The Irish News

Tuesday, July 23, 1985 

North’s sickness blamed on famine 

‘Plantation not cause”

When two local magazines carried articles on Belfast publishing, Blackstaff and Appletree got full attention. But another publisher – with nearly a dozen recent titles to its credit – was excluded.

The Pariah is Pretani.

It is the creation of local historian Ian Adamson. He is a demure intellectual, a quiet and methodical wee man with a habit of sitting low and looking up at you. He doesn’t strike you as assertive, yet he has the push to write and publish while working at the same time as a doctor. He doesn’t look ambitious – whatever an ambitious man looks like – yet he has taken a mission on himself, a mission a mission to work for a reassessment of the history of Ulster, believing this would counteract sectarianism.

“Roman Catholics feel that Ulster is not their word anymore. They don’t like to use it, but they have a real sense of the Ulster tradition. The Protestants use the word, but they have no sense of the tradition.”

That’s an example of how aphoristic he can be, although just as his sentences evaporate into unmanageable syntax as he diverges here and there to make his point fair and complete.

But he is never hard to understand and he is full of unsettling historical facts,

He notes, for instance, that those who insist on not calling Northern Ireland Ulster on the grounds that the real Ulster has nine counties, are adhering to a system established by the Elizabethan English administration – a strange stand for a republican to take.

The real Ulster, he argues, was a stable settlement, with a fluid boundary, in this part of Ireland and mingling with the rest of Scotland, with which it was linked to rather than separated from the sea for thousands of years.

He doesn’t pretend that the plantation of Ulster by the Scots in the seventeenth century was a good thing. But he insists that it was more a case of people moving from one part of their region to another. 

“In Irish terms, where people and their make-up are so important, it is vital to state there was no difference between the native Ulster people and the planters. They shared a difference from the English.” 

That difference was one of language – both spoke Gaelic and were to develop a single dialect of English – and a difference of culture in that both belonged to a race which has a ‘sense of the unseen world’. 

“The two communities here think they are different from each other. That’s not true, and, in terms of Ulster identity or nationality, or whatever you call it, it’s terribly sad that a people who must be considered one of the oldest settled people in Western Europe should lose out on this ancientness through petty quarrels”. 

In his recent book, The Identity of Ulster, Adamson traced the Ulster history back to pre-Celtic times to the Cruthin people, through several shifts of population between Ireland and Scotland. He followed the movement of the Scots Irish to the New World where they played a major part in the destruction of the Red Indians and the defence of the Alamo. 

And he has more disturbing historical facts – disturbing for anyone who thought the whole thing was simple. 

“At the time of the plantation settlement, you had your man Owen Roe O’Neill, who thought of himself as Ulster – Ulster Catholic granted – and the feeling of Ulster, as such, was extremely important to him. 

“There were other Roman Catholics. There were Catholic Anglo-Irish and there were Catholic Southern Irish, but there was something about this man which didn’t allow him to get into that whole situation in the South, didn’t allow him to contribute as much to the Confederation of Kilkenny, when that would have decisively changed the course of Irish history in favour of the Irish. 

What was wrong with him was that he still thought he was Ulster. That’s what wrecked the whole thing and led eventually to the main Scottish settlement of Ireland following the Williamite War” 

Adamson’s books have had some influence, Andy Tyrie said recently that the UDA used one of Adamson’s books to gen up their men in prison on how to counter accusations from republicans that they were interlopers in Ireland. In the same article, Tyrie said he would like to learn to speak Ulster Gaelic as part of his heritage.  

Adamson does not want to be thought of as a Protestant or loyalist historian. Although he has been described as these things. Nor is he the Von Daniken of the Crumlin Road. His research has been extensive and has won the respect of scholars here and abroad. Tom Paulin wrote: “Adamson’s learning and generous humanity are very impressive. His reverence for art and culture…are everywhere evident in his work.” 

Trying to remind young Protestants of their ancient tradition, he has been taking groups to see French monasteries which had connections with Bangor in early Christian times. He has written a book about Bangor’s influence on the rest of Europe. He notes that the word Shankill means “old church’ and refers to a church established by the Bangor monastery. 

If the Plantation of Ulster was not the source of sectarianism here, what was the source? Adamson traces it to the Famine:

“I think before the Famine, the Churches in Ireland had their influence, but underneath it, there was a relic of the pagan past right throughout the countryside. Respect for the land and influences over the land – the fairies – was quite strong among Protestants and Catholics alike. 

But after the Famine, when the whole place was devastated really by pestilence and disease, the belief or reliance on the little people was virtually brought to a standstill. It was a faith shattered – and that allowed the growth of a more fundamentalist position within the Protestant Church and the growth of a strict tradition in the Catholic Church, turning more to Rome.” 

In short, the differences between Catholic and Protestants only became really significant when, after the Famine trauma, both turned to the basic rules of their religions. 

