Presbyterian and Gaelic
Talk given by Rev. Bill Boyd on 26th April 2006 at the Linen Hall Library, Belfast
When I retired at the ripe old age of 65 after working in what the BBC now calls “a loyalist area” for 25 years (and loving it), a friend gave me a book – Irish Names of Places by P.W. Joyce. Living at the time in Ballycastle and having a bit of leisure to read it, I found myself listing Irish words that occur in place-names and trying to remember them:
baile – a house, or a townland, or just a place
lios – a ring fort
tulach – a small hill
cnoc – called ‘croc’ in Ulster for some obscure reason – a hill
craig – a rock
craig na gcat – the rock of the cats
I was learning phrases now:
Ballysillan (where I had worked) - the townland of the willows
Shankill – the old church
To my surprise I was becoming more interested in the language itself than in place-names. I have since realised that place-names is a sophisticated and intricate study
which ought to carry a government health warning! (See Patrick McKay’s Dictionary of Ulster Place -Names).
So I started attending beginners’ classes in Irish wherever I could find them. Mary Hughes, now Delargy, taught a free class here in the Library and there was a class starting in the Council offices in Ballycastle. I was sort of half living in Ballycastle and half in Belfast at the time and over a period of four years I discovered classes in Dunloy GAA grounds, in Portrush Catering College, in the Ulster People’s College in Belfast and finally in the Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education, BIFHE, which, for me, meant the Old Tech and Whiterock College.
One of the great benefits to me was the friendship of the teachers I met. Their enthusiasm, their love of the language, their eagerness to share it. I think of Paddy Magowan, the octogenarian publican from Antrim town who taught me the importance of grammar; of Mícheál Breslin at Dunloy who had built up an Irish college with a range of five levels in the GAA hut and who drove us like a slave-master and kept me at it when I was ready to quit. I think of Nóirín Uí Chléirigh – an art teacher with a glorious singing voice and a wonderful command of colourful language. You can swear in Irish without being rude; I cannot speak too highly of the BIFHE teachers – Brídín Doherty with her passionate love of the poetry of Seán Ó Riordáin and Orla McCrory who pushed me on to go to Queens.
You know Roger Casement tried to learn Irish, and so did W.B.Yeats and they failed. Too difficult. It’s the hardest thing I ever tried. But I had certain advantages, as most Belfast people would have. To begin with, we are all a bit bilingual and secondly there is the ghost of a third language haunting us from birth. I’ll explain.
My father from Newtownhamilton in South Armagh made sure that his kids had a basic vocabulary. A slap was a gap in the hedge, claigs were the flies you found in cow-clap and so on; we knew the usual words, hirple, thole, girn. “Mind ye dinna cowp,” and me on my brother’s bike. When my father was in company or in the pulpit he spoke perfect King’s English, but when we went to Armagh to see the relatives he would converse in what was almost a foreign tongue, although we had a smattering. Nowadays they call it Ulster Scots. At Inst they called it Bad English and tried to beat it out of us.
There were other words I remember from long ago. When we spoke to a cow we would say teigh ‘come’. If we had a notion of a wee lass my mother would say, “he has a gra for her.” But it wasn’t just the words, it was the structure of our sentences that betrayed the ghost of another language, e.g. “and me on my brother’s bike.” I was talking to an Englishman who asked me if I received his letter. “I did not,” I replied. He laughed. “Why don’t you say ‘No’”? In the Irish language there isn’t a word for “No” or “Yes”. “Can you hear me? ” “I can… I can not.” “Did you do that? “ I did.” “I did not.” Hidden in our Belfast conversation there is so much Irish syntax.
And then from the treasury of our place-names and our thousands of townlands we all know literally hundreds of Irish words and phrases. What a bonus – to start learning a language, and already you have a store of words and perfect pronunciation! Unfortunately many of these are old words which have gone out of circulation entirely. Famously, there must be 40 words for ‘seaweed’ in Irish which you will find embedded in place-names, but we have no call for any of them today. And the same is true of fields and stones and hills and horses and harness and boats, words fossilised in time and no use now. Still, we all have hidden in our memories, the shape and feel and sound of Irish words and phrases, so that when we come to learn the language, we feel a strange sense of coming home. It’s part of us.
