How to get kids into history

I have a very different view of Charles II than the party animal presented in this clip from BBC 'Horrible Histories' - but it's a series my three weans never miss. A bit of imagination can go a long way when telling stories. Nearly 2.5 million views on YouTube between these three videos. So now the weans are asking me questions about Charles II - which gives me an opportunity to get the real story across.

"Our quarrel is with the Government alone" - Edward Carson, February 1914

With 2012 being the centenary of the Ulster Covenant, I thought that this poster would be of interest to some readers. Edward Carson raised the Ulster Volunteers in January 1913, which became the 36th Ulster Division of the British Army on the outbreak of World War One in August 1914. Earlier that year, on 24th February, Edward Carson felt the need to issue this poster, the message of which seems to be to reassure Catholics and Nationalists of the objectives of the (Protestant and Unionist) Volunteers:

"As rumours have been sedulously circulated to the effect that the Ulster Volunteer Force has been organized with an object hostile to those of our fellow-countrymen in Ulster who differ from us, I desire that it should be made plain on all occasions that the sole object of the ULSTER VOLUNTEER FORCE is to make it impossible for the Government to compel us to submit to a Home Rule Parliament in Dublin. Our quarrel is with the Government alone, and we desire that the RELIGIOUS and POLITICAL views of our opponents should be everywhere respected. We fight for equal justice for all under the Government of the United Kingdom.

(signed)

EDWARD CARSON
24th February 1914"

You can decide for yourself, and with the benefit of 100 years of hindsight, whether his sentiment was sincere. Regardless, it makes for interesting reading.

The Queen in Ireland

The Queen has been to (the Republic of) Ireland, to a warm welcome from the people and praise from pundits and politicians. Wind things back to the late 1500s and another Queen Elizabeth was thinking about Ireland too. After the disasters caused by two of her once-favoured aides - the Sir Thomas Smith colony in Co Down from 1572-1575, and the Earl of Essex's campaign in Co Antrim from 1573-1575 - her approach to Ireland changed. She struck this Seal in 1586, the first one to include the harp of Ireland.

In Co Down, Queen Elizabeth I (to some degree) made peace with the resident Savages and the Clandeboye O'Neills - in 1587 she formally granted Con O'Neill 'Castlereagh and its appurtenances' and in 1588 she ennobled Patrick Savage as 'Lord Savage of the Little Ards'. And it was all going so well until...

Con O'Neill bridge and the Connswater Greenway

Once upon a time, back around 1606 when anything that's useful began, Ballyhackamore was acquired by Sir James Hamilton from Con O'Neill. As was Ballymacarrett. The maps which Thomas Raven drew for Hamilton, for both places and many more, are held at North Down Museum. Slightly south, the townland of Ballyrushboy was given by Con O'Neill to Thomas Montgomery, the man who had carried out Con's dramatic jailbreak from Carrickfergus. And slightly further south again, up in the hills that overlook east Belfast, was Con's home castle of Castle Reagh. The castle is long gone now, but the Presbyterian church (first built in 1650) is said to be pretty close to where the castle once was. Today all of this area is urban East Belfast, packed with rows of houses, shops, small businesses, schools, churches and factories. However, not all of the history has gone. Along the Beersbridge Road, tucked in between Elmgrove Primary School and the local Elim Pentecostal Church, still stands Con O'Neill's bridge.

If you do a search on this blog for Con O'Neill you'll find out lots about him, which I'll not repeat here. He gave the river, Connswater its name (which of course is a common Scottish naming form for rivers, ie Conn's Water), which centuries later (1984 to be precise) became the name of the main local shopping centre (or 'mall' for US readers!).

I had some time to kill this afternoon in between other things, and was in the area, so I went for a walk down to the bridge - some pics below. It's a lovely wee structure, with small cobbles. It could do with a tidy up, but that'll come soon as part of the Connswater Community Greenway, a major investment scheme to create a 9km park through east Belfast.

History doesn't just live in libraries and museums - it's outdoors and all around us. To use a modern buzz-word, history can 'add value' and make a place more special for both residents and visitors. It's all about finding, and applying, the stories. Con O'Neill's story is central to understanding the story of Hamilton, Montgomery and their first permanent Lowland Scots settlement. It's the cultural blend that makes it all so valuable.