Describing the Protestant faith, he says “There is a fundamental belief, within the Protestant heart, that they are following the path of Israel, and that they have become a new Jewish race in the modern world.” 

Some critics of Adamson, in fact, say his understanding of the Plantation as a return to an ancient homeland is an appeal to that sentiment. He denies there is any real parallel. The Israelites were, supposedly, given a land to conquer; there is no way Adamson’s other writings would support a Protestant supremacy in Ulster. 

He thinks that; by reminding people of their common cultural background, he will help to overcome the differences between them, I put it to him that it may be too late to do this if the force of institutional religion is now stronger than the real Ulster heritage. 

“I don’t think institutional religion will stand up to the future really.” 

Would he then see a coming together of the two communities in Ulster as involving a breakdown of the influences of institutional religion. 

“Yeah,” he said very meekly, although it was his own reasoning that led to the question. 

“You would like to see such a breakdown?” I ask. 

“Yes” 

But then, he never doubted there was a long way to go.

MALACHI O’DOHERTY

Belfast has a very rich linguistic heritage. Its colourful local dialect is used in very skilful ways by many of its speakers, who use its resources to tell great stories about events which have happened to them, engage in affectionate ‘banter’ and ‘slegging off’ their friends, and tell jokes often at their own expense.

Unfortunately, the dialect and these speaking skills are not generally valued in the education system. This undoubtedly contributes to the underachievement in that system within working class areas and particularly among Protestant boys. It is well know from the literature on sociolinguistics that considerable prestige attaches to the use of non-standard speech among young males, whereas young females tend to adopt more standard speech styles.

The stigmatization of working class speech has two very  bad effects. First, and most directly, it means that within the education system, pupils lose marks for using their local dialect. Moreover, teachers do not ‘teach’ standard English as an alternative and useful dialect – on the whole they do not know how to describe the differences between the local forms and the standard form, but simply mark the former wrong. Being regularly marked down for using their native language variety cannot help the attitude of  pupils to school, which linguistically at least can come to be seen as an alien environment.

Moreover, the oral storytelling skills particularly characteristic of inner city Belfast, are not the kind of skills which are valued in the classroom, where stories should have a clearly structured form with a beginning middle and end, not the more rambling, and interesting, stories that are told on the streets.

The aim of this project is twofold. First, it aims  to collect examples of the dialect of speakers of Belfast English and to use these to create a website showing how this dialect is just as structured and linguistically correct  as standard English, and how rich and skilled the performance of local speakers can be; and secondly to create a resource for teachers which will encourage them to value local speech forms, and to teach standard English through comparison with these forms without devaluing the local dialect. Many teachers indicate a fear that if they do not tell pupils their dialect is ‘wrong’ then ‘they will think it is all right to speak that way’; they do not appreciate that it is very possible to be bidialectal and still speak the local dialect, while being able to use standard English in writing or in more formal situations.

It is not only in education but also in employment that speakers of Belfast English are discriminated against. Using ‘I seen’ or ‘I done’ can be seen by recruiters as a badge of lack of education. On the contrary, these are every bit as linguistically correct as ‘saw’ and ‘did’; it is just a historical accident that the English of the southeast of England has come to be seen as more correct than other local varieties. We also need to educate employers to realise that in rejection ‘seen’ and ‘done’ users they are missing a large pool of talent which simply happens to use a local dialect.

With thanks to Prof Alison Henry,  Professor of Linguistics, School of Communication, University of Ulster at Jordanstown, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, N Ireland, BT37 0QB.

In the eighteenth century Belfast was a small town on the West Bank of the River Lagan; on the East Bank lay the neighbouring small town of Ballymacarret.  By 1821, the population of Belfast was still only 37,000, but by 1861 it had more than trebled to 121,000.  By the end of the century the population was 350,000 and in 1951 it had risen to 443,000.  After that, the city population began to decline and that of adjacent areas began to rise.

The rapid rise in population in the second half of the nineteenth century was due firstly to the influx of rural people after the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s, but chiefly to the rise of the linen and shipbuilding industries.  The growth of Belfast as an industrial city seems to have been rather later than the growth of similar cities on the British mainland and its relatively recent growth is evident in its language.

Academics distinguish three language areas in Ulster – the Ulster-Scots area (which is mainly along the northern and eastern coastal areas but which also extends into central areas of County Donegal), the Ulster-English area (which consists of central, southern and south-western Ulster)and the Ulster-Gaelic area of Donegal and scattered areas of Northern Ireland including Belfast.  In the Ulster-Scots areas there are a great many rural speakers who speak a variety of Scots rather than of English, and in its strongest forms it is almost indistinguishable from the Scottish language of western and central Scotland.  The Scots character of these Ulster language varieties is most apparent in the pronunciation of common words such as night, stone, soft, die, down, as nicht, stane, saft, dee, doon, and so forth.  Ulster-Scots is a stigmatised language of low status.  The development of a literary form of Ullans has been hampered by an academic indifference or outright hostility and by anti-Unionist prejudice. But the Ullans Academy’s Old Testament in Scots, translated by Gavin Falconer and Ross Arthur has gone a long way to rectify this.