A lot of my friends were critical of the waste of time, learning what they called a dead language. ‘‘Why can’t you learn something useful like French or Spanish or Italian?’’
Well, if I could speak Italian I might use it for a week or two every few years. Actually, living here in the North, I find that I speak Irish pretty well every day to someone. There really is an Irish language community and someone will be on the phone most days with a bit of business or just for a chat. It is not a dead language. It may be fading in the Gaeltacht but it is very much alive in the cities. For me, learning to speak Irish has meant discovering a new dimension to the city I have known all my life.
I was privileged to return to Queen’s University after a lapse of 50 years. I enrolled in the Department of Celtic Studies as a part-time degree student. When you are plunged into a language for all the lectures, seminars, work-shops, coffee-breaks, it is no dead language you talk. Like students everywhere we spent long hours talking about everything under the sun. In Dónal Ó Baoill’s department there is a great atmosphere, high academic standards and a lot of fun. Through the McCracken Summer Schools in the old Duncairn Presbyterian Church I also met the teaching staff of the University of Ulster Irish Department, together with a host of Belfast characters. Like the Cultúrlann, the 174 Trust is brimming with life and instils pride in our native city. Go for a walk with Fionntán de Brún and you will be amazed at all the famous literary figures who have lived in Duncairn in North Belfast.
It also has meant discovering the literature, the poetry, the folklore and the history that we were never taught at school, or anywhere else. It had never seriously dawned on me that for hundreds of years Gaelic or Gàidhlig were widely spoken by most of the people in Ireland and Scotland and even in the North of England. I never knew about the determined, even brutal efforts made by the government to stamp out the language following the Education Act of 1831. Or that the printing of books in Irish was forbidden by law. Nor did I know that the language was almost lost by the end of the 19th century and that a small number of enthusiastic Presbyterian radicals had made such valiant efforts to save it, many of them staunch unionists.
So learning Irish has caused me to learn about “my ane folk”. Dr. James McDonnell of Waterfoot, Rose Young of Galgorm Castle, Robert McAdam of the Soho Foundry in Townsend Street, William Neilson, author of the famous Irish Grammar who was professor of Hebrew and Greek at Inst. You can find out all about it in Roger Blaney’s wonderful book Presbyterians and the Irish Language. Learning Irish has also led me to the discovery of the stories of Cúchulainn (Ruraíocht) and of Finn McCool (Fiannaíocht) – a literature which contributed to the whole Romantic Movement in Europe – Rousseau, Wagner, even Napoleon – and somehow our teachers never bothered to mention it at school or university. And reading the poetry has wakened at least some understanding of the deep deposit of feelings of dispossession that is basic to the personality of the Irish – people who feel that their land was seized, but even worse, their language was taken from them.
To one brought up knowing the myths of the protestant, unionist tradition, this Ulster is the land God gave us, a land that we found needing to be peopled. Here was a wilderness which by our forefathers’ sweat and skill in agriculture was transformed into a garden of fruitfulness, ere our sons travelled further west, to Virginia and Tennessee and the Carolinas, another Promised Land. Learning Irish has forced me to face up to the roots of our conflict – does it indicate any way toward reconciliation?
In February 1997 I received a letter from the Gaelic League, explaining that the annual Oireachtas – a festival of Gaelic music, dance and culture – would be held in Belfast in October of that year, celebrating the Centenary of the Gaelic League. The writer, Eamonn Ó Fagáin, asked if a Presbyterian Church Service might be held in the Irish language for those attending from all over Ireland and beyond, since Presbyterians had played an important part in the language revival.
I happened to be attending a class each week in the home of Marcas MacPháidín – a Belfast school teacher who was also deeply involved in the life of Fitzroy Presbyterian Church. I showed him the letter, rather expecting a negative response but straight away he said, “I think we can do it.” But first we had to gather a nucleus of people so that we might have a worshipping community to receive the visitors. We had to move quickly, issuing invitations to anyone we knew with a bit of Irish who would become part of an Irish speaking congregation. We had also some organisational problems:
Music: Where would we find someone to teach us hymns and psalms? We spoke to Éamonn Ó Fagáin whom I had got to know in Dunloy where he taught us songs. He is a top-class musician – steeped in Irish music. “Of course I’ll help”. The very first time our group met in April ’97 Eamonn had three hymns and a psalm ready for us, including ‘Sing a new song to the Lord’ – Canaigí amhrán úr don Tiarna and
‘Walk in the light’ – Siúl i solas Dé.
