Ideas are big

Bigger than nationality, bigger than ethnicity, bigger than gender, bigger than class. The sharing of ideas is the biggest tool the human race has. Some photos here of Cork Baptist Church, built in 1892 – I've spent a bit of time in Cork this year and have learned a lot. Some posts may follow. Evangelical reformed faith is not 'owned' by a subculture or tribe in Northern Ireland. Ideas are bigger than borders. 'For God so loved the world...'

This wasn't the first Baptist place of worship in Cork, but it's a pretty quirky building and it has a good chippy next door which is a bonus.

M'Connell's Whisky - Belfast and Stromness, Orkney

J&J McConnell Limited was founded in 1776, the year of the American Revolution. Based at the Cromac Distillery in Belfast, one of their brands was abbreviated as Old Cro' Irish Whisky. This is yet another Ulster whisky brand with a meaningful connection into Scotland – but this time not to the big cities in the mainland but, ironically, to the Orkney island which is itself called 'Mainland'. The firm was in liquidation in August 1931, but bottled products were still being sold for some years after. The Stromness distillery had closed around 1928 and the building was later demolished. However, the McConnell's brand is due to be revived in Belfast in the near future.

Companies do things for commercial reasons – but surely the geographical proximity with Scotland, and potentially the cultural connections and similarities – were additional factors in so many Ulster distilleries looking west for new business ventures.

BBC Scotland - 'The Last Explorers', David Livingstone - presented by Neil Oliver

This BBC Scotland documentary about the Scottish missionary/explorer Dr David Livingstone is brilliant, his is one of those names I grew up with, in Sunday School and from many books we had around home. Tremendous insight into the challenges he encountered in trying to end slavery in east Africa. Presented by Neil Oliver and on iPlayer now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017hzw2

George Washington and the obstinate, dastardly Scotch-Irish

Washington's famous, admiring, quote about the heroic Scotch-Irish of Virginia is often cited (see my July 2017 post here, tracing the earliest source I have ever found for it). If he said it, it was around the 1770s during the American Revolution. But here is an earlier one, from 1755, with a very different slant. Washington was just 33 years old, and a volunteer aide-de-camp to notorious General Edward Braddock.

"... After surviving the disastrous Braddock expedition, Washington was raised to the position of Colonel and commander in chief of Virginia forces on the western frontier in August 1755. He returned to Winchester to take command on October 10, and was not impressed, calling the town "this vile post" and complained of the "obstantcy and dastardliness" of the Scotch-Irish settlers of the area. Nevertheless, Winchester was a vital link in a defensive chain intended to counteract French forts like Duquesne and defend settlers from Native American raids ..."

This was the very same year that Winchester's Ulster-Scots emigrant population were described as 'a spurious race of mortals known by the appelation Scotch-Irish' (see previous post here). As more of George Washington's papers are researched and digitised, I expect that more and more Scotch-Irish / Ulster-Scots material will be unearthed.

Source here

A "company of Ulster-Scotch" - Northampton County, Pennsylvania, 1765

This extract is from the Founders.Archives.Gov website:

"... Capt. William Craig, the son of Thomas Craig, was a tavern keeper and the first elected sheriff of Northampton Co., 1752; commissioned by Hamilton, December 1755; passed through Nazareth on the 20th with his “company of Ulster-Scotch”; performed guard duty along the frontier, January–February 1756. He drew £256 13s. 3d. pay for himself and company March 15; thereafter was stationed at Fort Hamilton. There is no record of his service after mid-1756 ..."

It is within correspondences from the Benjamin Franklin papers, part of notes accompanying a letter from Pennsylvania Deputy Governor Robert Hunter Morris to Franklin, giving an account of events during the French and Indian War.

1700s Pennsylvania was of course overflowing with Ulster-Scots emigrants - to find the terminology 'Ulster-Scotch' documented is very important.

Source here.

Another Ulster-Scots distillery brand - Mitchell's of Belfast and Glasgow

There's an excellent blog devoted to Mitchell's here, so I'll not repeat all of the history.