The areas to the north and south-east of Belfast are Scots and it can therefore be suggested that the Scots area in east-Ulster was at one time continuous, running from south-east Down, northward through the Belfast area and linking up with Antrim Scots.  Academics usually argue that the growth of Belfast has brought about an intrusion of Ulster English into what was formally a Scots area.  It is true, of course, that Belfast does not have the broad Scots word forms we have discussed above (nicht, saft, doon, etc) and that immigration to Belfast has been largely from the Ulster-English area.  However, it would be a mistake to believe that Belfast speech has no Scots features,for it is very much a mixed language form.  It is also true that there is a strong similarity between Belfast English and that of the several towns of the Lagan Valley to the southwest of Belfast.  But within the city there is some difference between east and west Belfast and the Lagan Valley speech is similar to west Belfast rather than the east.  The east of the city has a language that has something in common with the rural varieties of north Down which are, of course, Ulster-Scots in type while the Lagan Valley is more English.

In 1860, Belfast was quite a small city with its population of 121,000.  We know to some extent what the language was like then as a result of a small book by David Patterson, The Provincialisms of Belfast Pointed Out and Corrected.  Patterson’s aim was tocorrect some of the broader pronunciations of the city as well as some of the word forms and uses of grammar, but in order to do this he had to describe these usages.  Thus the main value of the book is not its recommendations to correct the English but the information it gives us about Belfast speech in 1860.  Patterson describes pronunciation very clearly and it is apparent that there have been changes since 1860.  Words he wished to correct such as ‘deef’, (deaf) and ‘rideekilis’, (ridiculous) were actually of Ulster-Scots origin.  One of the first features that outsiders notice about Belfast speech is the use of ‘aw’ for the ‘a’ sound as in ‘haun’, ‘maun’, ‘bawd’, for hand, man and bad.  This occurred with the spread of Ulster-Scots from north Down into east Belfast and then into the west of the city, through the Shankill.

Language is a living thing.  Patterson’s attempts to “correct” the Belfast speech towards the standard were not successful.  The people of Belfast, particularly of the Shankill Road did not want to correct their speech and those who go to elocutionists for social reasons today are still in a small minority.  Belfast English is, in fact, a distinctive form of English, which should be promoted, rather than changed. One of its distinctive features is the use of the double negative, such as ‘I didn’t do nothing’ instead of ‘I didn’t do anything’.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this, since the same features occur in Spanish.  Belfast English should indeed be cherished and conserved.

There is, of course, also in Belfast a revival of interest in the Gaelic language.  The variety used in Irish Medium schools is essentially “standard Irish”, heavily influenced by Donegal Gaelic, which is a variety of Ulster Gaelic.  The original Gaelic spoken in the Belfast area would have been East Ulster Gaelic (Ulidian) which is now obsolete but had characteristics similar to that of the island of Islay, north of Rathlin in the southern Hebrides and Arran, off the Ayrshire coast.  Belfast Gaelic is presently developing independently of Donegal Gaelic itself.  Originating in language classes held in Her Majesty’s Prisons it is presently known by its detractors as Jailic rather that Gaelic.  Belfast Gaelic is also heavily influenced by Belfast English. Ulster Gaelic as a whole shows many differences with that of the standard Irish developed by de Valera in Dublin, which was based on the Gaelic of Munster and Connaught and largely ignored that of Ulster .

Many people often ask if the communities of Belfast can be defined by their language.  For the moment we must draw the conclusion that there is as yet no persuasive evidence to show that they can.  The differences that do exist are mainly regional.  There is of course the difference between east and west Belfast, east Belfast having more Ulster-Scots words and phrases.  There may be some difference in the pronunciation of the names of the letters of the alphabet, especially ‘h’.  It is true that in Belfast most Roman Catholics pronounce this letter name as ‘haitch’ and most Protestants as  ‘aitch’.  This, however, has absolutely nothing to do with language as such, the preferences are a result of two separate school systems.  Most Roman Catholic school children are taught to pronounce the names of letters in a traditional way that is probably influenced by the letter names in the Gaelic language; Protestant children and any Roman Catholic children who attend State schools learn the normal British pronunciations. However, as the schools become more and more integrated, such differences are fast disappearing.

Acknowledgements: This article is based on the work of James Milroy, former Senior Lecturer in English at the Queen’s University of Belfast, 1981.

