bráthair Mionúr tuata do chlainn ar naomhathar S. Proinnsias ’gá raibhi beatha bheanduighthe dhiadha ’na chomhnuidhe a mainisdir dár n-órd san Spáinn san chathraigh dárab ainm Samora (do bhádhus[s]a féin san mainisdir). As í bá oiffig dhó bheith ’na spinnséir [sin, riarthóir na bialainne]. Do-chuaidh i ccumann lé Bráthair Preidsiúr tuata, spinnséir mhainistreach S. Doimnic san chathraigh chédna. Do ghealladar an dís se dá chéili, gibé dhíobh do-gheabhadh bás ar tús, go ttiocfadh d’fhios an fhir eile do thabhairt sgéul na tíre thall dhó, dá bfhaghadh cead ó Dhia chuige. Fuair an Bráthair Mionúr bás, agus, iar mbeith dá chompánach san phroinntigh ag déanamh a oiffige, tháinig chuigi. Do labhradar sealad ré chéile agus do innis an marbh neithe iongantacha don bhéo ar phíantuibh purgadóra agus go raibhi féin ionnta. Do fhiafruidh an béo dhe créd fa raibhe ’a bpurgadóir. Adubhairtsean nách raibhe d’fhiachuibh air achd, an uair do bhíodh ag roinn a ccoda ar an ccoimhthionól, nach déineadh na coibhrinn cothrom, achd go mbíodh barr ag cuid aca ar a chéili, agus ’na éiric sin go raibhe a lámh dheas ar dearglasadh, agus, dá dhearbhadh sin, do bhúail ar an mbórd í agus do loisg áit na ccúig méor go domhuin san cclár ndarach lé teine agus lé géire na lasrach do bhaoi asda. Agus atá lorg na láimhe sin aniogh go hiomlán san mbórd soin dubh-loisgthe agus pláta airgid ’gá fholach ar a bhfoil glés osgailti dá thaisbénadh do dhaoinibh onóracha, ór, suil do cuireadh an folach air an ccuid sin don bhórd, do bhriseadh na daoine thigeadh dá fhéchuin ní éigin don chronn dhóite, dá bhreith riú dá mbrosdughadh dochum lóirghníomha do dhénamh ina bpeacadhuibh ré mbás; agus as iomdha duine bhrosduigheas aniogh féin chuigi so an lorg sin amháin na láimhe d’fhaicsin dubhdhóite.

Rather more than a century later, we encounter Dr James Pulleine (or Séamus Mac Póilín). The date and place of his birth are unknown, but he was Dean of the Catholic diocese of Dromore in the middle of the eighteenth century, and lived at Clonduff or Annaclone.[53] The text has been preserved of an oration in Gaelic which he delivered on the grave of Owen O’Neill of Bannvale, of the Clann Aodha Buidhe, who was drowned in the river Bann in 1744.[54] He also wrote an Irish catechism, An Teagasg Críosdaidhe Angoidhleig,[55] of which editions were published in 1748 (anonymously) and in 1782. He died around 1776.[56]

Pulleine has also been suggested as the author of the manuscript translation dated 1762 of the Imitatio Christi by Thomas à Kempis—Tóruidheacht na bhFíreun ar Lorg Chríosda—although some believe a Franciscan friar (perhaps of Drumnaquoile) to be a more likely candidate.[57] Of the language of the Tóruidheacht, Ó Mordha says (my translation): ‘It could be said that the Irish in the Tóraidheacht is a mixture of literary Irish and of the translator’s dialect, but the work bears throughout a strong dialect flavour.’[58] The Tóruidheacht was published in 1915, edited by An tAth. Domhnall Ó Tuathail.[59] Here is a short extract from the introduction:

A luchd annsachd an chrábhaidh, aig seo agaibh leabhrán ceirt-bhriatharach, deagh-chomhairleach, binn-fhoclach darab ainm ‘Tóraidheachd na bhfíreun air chéim lorg Chríosda’, noch do sgríobhadh ó thús san teangaidh Laidne le brathair ainglighe oirirc do Órd Bheannuighthe St. Auguistín; anois air na thairbhirt dhíbh ann so i ndeilbh, i n-éideadh agus i líbhrea mur dtíre féin, eadhon san teangaidh ghaoidheilic.

