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Photograph by Billy McWilliams
 Larne: Land of Gaelic Poets A few years ago, I was inspired by what Linda Ervine was doing in Belfast and contacted her to find out how I could go about setting up an Irish class in Larne. At that time, I was aware that Larne was the centre of the universe, but oblivious to its heritage as a centre of Irish poetry!
Linda is an Irish language student from Belfast, whose personal story is as remarkable as her journey to Irish. The cross-community side of what she does as an Irish language activist is one thing, but the grassroots community building is another: she and the Turas team have brought people flooding into the Lower Newtownards Road in their hundreds in search of Irish culture. When Belfast was the Athens of the North On the surface, Belfast seems like an unlikely setting for an Irish language movement. By 1708, it was a plantation “Scots town” with only 7 Catholics among the Protestant population of around 2000 people, but it was surrounded by villages filled with Gaelic speakers. During the nineteenth century Irish was integral to the Belfast cultural renaissance. Dr James McDonnell, for instance, was at the helm of the Irish cultural movement. He organised the Belfast Harp Festival in 1792 and formed the Ulster Gaelic Society to “revive our language.” The Belfast Royal Academy, which predated Queens University, added Irish to its curriculum in the 1790s. Belfast may have been alive with English and Scots voices, but Protestant preachers understood the importance of learning Gaelic in order to fill their churches with incoming migrants from the countryside. “The dregs and lees of the Catholic People” The Catholic Church soon recognised that Protestant churches were teaching Irish for the purposes of religious conversion and so they came down hard on it. Father Luke Walsh referred to Irish teachers as “the very dregs and lees of the Catholic people.”
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 "The Fectory," Browne's Irish Linen Factory, Larne. The Good Friday Agreement story
During the Good Friday Agreement negotiations, I was a student living in France and I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the finer details of Northern Irish politics, so Aodán Mac Póilin’s account of what happened at 3.25 am on Good Friday morning came as a revelation to me. David Trimble, he explains, threw Lallans onto the negotiating table when everything else had been settled, pointing out that 150,000 people in Northern Ireland spoke it. The Good Friday Agreement, therefore, offers “respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity, including in Northern Ireland, the Irish language, Ulster-Scots and the languages of the various ethic communities.” When Trimble brought Lallans to the negotiating table, he was asked to speak it in order to demonstrate to the table what he was talking about. Any Ulster Scots speaker would flounder were this to be requested: a negotiating table is a Standard English setting. It’s difficult and even embarrassing to use Ulster Scots out of context. Too many years of being told you speak “bad English” takes its toll eventually. In 1998, I would have had no notion what Lallans was, even though I came from one an area where Ulster Scots was alive and fairly undiluted. The aunts and uncles and grannies and grandas born in the early 1910s were still speaking in an old way that is now dying out: “Sez I tae me, sez she tae he, och och a nee.” The Cruithin theory The next thing that surprised me in Aodán Mac Póilin’s book was the Cruithin theory. The Cruthins were apparently connected with the Dalriada Kingdom that comprised parts of Scotland and Ireland and they were driven to Scotland by invading Gaels in the fifth century. The “Cruithin thesis” was used by a small number of Unionists to challenge the nationalist rhetoric of British colonisation, the idea being that the plantation of Ulster and migration to Ulster by the Scots represented a return of the Cruithin to Ulster and the repossession of a native homeland. A more radical branch of the theory is that the ancestors of the Ulster Scots people were responsible for spreading Christianity in Ireland. At worst, it's a supremacy theory.  My dad's most precious possession - his Burns book with my Granny Jemima's inscription "There's no such thing as Ulster Scots."
These are words I see often on social media. The rationale is that Ulster Scots can’t possibly be a real thing because languages are all supposed to be different and exotic and mysterious, and Ulster Scots is too close to English to be different and exotic and mysterious. A short lesson on the history of the English language, therefore, seems like a good place to begin an introduction to Ulster Scots. The word English is derived from Angles, the name of Germanic tribe, and the languages and dialects that all the various Anglo-Saxon tribes brought with them during invasions of Britain around the 5th century A.D. provided the foundations for the English Language. We refer to that collection of words, sounds and expressions as Old English, but the people of The Netherlands and Germany called it Dutch or Deutsche: both terms of are variations of one another, meaning "belonging to the people." Languages change Languages are porous and change over time, sometimes dramatically. English changed when Christianity spread and Latin was incorporated. There were then some Norse additions when the Vikings invaded Britain in the 700s. During the 12th century, the arrival of the Normans, whose language was a mix of French and Scandinavian, resulted in further changes. Click on this link and you’ll see my attempt at reading the lyrics of a 1225 song in English to my daughter. A short history of Scots The Angles tribe also came to occupy the north-east of England and south-east of Scotland in the fifth century, and Angles gradually spread throughout the Lowlands of Scotland. By the end of the thirteenth century, this language had developed its own distinct pronunciation and vocabulary.  This blog is the first in series of four. You might enjoy them if the linguistic landscape of Northern Ireland confounds you or excites you.