Tonight, with my Pretani Associate Helen Brooker, and on the invitation of the author, I went to the Seamus Heaney Centre, McMordie Hall, Queen’s University, Belfast, to attend the launch of Frank Ormsby’s  latest anthology, Goat’s Milk: New and Selected Poems.This event was organised by No Alibis Bookshop, Botanic Avenue. Michael Longley wrote the introduction to this beautiful book, by an author of infinite genius, wit and perspicacity and introduced him to a packed audience. The incomparable writer, critic and commentator, Malachi O’Doherty , gave an eloquent appreciation of Frank’s work.When liberated into historical enlightenment, Malachi will help us defeat the unholy trinity of Queen’s Academia, the BBC and the Belfast Telespeak section of the Mediacracy.

For the first time in his life Frank has material for another book already waiting. A poet , editor and critic, for forty years he served the community well as a popular and brilliant teacher and finally Headmaster of the English Department of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, which has produced Sir Samuel Ferguson and Michael Longley himself.

“My output was very intermittent during my working life, with long periods between publications,” he says.

“I felt that my career sapped much of my energies and even when I retired I initially wrote little. But recently I am writing every day.

“My next collection will feature some poems on Parkinson’s, a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at my condition. It is not something which interferes with my daily life but, like diabetes, it does damage very silently.”

He is also writing a series of poems on the Irish Impressionist painters and continues to edit The Yellow Nib poetry journal with Leontia Flynn.

Mention of Leontia prompts him to recall the days when there were no acclaimed female poets.

One of his first publications, Poets from the North of Ireland, didn’t feature a single woman but since then several have made their mark in this form of literature including Medbh McGuckian, Sinead Morrissey and Colette Bryce.

“It is a source of great pride to me that such large numbers of poets, both male and female, continue to emerge here,” he says.

He is no fan of what he calls academic poetry, preferring verse which is both accessible and moving.

“Unless a poem moves me in some way I give up on it very quickly. I want poetry to be about people’s experiences and written in a manner which enables the reader to share those experiences,” he says.

The first judge of his own poetry is his wife, and then lifelong friend Michael Longley, who has written the introduction to his latest book and who will help launch it.

In anticipation of being asked why it is called Goat’s Milk, he has prepared a written answer. “Obliquely, rather than directly, many of the poems involve a sensuous recovery of the past and few sensuous experiences were as powerful as drinking goat’s milk. I have never forgotten it,” he says.

“The past explored is often Spartan, plain, unprocessed and lacking in luxury. Goat’s milk has a bittersweet quality, so for that reason also I thought of it as an appropriate title.

“I also think there is an undercurrent of sadness in the poem which relates to the elegies in the book, especially the poems about my father’s illness and death.”

It’s back to that recurring theme in his poetry and having come full circle it is perhaps an appropriate juncture at which to end the conversation.

Goat’s Milk: New and Selected Poems is published by Bloodaxe Books, price £12.

A man of many words…

• Frank Arthur Ormsby was born in 1947 and brought up outside Irvinestown in Fermanagh
• Educated at the local primary school, St Michael’s College in Enniskillen, and Queen’s University he spent his entire teaching career at RBAI in Belfast
• He was editor of the Honest Ulsterman poetry journal from 1969-89 and also Poetry Ireland Review
• In 1992 he received the Cultural Traditions Award given in memory of John Hewitt and in 2002 received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the University of St Thomas at St Paul, Minnesota
• He has previously published four collections of his poems:
• A Store of Candles (1977), with themes ranging from his rural upbringing to Belfast and the Troubles
• A Northern Spring (1986) featured a section on the American GIs who were stationed in Fermanagh ahead of the Normandy landings in 1944
• The Ghost Train (1995) explores the joy of having a child as the Troubles near their end
• Fireflies (2009) reflects on four decades of violence and the hope of a regenerated Northern Ireland

New reflections on his past

Bog Cotton

They have the look

of being born old.

Thinning elders among the heather,

trembling in every wind.

My father turns eighty/

the spring before my thirteenth

birthday./

When I feed him porridge he takes

his cap off. His hair,/

as it has been all my life, is white,

pure white.

My Father’s Funeral

The flypaper hung

from the ceiling corkscrews

with the weight of

dead bluebottles.

Not a smidgeon of dust anywhere,

the house burdened

with an unbearable tidiness

that means he will not return.

Taken from Frank Ormsby’s new book, Goat’s Milk: New and Selected Poems

McMordie Hall, Queen’s University

St Patrick

In 398 AD St Ninian had established the first Christian Church in the British kigdom of Rheged, part of what is now known as Scotland, at Candida Casa (now Whithorn) in Galloway. Although little is known about this great Christian Saint of the Novantes, or the earliest history of his foundation, it is clear that in the fifth and sixth centuries Candida Casa was an important centre of evangelism to both Britain and the northern part of Ireland.To the Irish, however, the main credit for the introduction of Christianity to Ireland belongs to St Patrick. Yet, despite Patrick’s pre-eminent place in the history of the Irish Church, we do not know just how much of his story is historically accurate.