Is fada ó do dheallruigh téasdas agus deagh-chlú an ughdair bheannuighthe air feadh na cruinne, air mhodh gur bhreathnuighdear luchd eagna agus mór-eolais air chrábhadh, nach rabh amach ó’n Sgrioptuir Dhiadha én leabhar amháin is dísle, dhiadha, dheagh-chomhairlighe nó é; agus uime sin, is cian ó do ghabhadar saothar daoine foghlumtha gach én tíre an leabhar diadha-sa a chur a dteangaidh agus a gcanamhaint dhúthchasaigh a mathara agus a dtíre féin, air mhodh go bhfuil sé le faghail, ní hé amháin san teangaidh Laidne, Eabhra, Ghréigis, agus Arabaic; ach fós ann gach cainnt agus ann gach ceileabhar choitcheannta eile air feadh réagunaibh imchiana choigchricheacha choimhigheacha an domhain mhóir. Agus, ar an ádhbhar sin, do tógadh dhamhsa mar an gceudna, saothar do ghabhail a chur a gcló agus a gcainnt ár dtíre féin, eadhon, sa teangaidh ghaoidheilc; agus cé go bhfuil sé anois neóin agus deireadh an lae, ní bhfuil sé go fóill ro-mhall an maith do dhéanamh uair ar bith, óir a deir Críosda féin san t-Soisgeul linn go bhfuair an mhuinntir, a tháining go mall san fhíneamhain, mar fuair an luchd oibre a tháinig go moch, eadhon, an tuarasdal agus an luach-saothair céadna.

We may be disposed to see in the words ‘cé go bhfuil sé anois neóin agus deireadh an lae’ a touching admission that Irish was already on the wane in County Down.

Irish literature in County Down: William Neilson and his grammar

Our next writer may be said to inherit both the religious prose tradition and the secular scribal one which we left with Patrick Lynch. William Neilson was the son of Rev Moses Neilson, who had come as a Presbyterian minister from the Strabane region to Rademon near Crossgar in Kilmore parish in 1767. Moses Neilson was an Irish speaker, and used Irish in Rademon, as already noted.

William was born in 1774. He was schooled first by his father, and later by Lynch at Loughinisland. He attended Glasgow University from 1789 until 1791, and became a minister in 1796. He spent the years 1797–1818 in Dundalk, where he is known to have preached regularly in Irish. His arrest in 1798 after preaching in Irish during a visit home has already been mentioned; he was released from Downpatrick court the following day. He went on to become a professor in the Belfast Academy from 1818 until his death in 1821, and one of his pupils there was Robert McAdam. We can thus trace a line of academic descent from Pádraig Ó Loinsigh, through William Neilson, to Robert McAdam.

In 1769, Moses Neilson began to compile a book on Irish grammar, and this work was taken over and completed by William, leading to the publication of An introduction to the Irish language in 1808. This famous book consists of three sections: grammar; phrases and conversations; and extracts from the ancient books. The conversations are the most valuable part of it, and are reported to be partly based on those published earlier by his old teacher Lynch, though it has also been suggested that they have an even longer history.[60] A second and somewhat altered edition of the book was published in 1843, long after the author’s death. A facsimile reproduction of the first edition has recently appeared.[61]

The preface to the first edition contains the following:[62]

It is, particularly, from the absolute necessity of understanding this language, in order to converse with the natives of a great part of Ireland, that the study of it is indispensible. If Irish be no longer the language of the court, or the senate, yet the pulpit and the bar require the use of it; and he that would communicate moral instruction, or investigate the claims of justice, must be versed in the native tongue, if he expects to be generally understood, or to succeed in his researches. In travelling, and the common occurrences of agriculture and rural traffic, a knowledge of Irish is also absolutely necessary.

The book was not sufficiently classical to please John O’Donovan:

This grammar is the joint production of Dr Neilson and Mr Patrick Lynch... Mr Lynch had a good practical knowledge of the dialect of Irish spoken in the east of Ulster but was a rude scholar. The orthography, however, and grammatical rules, are adapted to this dialect, and not to the general language. The arrangement of the work is excellent, but it is to be regretted that the examples given to illustrate the rules are, for the most part, provincial and barbaric.[63]

From an opposite viewpoint, at the beginning of the revival, Dubhglas de hÍde said of William Neilson that he was the only person who had done anything for the common speech of the people.[64]