[UPDATE: Ballyrushboy, granted to Thomas Montgomery, is better known as Orangefield. One of the major commercial areas there is Montgomery Road. Wonder where they got the idea for the name from? Across the way are a series of Covenanter-themed streets, Houston this and Cameronian that. I suspect there was a strong Ulster-Scots awareness in the old Belfast Corporation when these streets were being named?]

Ulster-Scots understanding in 1935

This time it's the Bruces, whose role in Ulster history was acknowledged by none other than the globally-renowned National Geographic magazine in 1935.

"... a leisurely 40 minute drive over rolling country, too often hid from view by impenetrable thorn hedging, brought us to the busy little seaport of Larne. It was here Edward Bruce landed in 1315, having been sent over from Scotland by his brother Robert, who was to follow later.

All through the preceding century the English had filtered into Ulster. Counties Down and Antrim were fairly in their grasp. Counties Londonderry, Armagh and Tyrone were raided, but it is doubtful that they penetrated Fermanagh.

It was the Bruce brothers with their armies from Scotland who really made a lasting impression. After taking Carrickfergus, the key position in the North, they so undermined the English strength throughout Ulster that the native chieftains were able to reorganise. The English who remained took up Irish customs and merged with the native people. The country again reverted to Irish tribalism and Anglo-Irish feudalism...

... for Northern Ireland is close to Great Britain, especially to Scotland, which has an important bearing when the type and temperament of many of its inhabitants are considered..."

• from The Mist and Sunshine of Ulster by Bernard F Rogers Jr, in The National Geographic Magazine, November 1935. Some of the photographs in it are brilliant - you can pick up a copy fairly cheaply on eBay.

Flax Seed and Emigrants

Richard MacMaster's latest book 'Scotch-Irish Merchants in Colonial America' is a great read, and details how flax seed was imported from America (a trade which seems to have begun around 1705 when import laws were passed by government), and how people emigrated on the same ships. This was also something that Senator James Webb's recent two part tv series 'Born Fighting' touched on. My good friend Mark Anderson sent me the image below from one of his recent forays in a local library. It comes from the Newtownards Chronicle in 1916. A beautiful image! Interesting that even as World War 1 raged through continental Europe, Holland was still capable of growing and exporting goods.

• A previous post about the Ulster linen industry's impact upon the Argentinian sugar industry, through the hard work and vision of two Ballymena brothers, can be read here. One of the real paradoxes of Ulster-Scots heritage is how it can be both hyperlocal yet international.

William Taylor: Scotch-Irish Methodist Missionary. From Armagh to Virginia to Belfast... and a close shave

William Taylor (1821-1902) was an American Methodist missionary. You can read his bio here on Wikipedia. In his autobiography, first published in 1895, he traced his Ulster ancestry:

'...my grandfather, James Taylor, was one of five brothers who emigrated from County Armagh, Ireland, to the colony of Virginia, about one hundred and thirty years ago. Their names in the order of their birth were George, James, William, John and Caufould... they were fine specimens of that hardy, energetic race known as the Scotch-Irish, of the old Covenanter type. They all fought for American freedom in the Revolution of 1776... George and James married daughters of Captain Audley Paul, of the same hardy clan, the Scotch-Irish. Audley Paul was a fellow lieutenant of George Washington...'

Around 1862 he made a missionary trip to Ireland, arriving first at Drogheda before heading north.

'...I conducted special services, usually a week, but in some places two or three weeks, in each church, in Dublin, Belfast, Portadown, Armagh, Enniskillen, Sligo, Bandon, Cork, and other places of less note, covering a period of about four months. In Armagh, the ancient home of my Scotch-Irish ancestors, I found plenty of folks ready to claim kin with me, although more than one hundred years had passed since my ancestors emigrated to America, so that I found it impossible to trace reliable lines of relationship...'