Ironically, the only first-hand accounts of Patrick come from two works which he reputedly wrote himself, the Confession and the Epistle to Coroticus (Ceretic Guletic of Alt Clut, modern Dumbarton). Further, the reference to his arrival in the Annals cannot be taken as necessarily factual either, as it is now believed that the Annals only became contemporary in the latter part of the sixth century, and fifth century entries were therefore ‘backdated’. The question of Palladius and his mission from Rome leads to still more uncertainty, with some scholars even proposing the idea that there could have been ‘two’ Patricks. Francis Byrne suggested that “we may suspect that some of the seventh-century traditions originally referred to Palladius and have been transferred, whether deliberately or as a result of genuine confusion, to the figure of Patrick.”

This uncertainty must be borne in mind when we come to look at his story. Patrick was first brought to Ireland as a slave from Romanised Britain and sold to a Cruthinic chieftain called Milchu, who used him to tend flocks around Mount Slemish in County Antrim. After six years of servitude he managed to escape from Ireland, first going by boat to the Continent, then two years later returning to his parents in Britain. Despite his parents being anxious that he would now remain at home, Patrick had a vision of an angel who had come from Ireland with letters, in one of which was relayed the message: “We beg you, Holy youth, to come and walk amongst us once again.” To Patrick, the letters “completely broke my heart and I could read no more and woke up.”

Tradition tells that Patrick eventually made the journey back to Ireland, finally landing in County Down in the territory of Dichu (of the Ulaid) who became his first convert. Dichu’s barn (sabhall or Saul) near Downpatrick was the first of his churches. Among Patrick’s first converts were Bronagh, daughter of Milchu, and her son Mochaoi (Mahee). St Mochaoi was to found the great monastery of Nendrum on Mahee Island in Loch Cuan (Strangford Lough), and is associated with the saint in the legends which grew around Patrick’s name. These legends firmly place Down as the cradle of Christianity in Ireland. The most enduring of such fictions however was that of Patrick and Tara, making him a national entity. At Nendrum were first educated Colman, who was of the Cruthin, and Finnian, who was of the Ulaid. Colman founded in the early sixth century the famous See of Dromore in Iveagh, while Finnian, British Uinnian, following a visit to Candida Casa, founded the great school of Movilla (Newtownards) in Down. Finnian is also notable for bringing the first copy of the Scriptures to Ireland.

Patrick himself is said to have founded Armagh around 444, and the selection of a site so close to Emain Macha would strongly suggest that the Ulster capital was still the most powerful over-kingdom in Ireland at that time. As far as Nendrum is concerned, the picture of its development is much clearer in the 7th century, for no excavated finds have been found earlier than this.But from 639 onwards the Annals record the deaths of Nendrum clergy, including bishops, abbots and a scribe..This would suggest an active, populous monastery, and an early litany says”nine times fifty monks laboured under the authority of Mochaoi of Noendruim”.   From Down the Cult of Patrick spread to Connor in Antrim and then to Armagh, which became the ecclesiastical centre of Ireland.

On Saturday 14^th March, 2015 more members of the Dalaradia Group, prime movers in the modern Ulster Revival,  visited Crew Hill with their chairman Robert Williamson and Helen Brooker of Pretani Associates promoting Common Identity and Conscience. Discussion was led by Robert, Mark Williamson and myself. This was a most important visit for our group. We visited this site which was the crowning place of the ancient Ulster kings ; the site originally consisted of an inauguration stone surrounded by trees where the King would be appointed by his clan .This was “Craeb Tulcha”, the sacred tree, literally “spreading branch”, now known as Crew Hill (Crewhollage), near Glenavy. A great battle was fought there in 1004, in which the Cruthin King, the Ulidian King and many princes of Ulster were killed – indeed, complete disaster was possibly only averted because the victorious “Ui Neill” King was himself one of the fatalities.  After a second battle here in 1099, which was lost by the Cruthin (Pretani), the sacred tree was cut down as a final insult after the battle. This marked the end of the overall authority of the Cruthin in Ulster.

At that time the people worshipped in a similar fashion to Druids and natural  life such as certain trees were absolutely sacred; the King would turn around three times reciting an oath with his foot upon the stone as part of the ceremony . This was common practice at other sites such as Dunadd Fort in Scottish Dalriada, the stone of the Magennis in Newry , and also at Portrush where the stone later became known as the Witch’s Chair . Although the site is listed by the Northern Irish Tourist Board and Lisburn Council , having been the subject of an archaeological dig by Queen’s University in the 1980’s, we were shocked on our first visit in 2013 to see a telephone mast and sub station has been built  only a short distance away. We are launching a petition to fence off the immediate site of the stone to save for posterity. Following this we travelled to the ancient Monkstown Cemetery to see the site of the reputed resting place of Fergus Mac Erc, the ancestor of our British Royal Family. Disgacefully there is nothing there to mark the spot.

