Ireland - Subject Cards A-G

Agriculture and Land

Boats and Fishing

Besides the rowing curraghs up to 25' in length there are also in Donegal smaller paddling curraghs 8'-10' long... In an account of the Rosses (1753) we read of the funeral processions to the island of Aranmore in Donegal which comprised as many as 60 or 80 curraghs covered with seal skins. A hundred years later Sir Geo. Hill describes their construction - "the frame of sallies and laths, skinned with hide or tarred canvas, was lashed together with cords of horsehair." He tells us that cattle were transported in them by lifting an animal into the curragh on its back with its legs tied, & carrying the loaded vessel into the water.

The long rowing curragh with its high pointed nose is widely distributed on the west coast from Donegal to Kerry. They are rowed by 2, 3, or 4 men, & the largest are said to carry a capacity of 2 tons.

In-shore fishing has been combined with farming all around the coast. This type of fishing was well-suited to the Irish crofter economy - visitors often remarking that the Irish did not go out to fish but waited for the fish to come in to them. The shore-dwelling farmer is knowledgeable about the ways of fish & knows the "signs." ...Herring were formerly in great demand not only locally but for many miles inland for salting down as winter "kitchen"... The great days of salt herring were the 18 th & 19 th cent. when a potato diet cried out for a tasty accompaniment. On the northwest coast the herring fishery extends through the winter, with consequent serious risks which the Donegal men have nonetheless been willing to take. Here perhaps is an explanation for the survival of the light rowing curragh down to the coming of powered vessels, for a small sailboat brings many hazards on the stormy Atlantic coast... Long line fishing for cod, skate, & other big fish is most certainly far older than the herring fishery... the division of labor was on a primitive scale, for to the women folk fell the tedious labor of baiting & preparing the hooks. The long line fishermen were exceptionally hardy & were regarded with awe & respect by the inshore fishermen - farmers... Their knowledge of the sea & of the fishing marks was a guarded secret.

- E. E. Evans, Irish Folklore1

"In Newport, Mayo, we inspected a corragh, the construction of which has undergone little change for centuries, being almost precisely that used by the ancient Irish. It is of rude form, the stem being nearly as broad as the stern. It is made of wooden lathes covered with coarse, tarred canvas; this canvas is manufactured by the peasantry, the cost of the whole vessel is about 30 sh. The size is usually large enough to carry 4 men; each man rows two oars; the oars are short, flat, & broad. It is very light & rises & falls with every wave - literally dancing on the water; they are seldom if ever upset."

- Halls, Vol. III, p. 385

Fishing was a backward and neglected industry in Ireland. A large part of the coast in the SW, W, & NW is periolous; there are cliffs, rocks, & treacherous currents, sudden squalls, and above all the Atlantic swell, surging across thousands of miles of ocean. By the 19 th cent. timber was short in Ireland; in the west, practically speaking, there was none, & fishing boats were small, the largest being 12-15 tons. The national boat is the "curragh," a frail craft, often of considerable length, made of wickerwork covered originally of stretched hides, & latterly of tarred canvas. The curragh rides easily over the great Atlantic swells, is fast, & with 4 oarsmen can cover surprising distances. It was not suitable for the use of nets in deep-sea fishing, and according to an expert writing at the time, the fish off the W. coast of Ireland lay many miles out to sea in 40 fathoms of water. A vessel of at least 50 tons was needed, capable of going out for several days. If a gale blew from the east the nearest port of refuge was Halifax, Nova Scotia. The curraghs & small fishing boats of the Irish were powerless under these circumstances. An inspector reported that the failure of Irish fisheries was due to the want of boats suitable for deep-sea fishing. Another report commented that the courage & skill of Irish fishermen were remarkable. The native fishermen were "out in their frail curraghs whenever opportunity offers, and in weather nobody else would think of venturing themselves in such a craft." But the heavy swell of the west made deep-sea fishing in curraghs impossible. "The poor cotter had a miserable curragh, fished for his family or neighbors and got paid in potatoes."

When the potato crop failed fishermen all over Ireland pawned or sold their gear to buy a meal. At Claddagh, on Jan. 9, 1847, "all boats were drawn up to the quay wall, stripped to the bare poles, not a sign of tackle or sail remaining - not a fish to be had in the town, not a boat was at sea." On Achill, James Hack Tuke wrote that the waters could not be fished because nets & tackle had been pawned or sold "to buy a little meal;" the Vicar of Ring, in Co. Waterford, appealed for help because fishermen had sold or pledged their fishing gear to obtain food; similar reports came from Belmullet, Killybegs, Kilmoe, etc...; and indeed for every fishing port along the coast.

- Hunger, p. 289-90

1 Emyr Estyn Evans, Irish Folk Ways. London : Routledge & Paul, 1957.

Catholic Church

The Church in Ireland was a fighting church. Unlike the church in France, Spain, & Italy, it was poor & landless. It had no vested privilege & no stake in the old order. The British government had repeatedly in the early 19 th cent. offered to "establish the church with annual grants of money to each priest & bishop if Catholics would permit the government a veto over ecclesiastical appointments. The offer was consistently rejected.

[- no citation given for this entry]

History

"From about 1800 Irish Catholicism emerged from a catacombic[?] existence. During the 18 th cent., though the church had preserved its organization & had continued to function, immense material losses had been sustained, & the 1 st half of the 19 th cent. was a period of reconstruction. New parish churches, large barn-like structures, replaced the small 18 th cent. chapels; cathedrals were begun in several dioceses; the parochial clergy increased in less than half a century by about 50%; Catholic schools multiplied; and three great orders, the Irish Sisters of Charity, the Irish Sisters of Mercy, and the Christian Brothers, were founded."

- The Great Famine, p. 71

Priests

During the greater part of the 18 th cent. only priests who had been registered* with the government were allowed to celebrate mass, those unregistered remaining in the country being imprisoned & sometimes put to death. Formerly Roman Catholics had not been allowed to build churches or to worship openly. But thousands of priests had remained in hiding & mass was celebrated in secret lonely places, in bogs & on islands in lakes, in the mountains. After the Catholic Relief Act of 1793, when Catholics got the vote (& even before), the faithful were allowed to build churches & worship openly.

The extraordinary religious zeal of the Irish peasant has often been noted by strangers, from Spenser to Montalembert, who made the tour of Ireland in 1830. That the priests were beloved by the people is not surprising. They had attended to their wants, listened to their grievances, soothed their misfortunes, & this, be it remembered, at the risk of their lives.

- Constantia Maxwell, The Stranger in Ireland (Mil. Lib.)

*Note: The conditions attached to the registration of priests were so onerous that most of the priests that remained in Ireland preferred to be free & unregistered & thus take their own risks.

Christianity, Development of

Ireland received Christianity from Britain & by the 6 th century Irish Christianity surpassed that of every other land of western Europe, not only in intensity & sanctity, but also in passionate devotion to learning & in missionary enthusiasm. The passionate enthusiasm with which the Irish devoted themselves to the study of sacred learning & the liberal arts from the 7 th cent. is without parallel in the rest of Europe... Before the 8 th cent. there were at least 50 important centers where Irish influence was dominant, ranging from Brittany on the NW to Wurzburg & Salzburg in the east, & from the English Channel to Bobbio."

- Myles Dillon & Nora Chadwick, The Celtic Realms, p. 323

Chronology of Ireland

432 [A.D.] - St. Patrick sent as Bishop

563 - Columban went to Iona

795 - 1 st appearance of Norsemen ( Dublin) - raids continued [for] 200 years

1002 - Brian Boru became King of Ireland

1014 - Battle of Clontarf - Brian won but died

1103 - last effort by Danes when they landed & were repulsed

1166-75 - Anglo-Norman invasion; Dermot, King of Leinster went to Henry for help -

"Strongbow;" winter of '71-72 Henry there.