Bizarrely, he also recounted a story that when he was in Belfast he was advised to shave off his (very impressive) beard:

"...when I was in Belfast, a Primitive minister waited on me to say, 'There are some good people in this city who are greatly prejudiced against a beard, and I think you can be more useful among them if you will go to a barber and get shaved'.

You can read his detailed retort on p344 for yourself - humourous but too long to type!.

• from Story of My Life: An Account of what I have said and done in my Ministry, William Taylor (1895).

God's Secretaries by Adam Nicolson

This year is the 400th Anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The book shown here, by Adam Nicolson, has been recommended to me by a friend who works in the broadcasting industry here in Northern Ireland. I haven't bought it yet, but I have listened to his other recommendation - a podcast of Nicolson giving an amusing, engaging and informative talk on the subject, which is available FREE here on iTunes.

Here's a short interview that Nicolson gave to PBS about the book.

"...We practice selective annihilation, of mayors and government officials for example, to create a vacuum. Then we fill that vacuum..."

The title above is a line from the Guns N Roses song Civil War, which was released in 1990 on a Romanian orphan charity fundraising album called "Nobody's Child". They were the biggest rock group in the world at the time; the line was borrowed from a speech made by a South American dictator. Up until this point, the majority of Guns N Roses' songs had been about their hedonistic lifestyle, so to suddenly hear them tap into current affairs and politics was a bit of a shock. I was just 18, but having grown up during 'The Troubles' I had a fair idea that the neatly-packaged evening news broadcasts didn't always tell the full story - whether about events here in Northern Ireland or on the other side of the world.

As ripples of revolution rock the Middle East, firstly in Egypt, now in Libya and Bahrain, there has been some scepticism about the risings, and whether they were spontaneous at all - or whether they might have been carefully co-ordinated with Western assistance. Or maybe that the West has spent years propping up the very régimes which, in the face of sudden, high profile public protests, they now so quickly disapprove of.

In May 1842, the 75-year-old former President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845; pictured left in a photo taken in 1844) whose parents had emigrated from Carrickfergus in 1765, was being lobbied by an Irish-American organisation called the Irish Repeal Association of New York. They were seeking his support for their political objectives back in the "old country".

In a letter of reply to the organisation, Jackson, whilst acknowledging 'the Irish blood which flows in my veins' *, skilfully avoided becoming drawn into overseas issues. He wrote of '... that maxim which teaches us not to interfere offensively with the internal affairs of other nations. The preservation of the principle on which this maxim rests is far more important to the good of mankind than any benefit which can possibly be obtained by a departure from it ...' Jackson went on to say that representative government in Ireland should be achieved 'without violence or civil commotion', based squarely upon 'the will of her people'.

Jackson died before the United States descended into its own civil war; April 2011 sees the 150th anniversary of the Civil War (aka the War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression). The anniversary has been turned into a major tourism opportunity over the next few years.

We can speculate of what Jackson would have made of the American Civil War, or of present-day American and British foreign policy.

.....

* I would suggest that Jackson was speaking geographically rather than culturally.

Belfast in 1690

This illustration is from an old, old book:



UPDATE: The pics below, of King William Park in Belfast (near the Moravian Church at the end of the Lisburn Road) are posted as a follow-up to the comments from "Napalm". I worked close by for about 10 years. Click to enlarge.







A riveting account of William of Orange's "Glorious Revolution" can be found in US political journalist/commentator Michael Barone's book "Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers"- available here on Amazon. Irish history often reads better in the hands of someone who's not stuck in the usual Hibernocentric mindset.

Sometimes I feel sorry for the Ulster English...

...because they don't get any recognition. The map below is from a book published in 1952, which shows the locations of the Anglo-Norman castles and motes in Ulster. These were built following the arrival in 1177 of John de Courcy. In 1210, King John (of Magna Carta fame) visited Ireland - 2010, the 800th anniversary of this, came and went and as far as I'm aware nobody commemorated it. Yet in many cases it was the Anglo-Normans who were responsible for the building of castles and churches which the later Scots then extended or refurbished.