Neilson certainly set out to describe contemporary spoken Irish, but insofar as his book may happen to contain the Irish of East Ulster, this appears as much a natural result of circumstance as a deliberate objective. The quotation from the preface above shows that Neilson’s horizons were not narrowly local, and he reveals his position on dialect matters when he mentions ‘the provincial accents, which vary in Irish, as in all other living languages; and the only remedy for which is a careful attendance to those rules, which are framed conformably to the orthography, and founded upon the authority of the ancients, in whose time the language was cultivated and refined infinitely beyond the modern manner of expression’[65] and ‘attending to the various inflexions of nouns, in the different parts of Ireland... would be descending to the sanction of provincial barbarisms’.[66]

This regard for the ‘authority of the ancients’ led Neilson to praise East Ulster Irish when it remained consistent with the established orthography (in respects where the spoken Irish of other parts had changed, as in the pronunciation of broad ‘bh’ and ‘mh’), whereas some cases where Ulster Irish itself deviated from the norm simply fail to be witnessed in his spelling.  For example, he consistently writes the word for daughter as inghean, but remarks in a note that ‘it is pronounced in Scotland, and the North of Ireland, nian.’[67] Other words where Neilson’s spelling disagrees with Ulster pronunciation include: bosga, caiptin, bhur, tre/trid; whereas he employs spelling in accord with Ulster pronunciation in other cases, e.g. Gaoidheilg, nuaidheacht, pighin, ponta, seort, go de, asteach, astigh, tuit.

Whatever about their language, Neilson’s nine dialogues are certainly not parochial in their subject matter, and in the last of them the action ranges from Downpatrick, Dundrum and Annahilt all the way to Knockmoy, Gort and Kiltartan in County Galway. Here is a short extract from that dialogue, Teach oidheachta tuaidhthe or ‘A country inn’, located somewhere in the midlands, where two men from near Dundrum (‘laimh re traigh dùn droma’), called Mac Gabhann and O Ruanadh, arrive on their way to the fair of Ballinasloe, and get into conversation with another traveller (‘duine uasal’), who asks them about the antiquities in their part of the world:[68]

D. U. An bhfuil mòran de lorg na sean fhoirgneadh, no oibreacha cian arsaigh eile, le faiceal in bhur dtirse?

O R. Ta fuighill sean-chaislean, sean-chealla, agus sean toìr cian àrsaigh go leor ann.

Mac G. D’ar ndoigh go bhfuil; agus gur arsaigh an obair na ratha, ’s na huaimhneacha, ’s na leaca liteardha a fuaras ionnta.

O R. B’fheidir gur sinne na cloch-oir, ’s na charnain, ’s na cromleaca, na iad sin fèin.

Mac G. Is doiligh radha ciaca is sinne.

D. U. Ca bhfuaras na leaca liteardha, a deir tu?

Mac G. Aithreasa me dhuit, a dhuine uasail. Fa mhìle d’on ait, a mbion sinne nar gcomhnaidh, fuaras uaimh, air leathmalaigh chnuic, le fear a bhi ag tochailt fa chloich, a dtimchioll deich mbliadhna o shoin. Ni raibh smuaineadh, no fios ag neach beo go raibh a leithid ann, no go dtarla a fhaghail mar sin; na h uaimh fhada, chaol, gan chnamha, gan taise, no lorg ni ar bith ann; achd ballaigh folamha, air na bhfollach do leaca mora.  Bhi seomra bheag, dheas, chruinn cumpa, indeilbh chiseán bheach, air leath taobh na huamhcha sin; agus doras beag, cumhang a dol innte, falamh fòs, mar an gcuid eile. Achd chèanna fuaras aon leac, leabhar, leathan, a mullach na haitese; agus, air an taobh iochtarach d’on leic sin bhi tri line grabhthalta, do ghlan litreachaibh cheart chumpa; nach fuaras aoinneach ariamh o leith, a bhfeadfadh an sgribhìn sin a leaghadh, no a mhìneadhadh.

O R. Nil aon fhocal breige ann. Oir chonnairc me fèin an uaimh, ’s an leac, ’s an sgrìbhin, an uair a fuaras è.

D. U. Nil amhras air bith agam ann. Oir chonnairc mise fòs tuairisg na huamhcha sin, a deir tu: agus mac samhuil na litreach ceadna clo bhuailtè, igclair umha, ann nuadh stair chondae an Duin.

Mac G. Thainig duine uasal foghlumtha ann sin, o Atha na hilide, a chomharthaigh sios air chairt è.