After 1225 - the O'Neills & the O'Donnells rose in Ulster

1318 - Bruce defeated & killed

1333-1399 - Anglo-Irish in control ___ against English - the English Pale established.

The old Gaelic civilization badly shattered in the 13 th cent., recovered strength in the 14 th.

Took the side of York in the Wars of the Roses & Henry VII was to them a usurper. With

Henry the VIII & the Reformation the Anglo-Irish & the Gaelic-Irish united in opposition.

Destruction of monasteries helped unite them.

1556 - policy of plantation 1 st established

1569 - Elizabeth [I] excommunicated

1594-1603 - Tyrone War (south had been pacified by 1579)

Revolt und[er] Red Hugh O'Donnell, the hero of Gaelic Ireland; Hugh O'Neill -

Earl of Tyrone joined Red Hugh Kinsale - 1603 & flight of the earls - end of Gaelic Ireland.

1607 - Flight of the Earls Tyrone & ______ - O'Neill & O'Donnell & 100 other chiefs. Celtic Ulster became most British province.

?-1616 - Four Masters - swan song of Gaelic world - last of Gaelic Brehons - poets &

historians for 2000 years.

1613 -15 - Parliament (Irish) ratified the Ulster Plantation _____

1641 - general uprising under Owen Roe O'Neill, who returned from Spain (nephew of Hugh

O'Neill - earl who had fled - he had been at Kinsale at age 15

1646 - Owen Roe won at Benburb; he died in 1649

1649 - Cromwell victorious at Drogheda - bloodbath

1652 - final capitulation at Galway - flight of the "Wild Geese"

Plantation by Cromwell (for soldiers as well as lords); ordered former owners to

Connaught.

1660 - Charles restored some lands, but only to Protestants

1685 - James - Talbot (Catholic viceroy)

1688 - bloodless revolution

1689 - William landed in Ireland

1690 - Battle of the Boyne

1691 - Limerick capitulated - Tyrconnell died

1702-15 - Penal Codes passed - against Presbyterians of north also, tho not as harsh; tithes to

rival church

1771 - O'Connell born

1782 - Relief Bill - Catholics could purchase land & have their own schools

1798 - Rebellion - Tone

1800/1801 - Union

1803 - Emmett (really just a Dublin street riot)

1805 - Catholic Assoc.? formed - Daniel O'Connell joined

1823 - O'Conn. started his movement for Catholic emancipation; country brought to verge of

revolution

1829 - Catholic Emancipation; act passed removing main Catholic disabilities. O'Connell

turned to Repeal (member of Parliament for Clare); meeting at Tara, 500,000

present

1838 - paid tithe with rent

1838 - 1 st steamship crossing

1843 - meeting called for at Clontarf (Brian Boru's battle); O'Connell & mass meetings

demanding Repeal

1844 - O'Connell released

1845 - Devonshire report

1844 - disease attacks the potato crop in America(?)

1845 - potato famine

1846 - total failure of crop; fever epidemic

1847 - fall - shooting of landlords; emigration - lowest classes; O'Connell died

1848 - emigration - better classes; insurrection - Rebellion of Young Ireland - Tipperary - 30

rebels dead

1849 - cholera

1850 - agitation began for land reform

1855 - reform at N.Y. - Castle Garden

1863 - formation of Fenian movement in America (achieving [Home Rule] by force)

1868 - State church disestablished

1870 - Formation of Home Rule Party by Isaac Butt (trying to achieve Home Rule by

constitutional methods)

1879 - Land League established by Michael Davitt; Charles Parnell, leader. He took over

agitation for H. Rule by constitutional methods.

1881 - Land Act conceded 37's - Fair Rent - Free sale. Fixity of tenure.

1886 - Gladstone's 1 st Home Rule Bill - mild but rejected by Parliament (supported by Parnell)

1891 - Parnell died

1893 - Gladstone's 2 nd Home Rule [Bill] passed House, rejected by Lords

1900 - Sinn Fein Party organized by Arthur Griffith

1912 - Asquith's Home Rule Bill passed by House, rejected by Lords (included Ulster who

[resisted? resigned?])

1914 - Bill passed with outbreak of [World] War [I]

1916 - Rebellion became guerilla war

1921 - gave Dominion status

Customs and Culture

Character of the People

The Irish developed inwardness & stubbornness. Within the outlook formed by the rhythms of life on the land and the nearness of the sea, the narrower tradition of national defeat bred these enduring qualities in the Irish character. The repetitive nature of Irish political griefs, the collapse of the Gaelic nobility, & the many lost rebellions reared a tradition of hopeless gallantry & military failure. "They always went forth to battle, and they always fell," the poet wrote. The long losing battle against the English rubbed into every Irish mind a primitive tragic sense. From childhood, each generation learned of these old defeats & heard retold the tales of lost battles & fallen heroes. The grinding realities of economic exploitation by a foreign landlord class reiterated to each generation the painful meaning of that tradition... There grew among the Irish a sense of themselves as a fated race. A man at the bottom who knows he is at the bottom must conserve & endure, or crack up. The Irish did not break... They tried to hold onto what was theirs: their rights in the land, their family identity, their memories, their pattern of speech, their way of looking at the world. Rebellion had failed, social movement was blocked, individual talent brought no reward. Then let the outsiders, the government, and the world be damned, & let each man look to his own & his family's interest. The Irish became dedicated to holding together the family unit, & independent & "touchy" where their rights were concerned.

- Wm. V. Shannon, The Am. Irish, p. 9

The Church was a formative influence on the Irish character. At every time & at every place the Church formed the life of the people & interlocked the divergent elements of the national character; everywhere its influence was pervasive. The Church's mere survival affirmed continuity with the past. Its corporate existence, directed & sustained from Rome, made it the one national institution to persist unchanged through the terrors, miseries, & disintegration of defeat. It was the one Irish institution that the people could regard as peculiarly their own & in which they could invest their strength. Its dogmas made sense out of the legacy of national defeat. Its sacraments & rituals gave meaning to suffering.

- Ibid., p. 20

These experiences (the partnership of Church & [Daniel] O'Connell) bound together the Irish and their priests for generations to come. The Church of Ireland was a fighting church. Unlike the Church is France, Spain, Italy, it was poor & landless. It had no vested privileges & no stake in the old order.

- Ibid., p. 21 

Community Ties

Despite all the disadvantages of life in these clachans (villages under rundale), their inhabitants were reluctant to leave them. It was stated in evidence before the Devon Com. that even if they were moving only half a mile away "they were crying as if they were going to America."

- E. Estyn Evans, Irish Folkways (1957), p. 10

First in importance is the strength of blood-ties in extended family groups, still maintained in many urban communities... In remote rural areas the blood-tie is a dominant force, governing economic as well as social relationships, its loyalties overriding the impartial administration of justice. A relative is a "friend," even if "far-out" - that is, remotely connected.

- Ibid., p. 10

Curses

As no race exceeded the Irish in religious invocations or terms of endearment, do did they take first place in their power - and use - of curses: like the saint of old, they loved cursing. There is none like Paddy for cursing, wrote Carleton. "His imprecations are often full, bitter, & intense. Indeed there is more poetry & epigrammatic point in them than in those of any other country in the world." He rose to the height of virtuosity of language in the evils he called down on the head of an enemy, believing that a curse, no matter how uttered, "will fall on something," & that it hovered for seven years over the head of the accursed. The Catholic Irishman showed an ingenuity of invention (and a flexibility of conscience) when he devised a curse that would bring bad luck without, at the same time, violating his religious scruples; a gymnastic moralist was he.

- G. Patton, To the G. Door, p. 1021

Curse of Columbkille

Three steps are left at the end of a cutting out the end of a bog to avoid the "curse of Columbkille," who was once trapped in a bog hole & laid a curse on all who did not leave three steps.