Dunluce Castle is a good example of this, originally built in the late 1200s by Richard de Burgh, the Anglo-Norman 2nd Earl of Ulster. But it's often only talked about today as having been a MacDonnell castle, because of the (originally Scottish) Macdonnells who took control of it three centuries later, in the late 1500s. Conversely, at Grey Abbey, the Anglo-Norman origins of the Abbey are well articulated - and yet the role of the later Scots who revitalised the ruins and restored worship there is unfortunately downplayed. There are other similar examples in Antrim and Down, as the map shows. Ulster has a three-way cultural triple blend of Irish, English and Scottish influences. To tell the true story, all three strands must be presented.

(Click the map to enlarge)

Hugh Montgomery's "green" found in Newtownards / the day Newtownards got flooded

It's effectively the first recorded golf course and football pitch in Ireland, beside the "great school" which Hugh Montgomery had built in Newtownards around 1620. In the latest edition of Ulster Folklife (Vol 54), historian Andrew Steven analyses all of the documentary and topographical evidence and concludes that it was in the area now known as Movilla Street and Greenwell Street. The school principal was John McClelland, who was one of the four ministers on board the emigrant ship Eagle Wing in 1636.

PS: As an aside, local folk will remember the day in the early 1980s when Strangford Lough, after centuries of retreat, suddenly reverted to its ancient high water mark and just kept coming in, flooding the flat ground of the whole Portaferry Road area, right up as far as the Old Priory where the Montgomeries had built the school and also their first house. The present-day floodgates were built shortly after this incident - but back in 1744, Walter Harris wrote that "the old house of the Mountgomery family stood pleasantly seated on the edge of the Lake". I'm trying to find the precise date of the flood - any help would be appreciated.

Killinchy; or, The Days of Livingston: A Tale of the Ulster Presbyterians

This book was published in 1839, written by James Meikle, but has been out of print ever since. A friend of mine who lives near Killinchy has an original edition - some years ago he keyed in the text of the whole book and was kind enough to email it to me. The introduction outlines Killinchy's location on the shores of Strangford Lough, and describes its people as "a peaceful and contented peasantry, industrious, enlightened and patriotic; banishing poverty by their labour, and reaping in the comforts of their homes and the hilarity of their hearts the ample reward of all their toils.” It's a book of historical fiction, set in the period when Hamilton & Montgomery brought tenant farming families to the north and east of County Down:

'...But we pass from what Killinchy is, “and up the stream of time we turn our sail” to days when its desert state, long unfamiliar with the scythe or the plough-share, was invaded by the hand of industry, and fertility spread over wastes unbeautified, but by the hues of the wild-flower and diversified only by the change of the passing seasons.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the greater part of the parish of Killinchy was peopled by Scottish settlers, who accompanied Sir James Hamilton, or subsequently emigrated to Ulster. That the motives which induced them were various, cannot be doubted, yet it seems evident that future prospect more than present advantage must have operated on their minds; the soil being barren, and the conveniences for farming almost unknown. But Scotchmen, though proverbially attached to their native

“Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,”

have ascribed to them a roving propensity and spirit of adventure which climate cannot deter nor difficulties damp; and hence born and nurtured as most of them must have been amidst the storms and sterility of their native clime even the rudest recesses of Ulster may have offered temptations powerful enough to engage them in the pursuit of fortune. Certain it is, that from the desire of acquiring a more comfortable subsistence, if not entire independence many of them

“Sighed their adieu to their father-land.
And left their native hills,”

while others prompted by less honourable motives,

“Looking back on their vanishing mountain homes,
Sing with joy their last farewell.”

Amongst those Scottish emigrants who settled in the parish of Killinchy was William Hamilton. In the spring of 1610, he entered upon the possession of the farm of Ballybreagh. A considerable part of summer was spent in repairing the dwelling-house, which was in a state of almost entire dilapidation, and in erecting the necessary appendages of barn, byre and stable. These operations were so far advanced by the beginning of harvest that he removed his family from Scotland. His children though they had left the home of their infancy with sorrow and regret, were not a little gratified at finding a home ready for their reception in the humble farm-house of Ballybreagh; and, although it was destitute of the pleasing associations of Knowehead; yet it possessed one charm, powerful and heart-stirring – it was their own, the house and home of their father.