When a book came through my door entitled ‘Our Tangled Speech’ by the late Aodán Mac Póilin, I felt energised by the language debate within it knew I had to blog about it. These observations are based on a mixture of Aodán Mac Póilin’s research and my own thoughts and experiences. Edward De Bruce & friends How many people ever stop to think of the fascinating linguistic journey of the country we live in, of all the influences - pre-Celtic, Gaelic, Viking, Norman, Spanish, French, Scots, and English - and intersection of languages at various points in history? We know that Edward the Bruce came to Ireland in 1315 to serve a short tenure as King, but do we know what language he spoke? Was it Gaelic? Was it an old form of English? Or, was it an early form of Scots? It seems feasible that he would have known all three, but it's an aspect of our history that rarely comes up on the curriculum. Gaelic heritage The first written texts in Gaelic date back to the 5th century AD and the majority of the island of Ireland spoke Gaelic until the sixteenth century. During the eighteenth century, however, it ceased to be a majority language. Meanwhile in Scotland, a form of Middle Irish took hold in the 5th and 6th centuries, spreading throughout Scotland and replacing Pictish. This form of Gaelic, dominant until the eleventh century, was referred to as Scottis. It was eventually taken over by what we now know as Scots. By the 1400s, Scottish Gaelic had been demoted as a national language and was called Irish (Erse), reflecting its Irish roots. Western Scotland was still largely Gaelic speaking in the seventeenth century. This means that a large proportion of people of Scottish origin in Ulster have ancestors who spoke Gaelic. Economic migrants and plantation settlers who spoke Scots would also have come into regular contact with the Gaelic language in the 1600s. The Ulster Plantation represents a multilingual intersection in our history, when men gathered at markets to haggle for the best price of a cow in a variety of Irish, Scots and Elizabethean English. I rather envy the ancestors who got to witness it.  I don't recall how I ended up at a Corrs concert, or when exactly it was, but I do recall that it was around the time of the peace talks, a time of great hope in Northern Ireland. The singing was beautiful and the music was enchanting. And although marriage and children were a distant vision, I committed my future brood to music lessons there and then. Each musician in the Corrs played several instruments live on stage. Quite the mesmerising spectacle underneath a hope-filled sky!
Andrea was the middle class girl from Dundalk, raised with three siblings, life centring around her parents’ band and piano lessons, and I was the working class girl from Larne raised with three siblings, life centring around the drums and flutes of the Chaine Memorial Flute Band. It seemed to me that my life could not have been more different to the woman moving ethereally across the stage, not least because my singing credentials were limited to having turned the pages for the pianist in the school choir for four years.
There was a time, not so long ago, when everyone had an aunt or uncle with a fiddle or melodeon. My great uncle Dan Hewitt was a well-known fiddler in the town of Larne and as a child, I delighted in the Aladdin's cave of melodeons, fiddles, saxophones and clarinets hidden underneath his sofa, not to mention the harmonica residing in his top pocket that appeared to have a way of conversing with children all by itself. When Dan played the fiddle on Radio Ulster in the 1980s, “us weans” took it as read that he must be the most famous man alive.