- E. E. Evans, Irish Folkway

Dancing & Sociability

(see also "Travelers" - Young)

1825 - Sir Walter Scott on a visit, "Their natural condition is turned toward gaiety & happiness."

Dancing was the universal diversion, & Lord George Hill, who owned property in Donegal, has left an account of removing a cabin. "The custom on such occasions is for the person... [seeremainder of quote under "Donegal - Agriculture, Land, & Houses"]."

- Woodham-Smith, Hunger, p. 24

(This is pertinent to the moving of the Mormon houses [on Beaver Island] to the new sites.)

The Irish have always been a highly-social people. ...At home, though their lives were isolated, it was the isolation of small settlements, primitive admittedly, but in close proximity to each other. Lord Geo. Hill found in tenants in Donegal unwilling to accept a new & better house if it meant separation from their neighbors. A successful Irish farmer in Missouri who had worked in Ireland for 6 pence a day now "rejoiced in land & stock, no rent, light taxes, whiskey without government inspection, free shooting, and, above all, social equality;" yet he looked regretfully back to the days in Ireland, where, after work, "I could then go to a fair, a wake or a dance or I would spend the winter nights in a neighbor's house, cracking jokes by the turf fire. If I had there but a sore head I would have a neighbor within every hundred yards of me that would run to see me. But here everyone can get so much land, that they calls them neighbors that lives 2 or 3 miles off - och the sorra take such neighbors I would say. And then I would sit down & cry & curse him who made me leave home."

- Ibid., p. 266-6

Funerals & Wailing

Mrs. Mikolson, Co. Kerry -

"The loud wail for the dead soon sounded from the mountain... I went on to the gate 'till the multitudinous procession arrived, bearing the coffin on a couple of sheets, twisted so that four men could take hold on at each end, and carry it along. Women were not only howling, but tears were fast streaming from many an eye. When they reached the abbey, the grave was not dug, & here was new and louder wail struck up. While the grave was digging, 8 women knelt down by the coffin, & putting their hands upon it, and beating with force, set up a most terrific lamentation. The pounding upon the coffin, the howling, and the shoveling of earth from the grave, made together sounds & sights strange, if not unseemly. ...when all was done, they knelt down to offer up a prayer for the dead, which was done in silence."

"In the islands off the west coast of Ireland, where the most ancient superstitions still exist, they have a strange custom. No funeral wail is allowed to be raised until 3 hours have elapsed from the moment of death, because, they say, the sound of the cries would hinder the soul from speaking to God when it stands before him, & waken up the 2 great dogs that are watching for the souls of the dead in order that they may devour them - & the Lord of Heaven himself cannot hinder them if once they waken...

...The sound of the Irish keen is wonderfully pathetic. No one could listen to the long-sustained minor wail of the 'Ul-lu-lu' without a strong emotion & even tears & once heard it can never be forgotten... There is something indescribably impressive in the aspect of the mourning women crouched around the bier, with shrouded heads, as they rock themselves to & fro & intone the solemn, ancient death song with a measured cadence, sometimes rising to a piercing wail."

- Lady Wilde, in her introduction to Ancient Legends of Ireland, p. 9-10 (1888)

Sir William Wilde prepared a report on Death Tables of the 1851 census. - Antiquarian

Among the poor, the "keen," or human lamentation by the living, for the dead, contained the poetry and music that was every Irishman's heritage (Geraldus Cembrensis in the 12 th century said that the Irish always expressed their grief musically)... Those who have never heard the keen must satisfy themselves by imaginative re-creation & find in it poetic drama of a high order: a poor cabin, the only light the steady glow of candles, shadowy people sitting in obscurity beyond their range, and an old woman, usually a professional "keener," but sometimes the wife or mother of the dead man, rocking to & fro & pouring forth in cadenced shrieking voice an improved oration reciting the virtues of the man stretching in death on a table or rude box covered with a sheet.

"Cold & silent is they bed. Damp is the blessed dew of the night; but the sun will bring warmth & heat in the morning, & dry up the dew. But my heart cannot feel the heat from the morning sun; no more will the print of your footsteps be seen in the morning dew, on the mountains of Ivera, where you so often hunted the fox & the hare, ever foremost among young men. Cold & silent is now thy bed.

My sunshine you were. I loved you better than the sun itself... He who was everything to me is dead. He is gone forever; he will return no more. Cold & silent is his repose."

This is part of a keen composed by the illiterate mother at the waking of her son, Florence Sullivan, hanged at the beginning of the 19 th century in Cork for the singing of treasonable songs. Its simple dignity was not unusual: the generality of keens followed the pattern; the character of the Irish language lent itself to expressive & poetical words & phrases.

It was considered disrespectful not to attend a funeral, even though the dead person was unknown to those who joined the procession. An English commissioner in the 1830s saw several funerals of common laborers or their wives followed to the grave (3 or 4 miles distant) by from 12 to 20 farmers on horseback & 200 or 300 laborers or others in cars (carriages) or on foot, "scarcely one of whom had any connection with the deceased & many did not know him or her. As the funeral passed some of the inmates of most of the cabins on the road sallied out to join us, although they could not tell the Ass. Commissioner who it was they were thus following to the grave." - G. Patton, To the G. Door, p. 97-99

"Ceremonies differ in various districts, but only slightly. The body is laid out on a table or bed & covered with white linen. Close by are plates of tobacco & snuff, around the body are lighted candles. Usually a quantity of salt is laid out (an ancient symbol of friendship). The women of the household range themselves on either side & the keen (caoene) begins. They rise with one accord and, moving their bodies slowly to & fro, keep up a heart-rending cry. This cry is interrupted for awhile to give the 'ban caoenthe' an opportunity to commence. At the close of every stanza of the dirge, the cry is repeated; the woman then proceeds again with the dirge, & so on to the close... The keener is usually paid for her services - the charge varying from a crown to a pound, according to the circumstances of the employer. It often happens, however, that some friend or relative, rich in the gift of poetry, will give an unbought eulogy. The Irish language is peculiarly adapted for either praise or satire - its blessings are singularly touching, and its curses wonderfully strong, bitter, & biting. The rapidity and ease with which both are uttered generally bring tears to the eyes of the most indifferent spectator. The dramatic effect of the scene is very powerful; the darkness of the death chamber, lit only by candles that glare upon the corpse, the sobs of the mourners, heightens the effect of the keen. In the open air, winding around some mountain pass, when a priest, or person greatly beloved is carried to the grave, and the keen, swelled by a thousand voices is borne upon the mountain echoes - it is then absolutely magnificent.

The keen is very ancient; there is a tradition that its origin is supernatural, to have been first sung by a chorus of invisible spirits over the grave of one of the early kings of Ireland. The keener, having finished a stanza, sets up a wail in which the mourners join. Then there is a momentary silence before keener commences again, and so on - each stanza ending in a wail. The keen usually consists of an address to the corpse, "Why did he die?" etc..; or a description of his person, riches, etc... It is altogether extemporaneous.

The lamentation is not always confined to the keener; anyone present who has the gift of poetry may put in his or her verse.

The keener is almost invariably an old woman; or if she be comparatively young, the habits of her life make her appear old.

• The Halls, Vol. I, p. 222-229
  

The wake lasts 2 days, sometimes 3, occasionally 4. Where the survivors are "poor & proud" the body is consigned to earth within 24 hours because of expense. When the corpse is about to be taken out the wail becomes most violent... Funerals are invariably attended by a numerous concourse; some from affection to the deceased, others as a tribute of respect for a neighbor, and a large proportion because time is of little value... On coming to a crossroads it was customary in some places for the followers to stop & pray for the soul of the departed; and in passing through a town they always make a circuit around the site of an ancient cross. - note - Thus a corpse passing through _ethard in Tipperary, is always carried around the pump, because the old cross stood there in former times; there is a certain gate of the same town through which a corpse is never carried, though in their direct course, because it was through that gate that [Oliver] Cromwell entered the town.