After the visits I gave a lecture in in Whiteabbey Masonic Centre on the significance of the sites to our people. My first topic was the First Battle of the Crew Hill, in 1004 A.D., in which the Ulidians were defeated by their old enemies, the Clan Owen. From the account of the Four Masters, we see what enormous forces were engaged : ” In this battle were slain Eochy, son of Ardghair, King of Ulaidh, and Duftinne, his brother; the two sons of Eochy, Cuduiligh and Donal ; Garvey, lord of Iveagh ; Gillapadruig, son of Tumelty ; Kumiskey, son of Flahrey Dowling, son of Aedh ; Calhal, son of Etroch ; Conene, son of Murtagh ; and the most part of the Ulidians in like manner ; and the battle extended as far as Duneight and Drumbo. Donogh O’Linchey, lord of Dal-Araidhe and royal heir of Ulaidh, was slain on the following day by the ClanOwen. Aedh, son of Donal O’Neill, lord of Aileach and heir-apparent to the sovereignty of Ireland, fell in the heat of the conflict, in the fifteenth year of his reign and the twentieth year of his age.”

Brian Boru at the Crew Hill.
Two years later another important event occurred–the visit of Brian Boru to the Crew Hill. It was nine years before the Battle of Clontarf. Malachy, of the Southern Ui Neill, had been deposed from his Kingship, and Brian acknowledged in his place by almost the whole of Ireland. The Clan Owen and the  Clan Conall still sympathised with Malachy and his adherents. The King of the  Clan Owen had fallen in the Battle of Crew Hill, and Brian thought the time opportune to march northward and secure the submission of the Ulster chieftains. The expedition arrived at the Crew Hill in 1005 A.D., and the Ulidians tendered their allegiance. The Wars of the Gael with the Gall describes the provisions supplied to the army of Brian while he was encamped there : “They supplied him there with twelve hundred beeves, twelve hundred hogs, and twelve hundred wethers ; and Brian bestowed twelve hundred horses upon them, besides gold and silver and clothing. For no purveyor of any of their towns departed from Brian without receiving a horse or some other gift.” But although Brian was well received by the Ulidians, he had to depart from Ulster again without receiving the submission of the  Clan Owen, who were Ulidian in origin or  Clan Conall, who were Cruthin.

Fergus Mor Mac Erc, King of Dalriada, is said to have moved his power base from Ulster to Argyll in Scotland by 500 AD. From Fergus Mor, with a few early exceptions, descend all subsequent kings and queens of the Scots, including the present Queen of Great Britain. St. Columba of Iona (6th century AD) was a scion of Fergus Mor.  When Belfast had little or no existence, Carrickfergus was an important town. In those times it was known as Rock-fergus, Crag-Fergus and Knock-Fergus and is said to have taken its name from King Fergus, who lost his life in a storm near the site of the town about 501 AD. Dalriada was an ancient principality on the Antrim Coast which extended from the Bush-Foot to the village of Glynn near Larne. Amid the mountain fastnesses of the present Argyll they maintained their position for over two centuries, occasionally asserting their supremacy in some of the neighboring isles.

Legend has it that one day Fergus decided to visit his native shores. Some chroniclers affirm that his object in coming was to arbitrate certain disputes that had arisen among several Princes in Ulster, whilst others represent that he was afflicted with a skin disease or leprosy, and came to use the waters of the medicinal well on the great rock. But whatever the hopes of Fergus were, they were not realised. The boat which bore him across the channel was wrecked on or near the rock, where the king was drowned and where the name Carigfergus, the ‘Rock of Fergus’ perpetuates the memory of that tragic event. Belfast Lough or Carrickfergus Bay, to give it its ancient name, can be appallingly rough. Only those who live near it can have an idea of what it looks like in a great storm.  Tradition says that the body of King Fergus was found and buried at Ballymanock, now Monkstown. It is probable that no religious establishment existed at Carrickfergus, which could account for the body of Fergus being taken to Monkstown. However there is another tradition which declares that he was taken back to Scotland and buried in Iona.

Fergus II (d 501), son of Earc, was claimed to have been the first Dalriadan king in Scotland. According to the Irish annals, the earliest and best authorities for the history of Scotland, the Dalriadan or Scottish kingdom in Argyll and the Isles, which the mediaeval chroniclers and the historians Boece and Buchanan antedated to a fictitious Fergus I, son of Ferchard, was really founded by this Fergus, son of Erc. The synchronisms of Flann Mainistreach (i.e. Flann of the monastery of Monasterboice in Louth) state that twenty years after the battle of Ocha the sons of Erc arrived in Britain, and date the battle of Ocha forty-three years after the coming of St Patrick; 432 being the date of St Patrick’s mission, the migration of the sons of Erc to Scotland would be about 495 or 498. The ‘Annals of Tigernach’ substantially agree with this date, having under 501 the entry ‘Fergus Mor, the son of Earc, with the Dalriad race, held a part of Britain and died there.’