William Hamilton devoted himself with energy and skill to the cultivation of his land, but for several years was but scantily remunerated for his exertions. In clearing and breaking up the soil which was overgrown with rubbish, he expended the greater part of his fortune without any certain prospect of a return; yet the treasure he had hid for a season in the earth began to reappear in the verdure of his fields, adding vigour to his efforts, and stimulating to still more laborious industry. Before ten years had rolled away, it began to be remarked that “Ballybreagh was the bienest bawn in the boun’s o’ the parish;” and his success gave rise to a saying common at that time, and still true, that “the eident han’ can blin’ the bleer’t e’e o’ starvin want.”

The story then moves on from the geography of migration, to Hamilton's commercial distractions from spiritual priority:

"...But while William Hamilton increased in outward prosperity, he began to forget the “God of his fathers.” In a short time after the world promised well, he began to neglect those spiritual exercises, which, while the gloom of poverty surrounded him had been his only solace and support. The farm and the market now engrossed more of his attention than the devotional services of the family-altar.

It is true he did not abandon altogether the observance of social praise and prayer, but only occasionally permitted the hour of the morning or the evening sacrifice to be engrossed by the hurry and business of the world. He still endeavoured to keep up in the eyes of men the character of a Christian, and frequently resolved when a more convenient season should arrive, to resume the regular discharge of sacred duty. Yet it so happened that as the delay continued, the desire was weakened, and by degrees languished into the faintest image of a momentary regret. It is a fearful thing to abandon the high ground of christian principle and profession – to descend from the elevated region of practical holiness – to forego the enlivening refreshment of daily communion with God, and by too keen a pursuit of worldly good to allow the pleasures of piety to lose the savour of superlative bliss to the soul.

The occasional intermission of a christian duty may not seem a voluntary abandonment of the way of salvation, but it is one step in the retreat from the path of victory – it is a symptom of declining zeal – of abating watchfulness – of cooling love, and shews that the province of the spiritual affections has been invaded by some neutralising principle, inimical to the upward ascent of the desires, and opposed to the growth of grace in the soul...'

Who was James Meikle?
Very little is known about James Meikle; he is believed to have been born in Scotland. He also authored another book called Our Scottish Forefathers which was published in Belfast in 1836. He is thought to have died in 1842, probably in Scotland.

What is particularly interesting is that Meikle was very well informed about the history of the 17th century Ulster Scots, a good few decades before the most important manuscripts from that century were eventually printed as books by commercial publishers in the mid/late 1800s. That he sought to popularise the history through creative writing is also significant - was he seeking to educate his readers, or was he tapping in to a ready market for a story that people already knew? James Seaton Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland had been published in 1834 and was a hugely influential telling of the Ulster-Scots story.

Some of this history had trickled into print earlier, in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The Belfast News Letter had printed excerpts of the Montgomery Manuscripts in 1785/1786 (1786 was also the year that Robert Burns' poems were first printed in Kilmarnock - extracts were printed in the Belfast News Letter that same year) and also again in 1822. They then issued a small bound edition in 1830, the Preface of which indicates that its intended audience was "gentlemen" and "those who have studied". However, the publishers were clearly conscious of the need to also pick up sales among the general public; the Preface also says that the publishers hoped that it might "engage the attention of the majority", and there is also a reference to their efforts to issue the book at an affordable price.

The major printings of the early accounts of the County Down settlements took place after Meikle's death: George Hill's exhaustive footnoted edition of the Montgomery MSS appeared in 1869, the Hamilton MSS in 1867, Adair's Narrative in 1866, Robert Blair's Autobiography in 1848, and so on.

James Meikle is an obscure figure, but he may well have been the first to try to "package" the story of the first major Ulster-Scots settlement in a popular novel, centred upon a specific locality.

Belfast's Royal Charter of Incorporation, 1613

Under the dome of Belfast's City Hall is displayed a 400 year old document - the Royal Charter which was granted on 27 April 1613. It's hidden behind glass and hard to photograph, but well worth a look the next time you're there. 14 charters were granted to towns in NI/Ulster; 5 in RoI/Ulster, and 21 towns across the rest of what is today the Republic of Ireland. Perhaps there is a major piece of historical commemoration to be planned for these?