- Ibid., p. 231

Gaelic Language

Use of -

The Irish before 1848 had adopted the English language as their own. There were no native schools that could perpetuate the Gaelic language in written form. The Irish picked up what learning they could in the Hedge Schools. The schoolmaster often punished students who clung to Gaelic, & he did so with the cooperation of the parents. Gaelic was of no use to the farmer dealing with his English landlord: "It would not sell the cow." The politicians encouraged this trend, for their political vision in that era was an Ireland that could take equal place with England within the Kingdom.

A partial survey showed that by 1841, 4/5s of the people knew both Gaelic & English and only 1/5 knew only Gaelic... Later nationalists mourned the loss of the language but for the future emigrants it was an unforeseen asset. The Irish were the only immigrants in the U.S., other than the English themselves, who spoke the language of their new country.

- Wm. V. Shannon, The Am. Irish, p. 162

Before 1845 one-third to one-half the people spoke Irish in the home.

By 1865 death & emigration had reduced the proportion to 1/5 th.

- Inglis, S. of Ireland, p. 1943

Words, vocabulary -

Ban - white (bawn)

Beg - small (also Beag; in this the "Veag"

of Hannah)

Bog - soft

Bogach - a bog

Brog - a shoe

Caidh (kee) - blind

Cam - crooked

Ceo (keo) - a fog

Ciar (keer) - black

Claymore - a sword

Clog - a bell

Con Bacco - the lame

Con More - Con the Great

Cro - a hut

Dall - blind

Gaelic words -

Dearg (darrig) - red

Dian (deean) - strong

Donn - brown

Dubh (daiv) - black

Eag - death

Fear (far) - a man

Fearann (farran) - land

Finn, Fionn - white

Galloglach - foot soldier

Galloglases - a kind of mercenary; soldiers armed with edged axes & coats & mail; who

being formerly invited over by the Rebels, were rewarded with lands among them

(p. 1383).

Geal (gal) - white

Go - the sea

Liath - gray

Mor - great

Muir - the sea

Murbholg - sea inlet

Nan - a diminutive termination

Odhar (ower) - brown

Og (oge), occ, or oc - diminutive

Or - gold termination

Orc - a pig

Palas, pailas - a fort, a fairy palace

Port - a bank, a fortress, a landing-place

Ri, righ - a king

Riabhach (reeagh) - gray

Rioghan (reean) - a queen

Rod - a road

Ruadh (rua) - red

Sail - salt water, brine

Scoil - a school

Scudal - a fishing net

Sean (shan) - old

Shan - John

Sid (Shade) - a cow, a jewel

Seid (Shade) - to blow

Sin (sheen) - a storm

Spionan (speenawn) - a gooseberry bush

Tir - land

Tonnach - a mound or rampart

- P. W. Joyce, Irish Place Names, Vol. 2 (Mil. Lib.)

Agh - a field

Anagh or Ana - a river

Ard - an eminence

Ath - a ford

Awin - a river

Bally, or Ballin - a town

Ban, or Bane - white or fair

Beg, or Beag - little (is this the Veagh? of the Island?)

Ben - a mountain

Bun - a bottom or foundation

Car, or Cahir - a city

Carrick, Carrig, Carrow - a rock

Cork, Corcagh - a marsh

Clara - a plain

Croag, Croghan - a peak

Clogh, or Clough - a great stone

Curragh - a moor

Clon - a meadow

Col, or Cul - a corner

Derry - a dry spot in a swamp

Don - a fastness

Donagh - a church

Drom a hill-range

Inch, Inis - an island

Ken - a head

Kil - saint, or burying ground

Knock - a hillock

Lick - a flat stone

Lough - a lake

Magh - a plain

Main - a collection of hillocks

More - great

Rath - a mound (also given as fort)

Ross - a headland

Shan - old

Shebh - a range of mountains

Tack - a house

Temple - a church

Tom, or Toom - a bush

Tra - a strand

Tobber, Tubber - a well or spring

Tullagh - undulating ground

Tully - a place subject to floods

- from Black's Guide (1860)

Bally - homeplace or town

Booley - where flocks spend the summer

Ballybeg - little town

Clachan - cluster of houses

Flath-innis - Isle of the Noble (Heaven)

Knock - a hull

Shanachie - story-teller

- Evans, Irish Folkways

Aine - ring or circle

Bonneens, Boneveens, bonnifs - young pigs

Brian Boru - Brian of the Tributes

Coom Duv - Black Valley

Cromleac - stone of Crom (altar)

Lobhar - leper

Tirconaill - land of Connell

Torg - wild boar

Tyrone - land of Owen

Ui Neill - childen of Neill

- Halls

Nior - big

Beag - little

Doighte - burned

- according to T. H. White

Mahane - myself

Mor - big

Veag - little

Rua - red

Og - young

Ropa bashia - means burned rope (Pat)

Ancestral Names -

About 950 [A.D.] the leaders of the two great clans adopted the practice of calling themselves O'Neill & O'Donnell. This use of surnames was soon rendered universal by a law of Brian Boru passed in 965, that every family should take a surname from some distinguished ancestor; & so from that day begins the era of the Mac's & O's. Sons of Donnell, sons of Mall, sons of Brian & the rest.

- Stephen Gwynn, Highways & Byways in Donegal & Antrim, p. 24 (M. Lib.)

In 1558 - Hugh Boy O'Donnell (the fair - boy means yellow)

Hugh Duv O'Donnell (the dark - duv or duvh means black)

Manus O'Donnell

- Ibid., p. 117

Mac - means son of

O - means grandson of

- Stephen Gwynne, Place Names

Nicknames -

Among the rural population in many parts of Ireland, almost every 3 rd man is known by some other name besides his ordinary surname & Christian [name]. Sometimes these epithets are hereditary & commemorate some family peculiarity or tradition; but more often they describe a personal characteristic of the individual.

On this subject Sir Henry Piers wrote in 1682, "They take much liberty, & seem to do it with much delight, in giving of nicknames: if a man have any imperfection or evil habit he is sure to hear of it in a nickname. Thus, if he is blind, lame, squint-eyed, left-handed, to be sure he shall have one of these added to his name; also from the color of his hair, as black, red, yellow, brown, etc..; & from his age, as young or old; so that no man whatever can escape a nickname who lives among them, or converses with them."

But this is obviously only a remnant of what was anciently the general custom. Originally personal names were descriptive; the people who now designate a man by a nickname do exactly as their ancestors did thousands of years ago.

- Joyce, Irish Place Names, Vol. 2, p. 159

Given in this chapter:

Phil - son Caech - partly blind

Sagart - priest Bacach - cripple

Dall - blind Bodach - clown, churl

Amadin - fool (male) Oinseach - fool (female)

Rath - fort Cabog - ill-mannered fellow

Ard - height Ruaidh - red

Fall - enclosure or hedge Crom - crooked man

Ciotach - left-handed Kilty - [also means] left-handed

Mullen - mill Spag - club-foot

Ibid., chap. 1:

Erin (Iar-in) - western land Sean (Shan) - old

Caiseal (cashel) - stone fort Cill - church

Magh - a plain Muc[?] - a pig

Broc - badger Os - fawn

On, onmit - fool Gall - foreigner

Ban - green field Coill - wood

Ibid., chap. 2:

Blog, blogan, bolcan - pale face Ferg - anger

Blar - field Og, occ, oc - young

Teach - house Dur - stupid, obstinate

Cath - battle

The farms rarely carry any names other than those of their owners (Mulligan's place, Thomson's farm, or merely O'Brien's), and since there may be a dozen O'Briens in a particular townland, various nicknames & patronymies are used to distinguish between them. Thus one farm may be Kilty O'Brien's (from its left-handed owner), another Patsy Kate O'Brien's (from the owner's mother), & a third Yank O'Brien's (a returned emigrant, this).