The date 501, according to Skene’s probable conjecture, refers to the death of Fergus. He and his brothers Lorn and Angus, came in all likelihood with a small number of followers.The Dalriadans were already Christians, having been converted by St Patrick, and Erc belonged to the royal race of the northern “Ui Neill”, from which Columba, who followed about half a century later to Scotland, also belonged. The exact cause of the movement from Ulster to Argyll is not recorded, but it was probably due to overpopulation and a desire for more land. Fergus is said to have been succeeded by his son Domangart, and Domangart by his sons Congall I, Conall and Gabran Goranus.

Today is the International Women’s Day (IWD). I always think of Catherine the Great of Russia on this day as well as the great Queen Elizabeth 1 of England and  the incomparable British Queens Victoria, whom the Orange Order tried to prevent ascending the throne,  and, of course, the greatest of them all, Elizabeth II . The British Museum was founded by my ancestral relative Sir Hans Sloane  of Killyleagh, but another of the World’s great museums, the Hermitage in St Petersburg has just celebrated its 250th anniversary. Founded by Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, today the museum boasts collections of a span and variety that are unparalleled, from prehistory to the 20th century: paleolithic artifacts of the the 22nd millennium BC, Egyptian antiquities, Roman busts, Byzantine coins, Scythian gold, Chinese prints, 19th century Tibetan art , paintings by Leonardo and Picasso, Matisse and Rembrandt Giorgione and Rockwell Kent, porcelain, jewellery and furniture.

Yekaterina Alexeevna or Catherine II, also known as Catherine the Great (Russian: Екатерина II Великая, Yekaterina II Velikaya; 2 May [O.S. 21 April] 1729 – 17 November [O.S. 6 November] 1796), was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 9 July [O.S.. 28 June] 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. Her reign was called Russia’s golden age. She was born in Stettin, Pomerania, Prussia as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, and came to power following a coup d’état and the assassination of her husband, Peter III, at the end of the Seven Years War. Russia was revitalized under her reign, growing larger and stronger than ever and becoming recognized as one of the great powers of Europe.

In both her accession to power and in rule of her empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favouites, most notably Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. Assisted by highly successful generals such as Pyotr Rumyantsev and Alexander Suvorov, and admirals such as Fyodor Ushakov, she governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish wars, and Russia colonised the vast territories of Novorossiya along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. In the west, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherine’s former lover, king Stanisław August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, with the Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, Russia started to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America.

Catherine reformed the administration of Russian guberniyas, and manynew cities and towns were founded on her orders. An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and private landowners led to increased levels of reliance on serfs. This was one of the chief reasons behind several rebellions, including the large-scale Pugachev’s Rebellion of Cossacks and peasants.

The period of Catherine the Great’s rule, the Catherinian Era, is often considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire and the Russian nobility. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility, issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the Empress, changed the face of the country. A notable example of an enlightened despot, a correspondent of Voltaire and an amature opera librettist, Catherine presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, when the Smolny Institute, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe, was established.

Medieval and modern myths accrued to Ireland’s Iron Age Queen Maeve (Medb), notably in Rosalind Clark’s ‘The Great Queens’, led to this redemption of Medb’s true identity,”Ireland’s Queen Maeve”, by the exemplary priest Tom O’Connor. Clark alone showcased the divine elements and tragic qualities on which the greatness of the medieval ‘Táin Bó Cúailnge’ rested, enabling us to fully appreciate Ireland’s greatest national epic. Nevertheless, a seismic shift had taken place in the retelling of Medb’s story which elevated the ‘Táin Bó Cúailnge’ to the level of a Greek-style Odyssey. Medb’s archaic history was deliberately suppressed as she underwent gross character assassination. Her true pristine identity is finally recovered here.

As O’Connor says, ” Medieval Irish pseudo-history carried out pernicious character assassination against Medb to the extent that her original noble royal reputation succumbed to this odious onslaught in the minds of modern academics…Academics pile up learned treatises on the mountain of spurious fictions burying the historic reality of ancient Ireland….The law-tract on bees,”Bech Bretha”, preserves the true “untampered version”. It has profound historical implications corroborating  Cruthin claims that their kings, and theirs alone, ruled at Tara up to the Battle of Moira in 637. The Battle of Moira ended the Cruthin tenure of the overkingship of Northern Ireland and Scotland from Tara. This fact and its attendant ramifications are vital to the recovery of the suppressed and silenced history of Iron Age and early Christian Ireland. The rising roar of Ui Neill warlords smothered the humble truthful voice of the Cruthin. Thereafter all Ireland rode on the back of a fiendish fraud reverberating with profuse repercussions, civil, cultural and historical, affecting all Ireland, past, present and future, Ireland is still being taken for a ride”