Brief biography: Colonel David Boyd of Tourgill (15XX - 162?)

(the original seal pictured above is in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland. It features in Scottish Heraldic Seals by Stevenson & Wood, Glasgow 1940. The inscription reads "S' COLON DAVIDIS BOYD DE TOURGIL" and is believed to date from 1599.)

One of the men who came across from Scotland to Ulster with Hugh Montgomery in 1606 was David Boyd. Here's a brief biography.

1. Origins in Scotland
To give him his full title, Colonel David Boyd of Tourgill (also spelled Tourgil or Tuyirgill) was the youngest son of Robert Boyd, the 5th Lord of Kilmarnock. They lived at the original Dean Castle outside Kilmarnock, on an estate which had been granted to the Boyds by King Robert the Bruce for their service at Bannockburn in 1314.

2. Military Service in Holland
He is known to have served in a Scottish regiment in the wars in Holland (the three volume set entitled History of the Scots Brigade in Service of the Netherlands include a reference to him being in Holland on 24 January 1583.) Hugh Montgomery also fought in Holland at the same time - it is possible that they enlisted together.

3. Boyd of Tourgill
He had letters of legitimation under the Great Seal 11 July 1582, and a grant of the lands of Tourgill (a region to the north east of Largs in north Ayrshire) on 8 August 1598. Boyd, named as Dauid Boyd of Tourgill, also appears among a list of twelve Scottish nobles who were witnesses to the "Contract between King James VI, Ludovick Duke of Lennox and Hugh fifth Earl of Eglingtoun for the marriage of the Earl and Gabriela Steuart, Sister of the Duke" dated 10th and 13th April 1598.

4. Family Feud
He was twice the victim of attempted murder - in April 1599 he was "set upon and wounded... in the High Street of Glasgow" by his cousin Adam Boyd, who on 31 July in the same year then attempted to murder him at Kilmarnock.

5. Marriage and the Ross family of Kilmarnock
He married a wealthy widow, Margaret Wallace. Her former husband, George Ross, had the title of Hayning / Hanyng / Haining, an estate situated along the Cessnock River somewhere near today's Riccarton and Hurlford villages. She was known as the "Dame of Hayning" and had one daughter, Maria Ross, to her first husband. In March 1592 a land dispute arose within the Ross family, and the King's Advocate, David McGill, was sent to intervene in the row (source here). Like so many of the era, McGill was also attracted to Ulster - he was invited by Sir Hugh Montgomery who made him curate at Newtownards Priory in 1607, and later at Grey Abbey where his memorial can still be seen today. Other members of the Ross family also came across the water, one of whom, Robert Ross, settled in north Down some time before 1617 and rented 1500 acres from Sir James Hamilton at Portavo near Groomsport. (Peter Carr's excellent book Portavo: An Irish Townland and its Peoples provides a lot of detail about the Ross estates.)

6. Life in Ulster
Boyd arrived with Montgomery in 1606 and soon was granted lands. Con O'Neill directly granted him Ballymacarrett, another parcel of land near Glenmachan at the old church of Knockcolumbkille, and a townland called "Ballymurty". Boyd also secured seven townlands from Montgomery, totalling 1000 acres just to the north of Greyabbey. The family residence was built in the townland of Ballycastle, the site of which was probably where the well-known B&B Ballycastle House is today, on the Mount Stewart Road. Boyd is also said to have had lands near Glastry.

7. Influence in Scotland
Despite his estates in Ulster, Colonel Boyd was Provost of Edinburgh in 1613. The precise date of his death is unknown, but is thought to have been some time before 1623.

8. Children
He is known to have had one son, Robert Boyd, who after his father's death continued to occupy the lands Montgomery had granted. A John Boyd, possibly Robert's son, was in possession of land at Drumfad near Millisle in 1676. Colonel David Boyd may also have had a daughter, Jane, and another son, Thomas. A Thomas Boyd was elected MP for Bangor in 1651; another died at Portavogie in 1660. An Alexander Boyd was the tutor to William Montgomery, the writer of the Montgomery Manuscripts, and taught him fluent French.