- E. Estyn Evans, Irish Folkways (1957), p. 28

Hospitality

"Irish civility & hospitality to strangers have been proverbial for ages - existing even to a fault; strangers will find, wherever they go, a ready zeal & anxiety, among all classes, to produce a favorable impression on behalf of the country; & in lieu of roguish ____iers, insolent d__niers, dirty inns, & people courteous only that they may rob with greater certainty & impunity, they will encounter a people naturally kind & intelligent."

- Halls, Vol. I, p. 253

Good manners & hospitality were universal among the poorest Irish.

"The stranger finds every man's door open, and to walk in without ceremony at meal time & to partake of his bowl of potatoes is sure to give everyone in the house pleasure," wrote John Carr, a Devonshire gentleman who toured Ireland in the early 1800s. Twenty years later Sir Walter Scott found, "perpetual kindness in the Irish cabin; buttermilk, potatoes, a stool is offered, or a stone is rolled in that your honor may sit down."

- Woodham-Smith, Hunger, p. 25

Irish dignity, hospitality, & easy good manners which still charm the modern traveler have an historical explanation. Three times at least the native aristocracy was conquered & dispossessed; many fled from Ireland to exile in France or Spain, but many others remained, to be forced down by poverty & penal legislation to the economic level of the peasantry.

Until the famine, it was by no means uncommon for poor peasants in mud huts to make wills bequeathing estates which had long ago been confiscated from their forebears, & that figure of fun in Victorian days, the Irish beggar who claimed to be descended from kings, was very often speaking the truth.

- Ibid., p. 26

(the O'Donnell [on Beaver Island] who claimed to be the "heir of

the castle of Donegal")

1 George W. Potter, To the Golden Door: The Story of the Irish in Ireland and America. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1960.

2 William V. Shannon, The American Irish. New York: Macmillan, 1963.

3 Brian Inglis, The Story of Ireland. London , Faber and Faber, 1956.

Donegal (County) - Aranmore (Section 1)

Overview

Population - the rate of increase in Ireland as a whole 1841 (really '45) to 1851 was 20%, but in Donegal only 14%. From '51-'61 12% in Ireland & less than 10% in Donegal. This in spite of the fact that it was rated a "congested area."

In 1879-80 there was near famine in West Mayo & Galway.

In 1890 - the potato crop of the whole western sea board was only 1/4 to 1/2.

In 1891 the Congested Districts Board was formed:

A Congested District - one where the ratable valuation was less than 5€ 10sh ($7.50)

per head. The Board reported that in Donegal the gap between income from farms & the income needed was met by seasonal laboring in Britain & domestic industry (knitting,

weaving, embroidering). The density of population reaches its highest limit in the barren

west, with over 400 per sq. mi. in northwest Donegal & 200, 400 in SW Donegal & West

Connaught, in all of which farm houses are often so close together that those on the road

resemble a village street ( -chapter on population).

Aranmore has about 500 persons per sq. mile of cultivated land. The remainder of the island consists of heather moor, heavily grazed. The type of life is similar to the Rosses, but fishing is a more important resource.

The report to the Cong. Dis. Board on the Rosses showed: only 3% of the holdings were

valued at more than €4 ($11.20), & 84% at less than €2 ($5.60); yet only 4% of the people were described as "very poor." The holdings consisted of about 2 1/2 A[cre], of which 1A or a little more was devoted to potatoes, 1/2A to oats, & 1 rood each to green crops or meadow.

Less well-endowed with natural resources than almost any other part of Donegal, the

inhabitants could not possibly exist on the produce of their holdings alone. The valuation per

head of population of the town land is 4 sh, 1 penny (51¢). Yet owing to the wages earned in

migratory labor, the people are in ordinary years well-fed, according to the standards of the

district, & also comfortably housed & clad.

The women cared for the home & farm for the summer, knitting & sewing at all possible

times, while almost all the able-bodied men, girls, & even children went away as migratory

laborers. The men went to Scotland, the girls & women went to farms in east Donegal &

Tyrone. More than half the annual cash income of 43€ ($120) came [from] migratory labor

& knitting & sewing by the women.

- T. W. Freeman, Ireland (1950), (Mil. Lib.)[1]

Agriculture, Land, & Houses

"In Donegal gangs of villagers threw down the landlords' fences as quickly as they were erected, in some parts of the county they are still kept in repair only in the summer." (so livestock can pasture freely - in summer gardens protected) --Evans, Irish Folkways, p. 20

"It is clear that in many parts of the country 'the cow's grass' was the effective unit of measurement. Of Donegal about 1840 we read, 'the land is never let, sold, or devised by the acre, but by 'a cow's grass.' This is a complement of land well understood by the people, being in fact the general standard; and they judge the dimension of a holding by its being to the extent, as the case may be, of one, two, or three 'cow's grass.' They have divided not only into the fourth part of a cow's grass, called a 'foot,' but into the eighth part, or half a foot, denominated 'a cleet'" (ibid., p. 29, quoting from Lord George Hill's "Gweedore").

"Spring is the only season without excessive rain, & plowing or digging in autumn or winter even if possible is unprofitable. Winter wheat is a risky crop in most parts, & the emphasis is on spring corn (crops), especially oats. This meant that the arable land was free of crops from October until April & it allowed pasturing & manuring by livestock for rather more than half the year. So deep-rooted is this communal pasturing that there are districts in Donegal where to this day the livestock of the whole townland has the run of all the farms (ibid., p. 33).

"A house to be 'lucky' must not be more than one room wide. 'Widen the house,' I have heard it said in Donegal, 'and the family will get smaller'" (ibid., p. 41).

"In one Donegal parish in 1837 according to a petition sent by the school teacher to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, there was 'not more than 10 sq. ft. of glass in windows in the whole (some 1,500 houses) with the exception of the chapel, the school house, the priest's house, Mr. Dombrain's home, & the constabulatory barrack.' (a wattle frame, a handful or straw or dried sheepskin served as windows)" (ibid., p. 49, from Lord George Hill's "Gweendore").

"The custom on such occasions" (building a house), wrote Lord George Hill - he is speaking of Donegal in the years before the Great Famine - "is for the person who has the work to be done to hire a fiddler, upon which all the neighbors joyously assemble & carry, in an incredibly short time, the stones & timbers upon their backs to the site, men, women, & children alternately dancing & singing while the daylight lasts, when they adjourn to some dwelling where they finish the night, often prolonging the dance to the dawn of day. Like all work done in common, the thatching too was regarded as a sort of festival" (ibid., p. 57). [Apparently see also CecilWoodham-Smith, The Great Hunger , p. 24, for this same quote. ]

"What is the present social condition of Donegal? Very poor, as may be expected when nature & society conspire against industy. Agriculturally this co. is the poorest in the island; & the relations established by law & politics, between landlord & tenant in Ireland have made Gweedore & other districts in the west of Donegal the scene of social incongruities which have within the last 2 years, shocked the civil society within the circle of the British press. The valleys however are fertile, & the rivers abound in salmon, the salmon fisheries of the Foyle & Erne being among the 1 st in the country, while the herring fisheries of the coast employ many vessels & many hands. The take of salmon has averaged for many years 2,814 CWT or 315,168 lbs. per anum & the open sea fisheries of Donegal employed in 1849, 2,810 registered vessels & 12,188 men & boys. ...Kelp-gathering & salt works employ great numbers of the poor peasantry on the coasts and adjacent islands, where the gover. schools lately introduced to teach the English language appear to be a decided failure, so completely Celtic & Irish-speaking are these people.