As I was writing ‘Irish Dancing: The Festival Story,’ I picked up bits and pieces about the history of music: the ancient harp and pipe traditions of Gaelic times; fiddle schools emerging all around Ulster during the 1830s and 1840s; the popularity of instruments as they became more affordable and the subsequent creation of bands comprising banjos, fiddles and melodeons - the “pop bands” of their time. The encroachment of jazz music and gramophone records lead to the belief that live music might die out all together, so in the 1920s Irish folk music, along with Irish folk dancing, was added to the syllabus of the musical festivals.  Martha Doey (nee Taylor) aged 15-16 (circa 1933). Burning corks for eyeliner by the fire Two years ago, I began to do some historical research for a new novel called Waterloo Road. I was able to draw from my own experiences, having grown up with great aunts and uncles who lived on the Waterloo Road, but when Barbra Cooke got in touch to tell me about her granny Martha Doey’s diary, the novel came to life in my mind. Barbra’s aunt Irene, Martha’s daughter, invited me to her home to learn more, and during that interview, I picked up the kind of detail that could not be found in a newspaper or a history book. I discovered a world in which women scrubbed their teeth with soot from the fire, painted their eyebrows with burnt cork and went hungry as rationing stretched from one world war to the next. A picture emerged in my mind, a hazy outline of an industrial area that only half exists today, the old red brick walls of the linen mill still standing on the Lower Waterloo Road; the unbridled noise of looms, smoke belching from chimneys and the giant damn for steeping flax near present day Kent Avenue all gone. The people who congregated at the factory corner outside Billy Boyd’s store were already known to me, as I’d spent so much of my childhood at that same corner buying sweets from Duddy’s or Sally’s shop, but I began to see my old aunts and uncles more clearly. I also started to understand the significance of the 12 foot high wall that separated the kitchen houses of the Waterloo Road from the big houses where the captains and doctors resided. I discovered the world of Little Ballymena, a quarter of Larne that has since lost the moniker for which it was once known. My great grandparents were among first generation to fill the kitchen houses on the Waterloo Road, Herbert Avenue and Newington Avenue in the late 1800s. They were farming people with “Broad Scotch” accents, an eclectic mix of every Protestant denomination; religious affiliations that were often determined by whichever church was providing handouts to the poor and needy. Such folk, alongside their Catholic friends, were all united in a love of whiskey, dancing and music. Martha Taylor’s diary is buoyant with the kind of language that comes from listening and yarning. The rhythm and phrasing her words echo conversations conducted over washing lines; tales whispered in queues when ships bearing bananas came into dock and stories formed in a world in which women talked for hours. I haven't attempted to reproduce any of Martha’s diary: The following words are merely notes with my own insights of a short but rich historical resource. A life of serfdom Martha, who was born in 1917, begins the diary as a small child sitting on an army blanket in the back garden of number 15 Waterloo Road. The walls are thick with snow and she is content watching the robins hop along them. She is writing in the year 2001, her mind flooded with early memories. Martha’s peace on the army blanket is shattered when she hears soldiers marching. “Tramp, tramp, tramp,” she writes. She is a small child and she is afraid. A great military parade to welcome the soldiers home after Armistice is likely to have been the occasion. Brown’s Factory area is beset with unemployment in the 1920s as the linen trade goes into decline. Men are to be found on street corners lamenting the lack of work and gravitating towards socialism. Women, who are never far from hard work, continue to scrub laundry for a pittance, tend to cut knees, cook and clean.  Jane McCullagh (nee Lyttle), who is known as Jean. Jean is the daughter of Samuel Lyttle and Mary Lyttle (nee Gillen)  Baby Jane Lyttle in 1914 My Great Aunt Jean McCullagh (nee Lyttle) was 104 this week. Happy birthday Jean!
Jean is my granny Rossborough's sister. I interviewed her a couple of years ago when I was writing an historical novel and thought this would be a nice time to share what she told me. My mum is very fond of her aunt Jean. I always remember Jean sitting in the Murrayfield shopping centre when I was wee and my mum yarning to her for an eternity. Jean said that when she goes for medical appointments, the nurses sometimes take pictures of her. They also invariably ask her what the secret is to a long life. She tells them that she was reared on goats milk and that she had bacon, eggs and soda fresh from the griddle every morning. Jean's mother was Mary Lyttle (nee Gillen). She was from Ballysnod and lived there most of her days. Jean’s father was Samuel Lyttle, whose parents were from Maghera. Mary’s father was Patrick Gillen, who, like many people in the late 1800s, left these shores for America. He was forty at the time, and it is believed that he may have died before actually boarding the ship. His wife, Isabella Gillen, my great great granny, was therefore alone for most of her adult life. Jean loved visiting her Granny, Isabella. She too was from Ballysnod, but lived in a thatched cottage at Bank Quays near the Glynn. The house was on the opposite side to Howdens and located back from the road at the foot of a steep glen. Jean frequently ran down though the fields between Ballysnod and the Glynn with her siblings. They slept in an old settle bed filled with straw by the fire when they stayed over with their Granny Gillen. Jean recalls that her granny used to walk as far as Carrickfergus to sell eggs and to visit a relative. Childhood play for my granny’s siblings involved hoops and skipping ropes. The children also had free reign of Arnold's farm. Jean’s mother, Mary, rarely ventured beyond the end of the lane, but the world came to Mary’s door with people selling a variety of goods, not least needles, pins and thread, essential items for a talented seamstress. The fishman also came once a week, whilst Jean remembers an auld boy called Tinman, who sold the family tin cups and a tin teapot. The John Hewitt Society International Summer School  Here I am in Armagh, in voluntarily exile with nothing but a suitcase and a notebook, assigned to a dorm, a world away from my job, my husband, my children, my king-sized bed and all my inhibited freedoms.