D. U. Nach bhfuaras cromleac, faoidh charn, laimh leis [an] ait sin?

Mac G. Fuaras, go deimhin, fa dha mhìle dho sin, (a dtimcioll seacht mbliadhna roimhe sin), leac aidmheil mor, leathan, comhthrom, leabhair, comh mìn le cloichin cois thragha; go gcreidim nach bhfuil cromleac ann Eirin comh deas leis; reir mar dhubhairt an duine uasal sin, a thainic ’ga fheacuin.

Bhi fàl de leaca fada, cothroma, na seasamh ceart suas air a gceann thort timchioll fan chromleic mhòir, an uair a fuaras i; faoidh charnan mhòr, do mhion chlochuibh.

D. U. Nar togbhadh na leaca fada sin?

Mac G. Nil aoin diobh nachar tugadh chum oibre a bhi ’ga dheanamh laimh leis an àit.

D. U. Niar bhriseadh an uamhaigh mo dhoigh.

Mac G. Do briseadh, is milleadh i; agus niar fàgadh aoìn leac, no cloch, a bhfiu an dadamh, nachar togadh air shiubhal, an nòs ceadna.

D. U. Is iongnadh liom gur briseadh an uaimh.

Mac G. Dar ndoigh go leagadh go talamh an tòr-cruin aig Dùn phadruic. Agus shaoilinnse, a dhuine uasal, nach mbiadh se sona bainte le na leithid.

D. U. Nil mise ’ga radh go bhfuil se mioshona; ach togar dhamh gur naireach dho dhaoinibh uaisle, foghlamtha, gan cion no meas a bheith, air bhfuighioll oibreach arsaighthe na tìre.

Language shift and survival: census Figures 1851–1911

A new source of information becomes available to us with the Census of Ireland of 1851, in which a language question was included for the first time. This was largely due to the prompting of Belfastman Robert McAdam, and the question was included in every census from 1851 until 1911, that is, every ten years during that time.

The census data is presented on a county basis, and it is well at this point to recall the statement of Eóin Mac Néill that ‘the county divisions of Ireland have no sanction in tradition or history save that of the Sheriff and the Hangman for whose duties they were introduced.’ For as long as the boundary between County Down and County Armagh approximated to that between Mac Aonghusa’s domains and those of the O’Hanlons and others, it had some cultural significance in the Gaelic world. But we should now be thinking in terms of a Gaelic-speaking area stretching from south Down, through south Armagh, south Monaghan, north Louth, north Meath and east Cavan. This area is generally referred to as Oirghialla, from the tribe who occupied the greater part of it at a much earlier period; it has no longer internal boundaries of any social consequence.

Oirghialla was now cut off from other Gaelic-speaking areas, e.g. from the Sperrins to the north or Connacht to the west. It continued to be squeezed from both sides and eventually eliminated by the forces which had isolated it: Ulster English from the Lagan and Blackwater valleys on the one hand, and southern Hiberno-English from the former Pale on the other. County Down was a peripheral area within Oirghialla, and by this time Gaelic was already in terminal decline there. The following is the number and percentage of the county population who declared themselves able to speak Irish in the period 1851–1911—including both urban and rural areas but excluding any part of Belfast from consideration:

Table 2: Number and percentage of Irish-speakers in County Down 1851-1911

These figures show surprising fluctuations and have to be carefully considered, but they are of the utmost interest all the same. The problems with the language question were many. The question simply asked whether the subject spoke Irish—how well, or whether as one’s first language, was simply not asked. Varying social pressures also affected the responses. This is how MacAdam describes the attitude prevailing in 1851:

In various districts where the two languages coexist, but where English now largely predominates, numbers of individuals returned themselves as ignorant of the Irish language, either from a sort of false shame, or from a secret dread that the Government in making this inquiry (for the first time) had some concealed motive, which could not be for their good. Their native shrewdness, therefore, dictated to them that their safest policy was to appear ignorant of the unfashionable language.[69]

The upturn in 1881 is doubtless due to the fact that the language question had been until then merely a footnote on the census form, and could easily be ignored by the enumerators. In the last two censuses we see the effects of the Gaelic revival—the Gaelic League was founded in 1893, and people began in numbers to learn Irish as a second language.

Adams makes a useful distinction when he divides Irish-speaking as reported in these censuses into three categories: survival Irish, the original Irish of the district, on which I will be focussing; immigration Irish, due to inward population movement from Irish-speaking districts elsewhere, as we might expect to find in urban centres, in particular, in Newry and Warrenpoint; and revival Irish, learned as a second language in classes, which may be quite different from the original local form, and which dominates the 1911 figures for County Down.[70]<