In percentage of arable land to total acreage, Donegal ranked last among the counties of Ireland - 32.9%.

- John H. Greene, A Catechism of Irish Geography (1859); published in

Cincinnati

Agriculture & Land - Rundale

Rundale, which is a most mischievous way of occupying land, was, till of late years, the common practice of north Ireland. It is this: three or four persons become tenants to a farm, holding it jointly, on which there is land of different qualities & values; they divide it into fields, & then divide each field into as many shares as there are tenants; which they occupy without division or fence, being marked off in parcels by stones or other landmarks; which each occupies with such crops as his necessities or means of procuring manure enable him; so there are, at the same time, several kinds of crops in one field.

- Report of the Irish Society, 1836, Halls, Vol. III, p. 261 (note)

Rundale, a state of things which paralyzes all improvement. It consists not in merely subdividing the farm into a given number of detached farms, but every quality of land is subdivided so that a holding of 4 or 5 acres was frequently to be found scattered into fifteen or twenty different lots, at considerable distances from each other, & interlaced with similar lots of other occupiers, precluding all possibility of enclosing the holdings. He (Capt. John Pitt Kennedy, in 1837) found tenants congregated in villages, which from the incessant & unavoidable trespass of cattle on each other's lands, were the seats of incessant warfare - many of the villages & towns being without any means of ingress or egress by road.

- Halls, p. 261-62

This consideration involves an analysis of the habits of the poor. They are exclusively agriculturalists. They imagine that their duties are limited to the spring sowing & the harvesting of their crops. The judicious preparation of his land for receiving the ordinary operations of tillage, do not enter into the calculations of the small Irish farmer. And during the winter season, which ought to be passed in draining & deepening his soil, irrigating his land, collecting manure, etc.., he lays himself up in absolute idleness. His Lilliputian farm thus produces but a Lilliputian crop, not equal to 1/3 of its natural capacity. His provisions become exhausted about May. Unable to get day labor to support his family through the summer, which is likewise a season when he thinks his farm has no claim upon him, he borrows at usurious interest for their support, and for the following year brings an additional burden upon his shoulders, already too heavily laden for his strength. Having thus commenced his downfall, he adds on debt over debt, each successive year until he is obliged to sell his interest in the land, & turned out a pauper.

- Ibid., p. 264

One man, a tailor in Donegal, "had his land in 42 different places and gave it up in despair." In Co. Mayo the land valuator cited the case of the townland of Liscananown, where 167 acres of land, of 3 qualities, were divided into 330 portions, the 110 inhabitants having 3 portions each.

- Great Hunger, p. 33 

Agriculture - Technology

The improved wooden plough did not reach remote hill regions until roads were built after the middle of the 18 th cent.. Even in the 19 th cent. it is described as a newcomer in Co. Donegal, where spade labor had previously been supplemented only by a "crooked stick armed with a bit of iron, with a second stick grafted to it to give two handles"... It was so light that when the improved wooden plough with the mould-board was introduced into Donegal the ponies were not equal to the task of pulling it.

- Evans, Irish Folkways, p. 130

It is clear that with the introduction of the potato in the 17 th cent. it was the spade that facilitated the breaking of the rough pasture...& so made possible the great expansion of cultivation & population in the century before the Great Famine.

- Ibid., p. 133

Agriculture, as system, is not much practiced except among the resident gentry, by whom great improvements are made.

The iron plough is in general use among the gentry & larger farmers, but the old cumbersome wooden plough is still in use in many parts. A light one-horse cart has nearly superseded the old wheel-car, & the slide cart is seldom seen out of the mountain districts, in which implements are still rude in construction & few in number, consisting on many farms merely of a loy (a spade with a rest for the foot on one side only), the steveen (a pointed stake for setting potatoes), & sickle.

- [Topographical] Dict[ionary of Ireland?]

Booleying

Lord George Hill in "Gweedore," 1846, says:

"It often happens that a man has 3 dwellings - one in the mountains, another upon the shore, & the third upon an island, he & his family flitting from one to another of these habitations... This change usually takes place upon a fixed day, the junior branches of the family generally perform the land journey on top of the household goods, with which the pony may often be seen so loaded, & at the same time so obscured, that little more than the head can be observed; & thus the chair or two, the creels & the iron pot, the piggin & the various selected etc... creep along the roads." The author goes on to comment on the restrictions imposed on the comfort & possessions of the peasants by their "Arab mode of life." "In Achill Island, too, the movements were complicated, involving the entire population which, having moved to the summer pastures & sowed their corn, returned to the permanent coastal village for the high summer to fish & went back to gather the harvest at the booley in the autumn."

- E. Estyn Evans, Irish Folkways, p. 35

"So deep-rooted is commercial pasturing that there are districts in Donegal where to this day (1957) the livestock of the whole townland has the run of all the farm lands through the winter."

- Ibid., p. 33 (on B.I.)

In the summer those who stayed with the cattle at the booley made butter, which they brought back with them.

St. Columba

"That St. Columba was born at Garten in Donegal in 521 [A.D.] seems beyond doubt, & that he once lived in Glencolumcille is accepted by many but rejected by others as a late tradition."

- Irish Pictures, Richard Lovett (1888), p. 190[2]

He was born in the north of Ireland, near Lough Garten, on a hill that overlooks the water. A slab of rock is called Ethne's Bed & it is believed to be the very place on which his mother bore him. They say that those who sleep on this bed will be proof against homesickness forever. Many an emigrant has spent his last night in Ireland upon it. He built his oratory in the lonely valley of Glencolumsille. The glen is now thought to have been a center of Druid worship & the 12 crosses called the "Stations of the Saints" are probably monuments of Druids, converted by the Saint.

- Olivia Manning, The Dreaming Shore, p. 178 (1950) (Mil. Lib.)

Curraghs

In an account of the Rosses in the 1750s we read of the funeral processions to the island of Aranmore in Donegal which comprised as many as 60 or 80 curraghs[3] covered with seal skins (from the Rosses in 1753)... Cattle were transported on them (curraghs). There is an account in this book of "the reckless daring of these islanders. A man & his wife coming out of island of Aranmore, in a little boat filled with turf, had a horse standing on top of it; with the roll of the sea the animal was thrown out, and as they were a long __ll from land, must have been drowned, had not the man cleverly succeeded in getting him into the boat again!"

• Evans, Irish Folkways, p. 237
  

Donegal - Town of

Pop.:

Parish - 6,260

Town - 830 (150 houses)

Castle built in 12 th cent.

1474 - Franciscan monastery founded

1587 - Donell defied English government & refused to allow any sheriff in his district; not

having force to overcome him, the English kidnapped his son & held him

prisoner (this was Hugh Roe).

1592 - English took possession of convent & surrounding territory, but quickly expelled by

Hugh Roe.

1600 - Planned rebellion with O'Neil & Spaniards. Flight of the Earls.

1612 - (Feb. 27) The borough was incorporated in pursuance of forming the new plantation

of Ulster. Since Union the corporation has ceased to exist.

1631 - Annals of the 4 Masters

1639 - Hewy Brook was granted the manor which comprehended the town, at 13 shillings,

4 pence per year. Although the remains of the castle & the other property granted

to the patentee have passed to other families, one of his descendents still pays a

a rent to the crown for it.

1651 - Castle taken by Marquess of Clanricarde[?], who soon had to surrender to a superior

force.

1798 - A French frigate of 30 guns & 2 more anchored in the Bay, but the local militia

deterred a landing.

Here is a constabulatory police station & a small bridewell. A good harbor - small vessels may ride in 2 or 3 fathoms about 1/2 cable's length from shore. Good herring fishing in the bay in summer. Within 3 miles of the town is The Hall, the residence of the Conyngham family. Donegal gives the title of Marquess & Earl to the Chichester family.