Miscellaneous
• Description of David Boyd's Seal here
• Photo of Tourgill Burn here
• Photo of Tourgill Glen here
• Photo of Tourgill Lodge here
• His niece, Marion Boyd, was the wife of another major Ulster landholder, James Hamilton the 1st Earl of Abercorn.
• Colonel Boyd's sister, Egidia or Giles, was the wife of the head of the Montgomery family, Sir Hugh Montgomery the 4th Earl of Eglinton.
• Chapter in The Scots Peerage, detailing the Boyds of Kilmarnock.
• See previous blog post about the Boyds at Portavogie.
• Dean Castle is run today by East Ayrshire Council

Conclusion:
The early Scots in Ulster are not mysterious unknowable figures - there are plenty of good sources available which, when pulled together, paint vivid pictures of who these people were and of their achievements. The more is uncovered about them, the more obvious it becomes that Ulster was not merely a Scottish colony - it was in fact an extension of Scotland. People like Colonel David Boyd retained significant influence in Scotland even though he had relocated to County Down. The cultural ties established in the early 1600s are still evident today.

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Belfast Burns Association, 1939

Found this wee gem a few weeks ago - you'll see that it was held at Thompson's Restaurant! The menu that evening included "roastit bubblyjock wi' roastit tatties an' wee bow-kail". The Patron of the Association was the Duke of Abercorn K.G., K.P.. The usual Burns Supper order of service included an extra address entitled "The Land of our Adoption" which was given by J McAllan, Northern Ireland's Chief Veterinary Officer. An interesting find, tied up with a tartan bow. Click to enlarge.

[ps - Thompson's Restaurant was at 17 Castle Place and today is a branch of Barclay's bank, next door to HMV. The building was designed by William Hastings (1814-1892), who also designed Gt Victoria St Baptist Church, the old News Letter offices in Donegall Street, part of the famous Crescent off University Street, and the old Lyle & McCausland Seed buildings, which today is the luxurious Malmaison Hotel. A short biography of Hastings is available here.]

Cultural gold dust

I've been hunting for this for about 10 years, and finally located a copy a few weeks ago. It arrived in the post this morning - published in 1848 from Blair's personal manuscripts and also those of his son-in-law - this is 625 pages of Blair's childhood and early career in Scotland, his experiences among the early Ulster-Scots settlements of Antrim and Down, Eagle Wing, and his return to Scotland right up into the "Killing Times" of the later 1600s. The Googlebooks version is a useful research tool, with its text-searchability, but as reading for enjoyment (rather than fact-hoking) you can't beat a real book. This will also be a big help for my forthcoming biographical booklet of Blair's protegé, James Hamilton of Ballywalter. I might just have to stop blogging for a few weeks!

Mark Driscoll in Belfast

I'm going to be at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast tomorrow at the annual "Mandate" men's event. (I have a friend who is very alarmed by that name!). I haven't been to this in nearly 20 years - back when it was an evening-only thing in the Ulster Hall. I'm going tomorrow to hear Mark Driscoll preach - many of you will know that I've been very impressed by him, and by the quality of material that affilates like the Acts29 network of churches and The Resurgence have been issuing, since discovering him online at MarsHillChurch.org.

Ulster has attracted what might be termed "celebrity preachers" for nearly 400 years. Imagine the buzz there must have been when word got out that Professor Robert Blair was leaving the metropolis of Glasgow to come to... Bangor in 1623?! Or in 1622 when the news that John Knox's grandson Josias Welsh was on his way to... Templepatrick?! The flood of them is too great to outline in detail - but what about John Wesley who spent 43 years in Ireland? I'm pretty sure that Moody and Sankey were here in 1874.