Preacher: Terence McCaughey, a Presbyterian minister in Dublin is from a well-known Belfast family. His brother Davis was Her Majesty’s representative in Victoria, Australia, while Terence, a radical and a dissenter was senior lecturer in Irish in Trinity. “Terence, your country needs you.” Terence would come.
Congregation: We got a little group together. Barry Kinghan, a fluent Irish speaker who had attended classes in the YMCA years before at a time when they had hoped to start regular services. He and his brother Clive would play a flute voluntarily. Malcolm Scott, a former editor of Lá and a community worker in Newry and Mourne. Karen Nicholson, a secretary. Robin Glendinning, writer and dramatist. Victor Hamilton, lawyer, steeped in history. Patricia McBride, Presbyterian minister in Raphoe and graduate in Irish from Trinity. Not quite enough people.
Help came from Clonard in the shape of Fr. Gerry Reynolds and a trio who never failed in support, Caoimhín McGurr, Domhnall Ó Duibhín, Proinsias Ó Broinn.
Help came from the Cultúrlann McAdam-Ó Fiaich, the Irish language community centre which is situated in the old Broadway Presbyterian Church. And help came from the Ultach Trust, Aodán Mac Póilin, Gordon McCoy, Máire and Róise. The group was growing.
Prayers: It is hard enough to pray in English, but how do you pray in Irish? How do you say, “Almighty God”? How do you say, “Put your trust in the Lord Jesus”?
So this sinister, anonymous figure used to be seen on a Sunday at twelve noon, slipping into St. Mary’s chapel for the Irish mass. My anonymity did not last long.
“Hiya Bill. Beannacht Dé ort.”
Location: From the very first day the minister, Ken Newell and the Kirk Session of Fitzroy were enthusiastically supportive. Ken knew of the support Presbyterians had given to the language a hundred years ago and they would not fail in the centenary year. They offered their church as a home for the Irish language service as a positive act of reconciliation. That service on 26th October 1997 was the first Presbyterian Irish service for a very long time.
When looking for a name for the group, Marcas saw that the symbol of the Church, the Burning Bush, would be appropriate, so that is our name – An Tor ar Lasadh. The aim of An Tor ar Lasadh was formalised soon after:
To offer worship to God in Irish in the Presbyterian tradition. To invite all Christian traditions to take part actively in our worship, in order to encourage mutual understanding and develop respect for one another.
Meetings are held each month, usually on the third Sunday. The format is usually simple – hymns and psalms, scripture readings, prayers, a talk followed by discussion in groups or all together so that all who wish have a chance to use their Irish. At Christmas and Easter more formal services are held. Music has developed under the leadership of Jacynth Hamill and Joyce Gibson. Rev. Charles McCollum, rector of St. James and St. Peter’s, Belfast, preaches every year and also Rev. Patricia McBride, now minister of Scarva and Loughbrickland. We are grateful to a number of Catholic priests, Gerry Reynolds, Brian McCuarta, Adrian Eastwood and Alan McGuckian for giving us an ecumenical dimension and for sharing a wealth of Gaelic spirituality.
We have had invitations to share in Church of Ireland worship in the parish church at Creggan (Úrchill an Chreagáin) and in Kilmore Cathedral in Cavan. The Burning Bush symbol links us with the Church of Scotland and also with the Free Church of Scotland. We hope that in the future we can develop more initiatives both on an ecumenical basis and on a Presbyterian basis. The Scots Gàidhlig tradition of psalm singing is amazing and a recent visit of a Gàidhlig choir awakened great interest. Gaelic prayers in translation, often called Celtic Christianity, have proved very attractive to people today who are a bit jaded with traditional worship. Some of this attraction is a romantic, Celtic Twilight, New Agey sort of thing, but as Jacynth’s