[- no citation is listed for this entry]

Fishing - Boats

"Plenty of the yawls which the fishermen of these parts (Bunbeg - in other words, the Rosses) lie by the quay, but no bigger boats; the local opinion is that fishing in these waters must be confined closely to shore, or nothing except a really large vessel can hope to ride out all weathers, & there is a plentiful lack of shelter to run to."

- Stephen Gwynne, Highways & Byways of Donegal & Antrim (1903) (Mil. Lib.)

Fishing - Early Nineteenth Century

The northeast coast fisheries are chiefly confined to Donegal (this must mean commercial fishing). They had declined for many years in consequence of the herring, the chief object of capture, having deserted the coast. In 1830 it was ascertained that the schools had returned & the fishery consequently revived, in so much as the value of the take in 1834 exceeded 50,000 pounds ($250,000), & in the two succeeding seasons has been still greater. The coast everywhere affords the means of abundant summer fishing, but the want of proper boats & tackle deters the fisherman from venturing to struggle against the stormy seas that break upon the shores during the winter. The white fishing for cod, ling, haddock, & glassen, & that of the turbot & other flat fish, all of which are in inexhaustible abundance, is little attended to beyond the supply of the neighborhood. The sun fish resorts thither & is sometime taken.

- [Samuel Lewis,Topographical] Dict[ionary of Ireland]

Fishing - Mid-Nineteenth Century

In late summer the sprat came ashore in vast numbers on the west & south coasts, so that in Donegal "they constitute the chief food of the peasantry during 3 or 4 months of the year" (from "The Cliff Scenery of S.W. Dongal," 1867). They were taken from the water in buckets & sieves, and the mackerel pursuing their prey close against the rocks might be caught almost as easily. ...About hay-harvest the ballan wrasse is at its best. ...Known as bavin, byan, morran, & by other names, it is now despised almost everywhere, as is the coalfish which was salted & dried & which has different Gaelic names for every stage of its growth to demonstrate its former importance & popularity. "Glassan" oil was the luminant for the crusie lamps in Rathlin Island (ibid., p. 226).

We are not concerned here with the commercial off-shore fisheries, but something must be said of the inshore fishing because it has been characteristically combined with farming all around the coast. This type of fishing was well-suited to the Irish crofter economy, so that the comment frequently made by improving visitors & despairing Government officials was that the Irish would not go out to fish, but waited for the fish to come inshore. The shore-dwelling farmer is knowledgeable about the ways of fish and knows all "the signs"...

(ibid., p. 250-51).

Old customs die hard on isolated islands... Fishermen in the north to this day avoid direct mention of many words such as pig, priest, & rat, & similar taboos are found in fishing communities as far away as Malaya. Formerly when starting on fishing expeditions the crews of Irish boats were very careful that their craft should leave the shore in a direction sunways, & even yet this superstition directs the course of many a fishing boat, & we may add, controls the casting of a net. A boat should always be entered on the right side (ibid., p. 303).

Geography - General

Donegal comprises an area of 1,197,154 acres, of which 247,281 are under tillage, 411,966 in pasture, 9,308 in plantations, 505,719 waste, bog, mountains, etc.., & 22,860 under water... The islands are numerous, 17 inhabited; the principal, N. Arran, containing 4,355 [acres], population 1,220. There is a lighthouse on Aran... The climate is moist, potatoes, oats, & flax are the chief crops; spade husbandry is practiced on the west coast... The occupations are chiefly agricultural, fisheries, & the making of kelp from seaweed, an article which is largely exported to Scotland... The county is divided into 6 baronies, 51 parishes, & 2,627 town lands; a population of 218,334 persons, or 41,944 families, inhabiting 40,854 houses; also 1,393 uninhabited & 89 buildings.

[- no citation given]

N. Aran (Aranmore):

[Land area] 4,355 A[cres] pop. 1,220 [in 1880?]

- Peter T. Sherlock, The Case of Ireland Stated Historically, 1880

From the Halls (1840):

According to an Ordinance Survey -

1,165,107 statute acres

520,736 cultivated

644,371 mountain & unimproved bog

Population:

1821 - 248,270

1831 - 294,104

1841 - 296,448

Aranmore - largest of the Rosses:

3 mi. from Rutland

3 mi. in length & 3 mi. in breadth

About 9 mi. from the mainland

4,355 statute A[cres]; only 650 under cultivation & in pasture, rest mountains (figures to

about 15% in cultivation)

Population in 1834 - 1,141

This means -

The whole island: 6.8 sq. mi.

Arable land a little over __ sq. mi. (sq. mi. = 640A)

Population 168 people per sq. mi.; all 1,141 on 1 sq. mi. of land in cultivation & pasture

- Top. Dict.

Geography - Rosses

The district of the Rosses presents mostly a desolate waste. On its western side is a region of scattered rocks and hills, some on the mainland, others insulated; the larger of these rocks are thinly covered with peat & moss; a few admit of some degree of cultivation, while almost all the innumerable smaller rocks are entirely bare. Collectively this group is known by the name of the islands of the Rosses. Aranmore, the largest, containing about 600A[cres], is about 2 mi. from the mainland; on Innis Mac Durn is the little town of Rutland.

The county is very bare of wood.

-- [Topographical] Dic[tionary of Ireland?], Vol. I, p. 473

Hardships of the People

Hardship has made the Donegal people what they are. It seems a paradox, but the curse of poor land, the scourge of bad landlords, and recurrent famine shape a near perfect community.

A wealthy midlander named John George Adair once went to Donegal on a sporting holiday. He resolved to become proprietor of a mountainous part called Glenveih. In 1858 he purchased the interest of the coveted district. He was quick to discover to his own satisfaction that the peasantry were "a lawless, violent, thieving, & murderous gang." A police barracks was erected & a pound set up. He manned his property with Scotch shepards & stocked it with Scotch sheep. In 1859 he purchased an additional 11,956 A[cres]. In 1860 he gave his tenantry notice to quit. He chose to believe that the Donegal people were stealing his sheep & had murdered his steward. Priest & Parson begged for mercy, but Adair went personally to Dublin Castle for help. Glenveih was invaded by 200 constabulary & several detachments of military with tents & baggage. A Presbyterian newspaper gives a harrowing description of the eviction scenes when the hovels were leveled - throwing themselves on the ground & bursting out in an old Irish wail, their terrifying cries resounded along the mountainside for many miles. As night set in the spectator might have observed near each house its former inmates crouching around a turf fire, close by a hedge; & as a drizzling rain poured upon them they found no cover. An Irish society in Australia paid their passage to that country. Those homeless people of all ages, more than a thousand in number, traveled together. In Dublin they marched together to the boat for Liverpool. A Dublin newspaper said, "A finer body of men & women never left any country. In stature tall, with handsome features full of kindly expression, they filled the breast of every spectator with regret that such a people should be lost to us forever."

- Stephen Rynne, All Ireland, p. 186-87 (1956) (Milw.)

In this country there is a survival of the old order, the clan system. The clusters of houses, which are in no wise villages in the English sense of the word, are frequently inhabited by relations; there are never more than two or three sirnames in any group. The little planless settlements of homes are truly typical of the Donegal way of life.

- Ibid., p. 187

From Red Hugh O'Donnell's return to Donegal in 1592 stems the tragic story of the last attempts of the Irish chiefs to hold Gaelic Ireland for the Irish by organized force of arms. Red Hugh led various expeditions into Connaught between 1595 & 1597 & he was present at the Irish victory of the Yellow Ford in 1598. Then came the defeat of the Irish & Spanish at Kinsale in 1601 that meant the end of Irish hopes & the beginning of the great plantations of Ulster.