“O Connor’s research and photographs are unprecedented in any account of Irish history. This scholarly work is real Irish History – not the romantic myth of Gaelic High Kings of Ireland based at Tara. It should be compulsory reading for any student of Irish history” (Amazon.com Kindle book review). “This book is not only of Irish significance, for its revelations should result in a reinterpretation of prehistoric and early historic Europe. Academics and experts in archaeological, nomenclature and allied fields must study what can only be a very important discovery. I await their interpretations of its findings with excited anticipation” (Hugh W.L. Weir, historian and publisher, Ballinakella Press, Whitegate, Co. Clare, Ireland). “What can I say! This has to be the most informative work on early Ireland. I have a burning desire to learn about the people I descend from. All has been explained and expanded on to such a degree with accuracy that many other history books seem to be guesswork and fairy tales. What a great book!” (Michael Geraghty, Victoria, Australia). “Extremely interesting! This book’s Flickr and Web sites (www.handofhistory.com ) are awesome and explain a lot” (Steve Cavanagh, Death Valley, California, USA).

Massacre de Vassy in 1562, print by Hogenberg end of 16th century.

On this day in 1562 – 63 Protestant Huguenots were massacred by Roman Catholics in Wassy (Vassy), France, marking the start of the French Wars of Religion, leading eventually to the Battle of the Boyne.

After the ascent of Henry II to the French throne, followers of the religious teachings of John Calvin, known as Huguenots, were persecuted in France. Catherine de’ Medici, regent of Charles IX, proposed the Edict of January (or Edict of Saint-Germain) with the hopes that Calvinism and Roman Catholicism could co-exist in France and that fighting would cease.

On 1 March 1562, Francis (François), the second Duke of Guise, travelling to his estates, stopped in Wassy (Vassy) and found a large congregation of Huguenots peacefully holding their service in a barn that was their church. Some of the duke’s party attempted to push their way inside to stop them and were repulsed.  The duke then ordered his men to fortify the town and set fire to the church, killing 63 unarmed Huguenots and wounding over a hundred.

The massacre provoked open hostilities between some followers of each religion, sparking the first war of a long series of French Wars of Religion, which continued largely uninterrupted for more than a century.

The Bourbons, led by the Prince of Condé, and proclaiming that they were liberating the king and regent from “evil” councillors, organised a kind of protectorate over the Protestant churches and began to seize and garrison strategic towns along the Loire. Although the Huguenots had begun to mobilise for war before Vassy, Condé used the massacre as evidence that the Edict had been broken, lending further weight to his campaign, and as hostilities broke out, the Edict was in fact revoked under pressure from the Guise faction.

The major engagements of the war occurred at Rouen, Dreux and Orléans. At the Siege of Rouen (May–October 1562), the crown regained the city at the cost of Antoine de Navarre, who died of his wounds. The Battle of Dreux (December 1562), saw the capture of Condé  by the Guises and Montmorency, the governor general, by the Bourbons. In February 1563, at the Siege of Orléans, Frabcis, Duke de Guise was shot and killed by the Huguenot Poltrot de Méré; the Guise considered this an assassination on the orders of the duke’s enemy, Admiral Coligny, as it was outside of direct combat. The popular unrest caused by the ‘assassination’, coupled with the fact that Orléans was holding out in the siege, led Catherine to mediate a truce and the Edict of Amboise (1563).

One result was the eventual growth of the Linen industry in Ulster, which set the scene for the industrialisation of Belfast. My friend Professor Rene Frechet of the Sorbonne in Paris was a devout Huguenot, and to him and my friend Dr Ian Paisley I dedicate this day.

But it is also Saint David’s Day (Welsh: Dydd Gŵyl Dewi), the feast day  of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales. This falls on the 1st of March each year, the day having been chosen in remembrance of the death of Saint David for tradition holds that he died on that day in 589. The date was declared a national day of celebration within Wales in the 18th century.

St David (Welsh: Dewi Sant) was born towards the end of the fifth century. He was a scion of the British royal house of Ceredigion, and founded a Celtic monastic community at Glyn Rhosyn (The Vale of Roses) on the western headland of Pembrokeshire (Sir Benfro), at the spot where St David’s Cathedral stands today. David’s fame as a teacher and ascetic spread throughout the Celtic world. His foundation at Glyn Rhosin became an important Christian shrine, and the most important centre in Wales. The date of Dewi Sant’s death is recorded as 1 March, but the year is uncertain – possibly 588. As his tearful monks prepared for his death St David uttered these words: ‘Brothers be ye constant. The yoke which with single mind ye have taken, bear ye to the end; and whatsoever ye have seen with me and heard, keep and fulfil’.