They were two brothers, both Scots, one of whom, William Charles Mitchell (1834 – 22 July 1894), came to Belfast in 1863 to run Dunville's. He had previously worked in a distillery at Port Dundas near Glasgow, said to have been the biggest in Scotland. Eventually he left to do his own thing and around 1871 formed Mitchell & Co Ltd Belfast. He also teamed up cross-North Channel with his brother David Mitchell (1838– April 1917) who was back in Glasgow and they formed Mitchell Brothers Ltd. David also later became managing director of United Distillers Ltd of Belfast. The brothers took design 'inspiration' from the classic Dunville's VR label for some of their own products.

The Mitchells were Liberal Unionists; David chaired public meetings in 1891 in Falkirk for Polmont Liberal Unionist Association.

Their Irish brand was Cruiskeen Lawn (the name of an old traditional song), their Scotch brand was Greybeard Heather Dew. Their famous printed ceramic/stoneware jars are still pretty easy to get hold of today. As you can see below they even produced a pocket encyclopedia - a 'Dictionary, Atlas and Gazetteer' - among their range of promotional items.

As well as multiple commercial and civic roles in Belfast, William Charles was a founder of the Ulster Reform Club, a founder of the Belfast Benevolent Society of St Andrew, President of the Belfast Scottish Association, a member of Belfast Burns Club and a member of Belmont Presbyterian Church in the east of the city. He died in London on 22 July 1894. Almost a decade later, a grand organ in his memory was presented by the Mitchell family to Queen's University Belfast in 1903 and was installed in the Great Hall, with an inscription in his memory. The Northern Whig account of the presentation said that he was 'one of those Scotsmen to whom Belfast owed so much', and that he had been a champion within the Presbyterian Church for the introduction of organs - 'one of those who stood in the forefront of the long fight for liberty to use the aid of musical instruments in the worship of the Irish Presbyterian Church'.

 His son, Robert Armstrong Mitchell (1868–1950), seems to have taken over the Belfast business and was also a director of the Glasgow one. In 1886 he purchased a house called Marmont in Strandtown, East Belfast. In 1961 it became Mitchell House School, offering specialist education for children with physical disabilities - its website is here. Robert's son, and namesake, died in 1982 aged 80.

(PS these Mitchells are not the same as the Mitchell & Son of Dublin who sell famous whiskeys such as Green Spot still today.

"The best Ulster-Scots television programme ever"

So I was told at the weekend, by someone who is generally a bit 'cool' on these things and hard to please. Another man, from that part of the country, messaged me to say "thon programme o Alison's had me greetin like a bairn'.

I was involved a wee bit, but the story lives and breathes through Alison Millar's upbringing, her early film of two local elderly brothers, and the community that she and her family are drawn from. Tullygrawley school had a 'beloved maister', Mr R. L. Russell, who was a figure of some renown in his day. Once again my pal Sean Maguire has delivered a programme of depth, sensitivity and authenticity. Watch it on BBC iPlayer here.

More Belfast Spirit – William Cowan & Co Ltd – “The whisky of your forefathers”.

Sir Edward Porter Cowan D.L. (1842 – 24 March 1890) was one of Belfast’s giants of the Victorian era. He was an only child, his father was Samuel Cowan of Cromac House in Belfast. As a young man some time around 1864 Edward inherited his uncle William Cowan’s spirits business (which had been founded in 1829 and was initially located in Lower Church Lane, moving to Upper Church Lane in 1859). He married his cousin Agnes in 1866.

Edward’s commercial achievements included becoming chairman of the Ulster Bank and a director of the Great Northern Railway Company. Like so many entrepreneurs in the city at that time, he was active politically. He was a Liberal, twice became Mayor of Belfast, and was knighted in 1881. He was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for County Down and later Lord Lieutenant for County Antrim.

The Illustrated London News article shown above said that:

‘the family of the new knight is of Scottish origin, and settled in the county of Down early in the seventeenth century’.