Red Hugh fled to Spain in 1602, where he died at Valladolid the same year. A Franciscan from Donegal attended his deathbed, and Donegal is indeed closely associated with the Franciscan Order. In the ruin following Kinsale, it was the Franciscan initiative that set about trying to collect all the surviving Irish M.S.S. [manuscripts] to preserve Irish history & literature for posterity. It is the Donegal friary that is associated with the names of the Four Masters who carried out this work: M . O'Clery, C. O'Clery, O'Mulconry, & O'Drugnan[ ?]. Michael O'Clery tirelessly traveled Ireland, copying, always copying, every Irish manuscript that he could find.

[- no citation included here, but may be the same as above]

History

"Tirconaill was made into a county in 1585 by Lord Deputy Perrott. The name Donegal, "Fortress of the Foreigners," refers to a settlement of Danes. A region of mountains, bogs, and moorland, difficult to invade, with poor communications & few natural resources, roadless, and very wild, it remained through the centuries practically unconquered. When Cromwell tried to force the native Irish into Connaught, he could not get the Donegal people out of their remote hills, so he handed the area over to those of his veterans who cared to occupy it. They were intimidated by the wildness & fierceness of the inhabitants, & in the end retreated to more comfortable country [and] left Donegal to its inhabitants.

Here is to be found the purest Gaelic blood in Ireland & here the ancient qualities of simplicity, chivalry, & honesty are uncorrupted.

Until the 19 th century when Lord George Hill attempted to develop it, Donegal was practically unknown to the outside world.

In the 4 years [from] 1632-1636 the Annals was compiled by the 4 Masters: O'Mulconry & 3 O'Clerys.

The castle - the Earl of Tirconaill fled in 1607 & the castle was presented to a certain Sir Basil Brooke, who reconstructed it. It is now the property of the Earl of Arran.

It is a region (the Rosses - includes Burton Port) of bogland so rock-ridden & laden with great grey granite boulders & peppered with little loughs, that they say there is not earth enough to dig a grave. Unwanted for centuries before the "plantation of Ulster," it later became crowded with little homesteads. No other area of such infertility in the world can house so many. Most of the men hire themselves out for the summer months to landowners in Scotland & England. The women & children clear patches the size of pocket-handkerchiefs & grow potatoes. Emigrants have gone in hundreds from these parts.

- "The time when the Marquis of Conyngham was opening up the Burton Port herring-curing industry, & Lord George Hill created his hotel."

- Olivia Manning, The Dreaming Shore, 1950,4 Mil. Lib.  

Lower down, not far from the mouth of the Lake Earne, stands Donegall, a monastery & towne, which gave its name to this co. when it was first made one. This territory was governed for many ages by those of the family of O'Donell, who are of the same extraction with the O'Neals; without other title than O'Donell, & Lords of Tir-Conell. For the obtaining of which, and of their popular election & inauguration with accustomed ceremonies, at a certain stone near Kilmacrenar, they used to contend with great heat & bloodshed; till King James (the 1 st) by his Letters Patent conferred the honour, title, & stile of Earl of Tir-Conell, upon Roderick O'Donell, brother to Hugh the Rebel, who being banished, fled to Spain & there died. The title of Earl of Tyrconell was conferred by King James the Second on Colonel Richard Talbot, a most zealous Papist; & since the accession of King George to the throne, the title of Viscount Tyrconell hath been conferred on a noted family of England of the name of Brownlow; but that of Earl of Donegall is vested in the honourable family of Chichester; as to the territories hereabouts (formerly part of the inheritance of O'Donell), they are now enjoyed by the families of Gore, Hamilton, Connolly, etc...

But now take the observations of Mr. Good (J. Good, a priest educated at Oxford & schoolmaster of Limerick, describes their customs about the year 1566): "These people are generally strong-bodied, nimble, bold, haughty, quick-witted, warlike, venturous, inured to cold & hunger, lustful, hospitable, consistent in their love, implacably malicious, credulous, vainglorious, resenting, and, according to their old character, violent in all their affections; the bad not to be matched, the good not to be excelled.

They commonly baptize their children by prophane names, adding somewhat from one accident or another; from some old-wives tale; or from colors, as red, white, black, etc..; from distempers, as scabbed, bald, etc.., or else from some vice, as Robber or Proud; and, though they cannot bear reproach, yet the greatest among them, such as have the letter O prefixed to their names, are not ashamed of these appellations. It is looked upon as foreboding a speedy death to the parents or others of the family then living, to give his or their names to any of the children. When the father dies the son takes his name lest it be forgotten; & if any of the ancestors have been famous for their achievements, the like bravery is expected from him."

[Then comes a long paragraph on the Irish system of fosterage, saying the tie is much greater than the blood tie.]

"The people are strangely given to idleness, thinking it the greatest wealth to want business, and the greatest happiness to have liberty. They love music mightily, & above all instruments are particularly taken with the harp, strung with brass wire, and played on with their crooked nails. They are religious, mortify with wonderful austerity, by watching, praying, & fasting; so that the Relations which we find of their monks heretofore are not to be looked on as incredible.

...Robberies are here not looked on as infamous, but are committed with great barbarity in all parts of the country. When they are upon such design they pray to God to bring booty in their way. They are of the opinion that neither violence, robbery, nor murder is displeasing to God. If it were, they say, God would not tempt them with the opportunity; 'nay, it would be a sin not to lay hold of it.'"

[A long section on the viciousness of the clergy. Whores & bastards follow wherever they go, & sons succeed fathers in churches. "Absolute strangers to learning." "The sons of the priests become notorious robbers. For those who are called MacDecon, MacPherson, etc.., the son of the Dean & the Parson, are the greatest robbers."]

..."They seldom marry out of their town." He goes on that they are prone to divorce & incest.

Superstitious - "Whether or not they worship the moon, I know not; but when they first see her after the change, they commonly bow the knee & say the Lord's Prayer."

Their armies - "consist of horsemen, & of veteran soldiers reserved for the rear (whom they call Galloglaffes, & who fight with sharp hatchets), & of light armed foot [soldiers] (whom they call Kernes), armed with darts & daggers. They use the bagpipe in their wars instead of trumpets.

As to their diets, they delight in herbs, especially cresses, mushrooms, & roots. They love butter mixed with oatmeal, milk, whey, beef broth, & flesh oft times without bread."5

- Ibid., p. 1417-22

1 Thomas Walter Freeman, Ireland:A General and Regional Geography. London: Methuen, 1969. (First published in 1950 under title Ireland: Its Physical, Historical, Social, and Economic Geography.)

2 Richard Lovett, Irish Pictures, Drawn with Pen and Pencil. London : London Religious Tract Society, 1888.

3 A small boat made by covering a frame with hide or leather; also called a currach or coracle.

4 Olivia Manning, The Dreaming Shore. London : Evans Bros., 1950.

5 All brackets in this entry appear in original.

Ireland Donegal (County) - Aranmore (Section 2)

History - "The Annals"

History - and Character of the People

History - Early

History - Still Visible

Houses

Kelp - Gathering & Use of

Kings - Crowning of

Landlords

Manufacturing - Whiskey

Mythology & Legends

Poverty

Roads & Communication

Schools & Education - Mid-Nineteenth Century

Schools & Education - Robertson Fund

Spanish Armada Lands on Irish Coast

Templecroan Parish (includes Aranmore & Rutland Islands)

Famine

Famine - Overview

• an elaborate relief organization was set up
• public works were started

Famine - Attitudes of the Elite

Famine - Before 1845

Famine - Death Toll

Famine - Disease Related to

Ireland: Donegal (County) - Aranmore (Section 3)

Famine - in Donegal

Famine - Effects on Traditional Life

Famine - Government Action

Famine & Nationalist Thought

Famine - Oral Tradition

Famine - Peasants' Petition

Famine & Population

Famine - Potatoes

Famine - Relief