I think of my responsibilities from time to time. They roll through my mind at the speed of steel bowls as I meander through the narrow streets, and they clock against my ears like wood on leather as I pass the cricket pitch on the Mall, but the itinerary is tight, the talks and entertainment uplifting, the friends giddy, and so, I walk each day in selfish sandals in the heat of a rare Ulster summer to the Market Place Theatre and Arts Centre in Armagh. I could write about all the talks I’ve attended and all the people I’ve met, but the reader would see only a blur of names and not the essence of the John Hewitt experience: the wonder of first-time writers, the humour of those who ‘dabble in silly rhymes’, the swagger of outspoken critical thinkers, the idiosyncrasies of spacey poets who talk of other dimensions and the calm aura of the odd bestselling novelist who had no intention of ever becoming a writer at all. Whilst the talks, readings and conversations are enthralling, some of the most meaningful exchanges occur in surrounding cafes, where tips are given freely and friendships blossom. I studied French at university and always wondered if I’d ever find my Rive Gauche. I didn’t expect to find it in Armagh. I befriend a local writer called Byddi Lee, a fellow member of Women Aloud and author of ‘March to November.’ Her gorgeous Goldilocks curls come bouncing into my life as she utters a sentence that fills me with hope and fear in equal measures: ‘I’m reading Snugville Street.’ I laugh and assure Byddi that my novel about a French exchange set between Belfast and Paimpol is mostly fiction. Byddi Lee points to her childhood home on the market place and gives me an insight into her upbringing, a precious window into the soul of a city. You see, Byddi Lee and me, we are as two Cathedrals, raised on opposing plinths of old battle lines.  How did did our ancestors, the young and old of nineteenth century Ulster, foot it to the dance floor? The answer, if you're partial to Victorian literature, can be found in a recently republished novel called Orange Lily. May Crommelin’s novel, set in County Down in the 1870s, is well worth a read, but what caught my attention, as I made the last touches to my book on the history of Irish dancing, was the description of dancing, and in particular, the reference to Soldier's Joy, my 6 year-old daughter's favourite team dance. No slithery-slathery walzes!
‘Soldier’s Joy' is a popular team (country) dance in the festival tradition of Irish dancing, and the dance is a charming spectacle to behold as the children knock, knock, knock, clap clap clap and rolly polly polly to the music. However, in Orange Lily, the dance is a little more rustic. ‘Big Gilhourn,’ an affable farmer, who has taken a fancy to Orange Lily despite her unerring love for Tom, takes to the earthen floor of the barn like Michael Flatley, rejecting any notion of lilting to a modern dance: “None of your new slithery-slathery walzes for me. What I like best is to see a man get up and take the middle of the floor - and foot it there for a good hour!’ ‘The Soldier’s Joy’ for me, if I may make so bold as to ask that request.” |
ProseScene from Snugville Street
82 Waterloo Road Ballysnod The Teacher Voice The Last Day of Summer Scheme Uniquely Girls' Brigade The Children of Latharna The Band Stick The Bully up the Brae God Created Butlins History & folkloreLanguage Blog I
Language Blog II Language Blog III Language Blog IV Fiddles and Melodeons Martha Taylor's diary Jean McCullagh at 104 Ballymena & the McConnells Arms in Irish Dancing Catholics & Protestants in Irish dancing EssaysIrish Times:
Irish Dancing: The Festival Story The Protestant in Irish Fiction. The Protestant in Irish fiction II Ulster-Scots in Irish Fiction An author in Wonderland Belfast Telegraph: Irish Dancing Miscellaneous Dancing in Victorian Ulster Learning the Irish Language. John Hewitt Summer School Thirteen Reasons for Peace Book reviewsSo Young then (Andrea Corr & me)
Jo Zebedee Lesley Allen & Helen Nicholl Orla McAlinden Du Maurier Anne Doughty Archives
November 2019
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