Exactly 99 years ago, in November 1911 J Wilbur Chapman and Charles M Alexander held a mission in Bangor. They were both reared in rural America - Chapman in Indiana and Alexander in East Tennessee. They were major global news, having preached in Canada, Australia and the Far East. As a form of pre-publicity thousands of wall texts (shown here, click to enlarge) were given out to people to hang up in their homes. This one was given to me by a Bangor man a few months ago, from his parents' collection. Below is a recording of two tracks of Alexander's singing, recorded in 1905. The first one - "Tell Mother I'll Be There" is dire, so click on the fast forward button to get to the second one, "The Glory Song" which is brilliant. (click here to go to the source page on Archive.org). I very much doubt that this is the kind of music that'll be played in the Waterfront tomorrow!



We have of course cultivated our very own celebrity preachers over the years. So what? Thousands of people flocked to hear Jesus preach. As long as preachers focus their attention and their sermons upon Jesus Christ, then the more people go to hear them the better.

And here is Mark Driscoll in action - with a down-to-earth directness that would make Cottown-born evangelist WP Nicholson (1876-1962) proud.




Finally, some great Resurgence graphics below:

"Home-grown" update

Following on from this recent post, here are two simple examples of the irreplaceable value of local communities, both of which happened earlier this evening:

Tonight Graeme and I were out singing for the PW at 2nd Newtownards. Many of the people who now live in towns will have grown up in the country, and that was the case with the audience tonight. We did nearly a full hour, so we dusted down some old stuff that we hadn't played in a while. One of these was "Running Over / Fu an Skailin" - written by the Glaswegian evangelist Seth Sykes, but taught to us in the 1970s by our Aunt Rhoda when we were wee boys, who had been taught it by another Scottish evangelist called Charlie Mayne during the 1940s. After we'd finished playing, a lady in the audience came up to us to say that she too had been one of the weans who was perched on the long wooden forms at Killaughey Mission Hall (near Ballycopeland Windmill), when Charlie Mayne taught it to them 70 years ago.

When I came home I had an email from a man in Bangor - he plays banjo in a five piece group (with accordion, guitar and two fiddles) - and was looking for a specific old Ards Peninsula song. It's one I know as I'd been given it some time ago by a now-deceased friend, so I was able to provide two recordings of it along with the lyrics and history of the tune. They'll add it to their repertoire and carry the tradition on.

These types of connections don't live within textbooks or libraries, universities or museums - they live within people. The de facto Ulster-Scots library and museum is... the Ulster-Scots community itself. And there is much information in libraries and museums which should be returned to the people. In my experience our folk are canny, and won't glibly hand over traditions to outsiders who parachute in - but will share them among ourselves first, and then with others when trust has been established. These people are human beings to build friendships with, not "sources" to be milked dry and then discarded.

So I now have an invitation to meet the 95-year-old mother of the woman mentioned above, who is still as sharp as a pin and still lives out near the windmill, full of history, songs, stories and local Ulster-Scots vocabulary - but on one condition... the mandolin has to come too!

Burgesses from Ulster: News from Irvine, Episode 2: 1665 & 1667

(Photo: Glasgow Vennel, Irvine. Source here)

Following on from the previous post, in the book Muniments of the Royal Burgh of Irvine, Volume II (published 1891), there are more details of Irvine's connections to Ulster.

The accounts include both the illegal smuggling of "Irish Cloaths", and the legal trading of Ayrshire-mined coals into Ireland. On 26 May 1665 James Porter was appointed as a Burgess of Irvine - his father, Hew Porter, was a Burgess in Lochlerne (Larne?). Two years later on 13 May 1667 James Cleland, former Provost of Bangor, was also appointed as a Burgess of Irvine. The Burgh accounts for 1601-1602 include a reference to a "William Wilsoun, travellour in Ireland" (the same period when Hugh Montgomery was famously trading between Ayrshire and Carrickfergus). On 18th April 1681 the Irvine town Treasurer, Robert Brysone, was ordered to pay David Buchanan "nynteinth pounds Scotts" for his work on repairing the town clock - Buchanan had to do the work because William Weir (presumably the man who should have done the work) had "went to Ireland".

All fairly unspectacular stuff - which is the whole point. The links across the sea, between the two coastlines, and among what was/is one cultural community were/are ordinary. The Ulster-Scots connection is natural, ordinary - and, paradoxically, that's what makes it special.