His home was a mansion at Craig-a-vad. Rich and poor alike come to the same end, and in March 1890 he was buried at the City Cemetery. In 1892 his widow, Lady Agnes Cowan, installed a stained glass window in his memory at Holywood Parish Church.

The company appointed new directors, including the linen thread barons James Barbour J.P. and John D Barbour, in 1893. Success continued and the firm opened new bonded warehouses at Great Patrick’s Street and Academy Street in 1897, said to have been the first in Belfast with electric lights. The firm and brand seems to have continued well into the 1920s - but perhaps, like so many distilleries in Ireland, partition and prohibition took their toll. 

As I’ve mentioned here before, Cowan’s was yet another of those Ulster spirit businesses who sold both Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky under their brand name – their Irish was ‘Cowan’s No. 4’ and their Scotch was ‘Loch Lomond’, as shown by the first image on this post, of one of their adverts reproduced on one of the tiles of the 'Big Fish' in Belfast

'A Carryin' Stream' - BBC iPlayer

(summer is over, maybe blogging will resume!) This new programme, 'A Carryin' Stream', was aired on Sunday night past, a delightful and authentic story from a 'wee country school' in Cullybackey, where creativity of word and art, of the verbal and the visual, was encouraged by a forward-thinking school 'maister'. It is presented by Alison Millar, whose father attended that school, and who herself is one of our most accomplished filmmaking creatives. I appear in it more than I expected to! Click here.

Henry Thomson, Newry MP and Distiller - Gravestone, Billhead and the Scarva 'Bush Man' advert

I have blogged about Henry Thomson a few times here. I was in Newry recently and managed to track down his grave, within the large Thomson family plot at St Patrick's Church of Ireland graveyard. His inscription is on the middle one of the three headstones, where he is described as

Henry Thomson D.L.

Scarvagh House, Scarva

Member of Parliament for Newry

From 1880 to 1885

Who died 30th December 1916

Aged 77 years

The choice of scripture text on the base plinth is interesting too.

Below is a billhead from 1896 which seems to have been issued to Scottish customers via the firm's Glasgow agent, Robert Brown.

Finally, the article below from the Belfast Telegraph on 14 July 1950 tells the story of how Henry Thomson actively advertised his whiskey brand at Scarva railway station, to those visiting the 13th July 'Sham Fight' at his Scarvagh House and Demesne.

Arthur Brooks - Disagree Better

This is really interesting, and is a brilliant articulation of a nagging thought I've had for a while. We've all been in discussions where everyone seems to feel the need to agree, to reach a visible consensus. But you know fine well that they don't really...

– Arthur C. Brooks' new book is Love Your Enemies: How Decent People can Save America from a Culture of Contempt (link here)

Groundshift – 'politics trumps faith' / 'I'm homesick for the home I've never had'

Things in Northern Ireland are changing fast, so the currently accepted wisdom says. But I disagree. Like with Ernest Hemingway's famous quote about bankruptcy – "slowly, then all at once" – that's actually a better description of what has happened here.

Crawford Gribben's stimulating piece in The Article - 'Behold, the end of Protestant Ulster' (link here) is worth a read, on the Westminster vote which has paved the way for the introduction of same-sex marriage and the legalisation of abortion law which took place just days before The Twelfth.

For the past 30 years or so, I've been back and forward to England and Scotland a few times every year to see family or to travel, and the 'Britishness' that exists there bears no resemblance to that which many in Northern Ireland imagine. But, ill-equipped for change and without the 'tools' to help them contemplate it, many traditionally-minded folk have retreated into their bunkers and have had their heads buried deep in the sand – trying to shut out the noise, and conjuring up in their imaginations some kind of utopian conservative world which had actually died a long time ago if it ever truly existed at all.

Widespread social change – on these two topical issues but also a huge raft of other ones – has been moving along here for decades, slowly and steadily and not attracting headlines. The barbarities of the Troubles took their bloody and psychological toll, as have all sorts of ongoing repercussions from the political and demographic aftermath of those violent, vulnerable years.

As just two simpler examples:

• Throughout the last 20 years of schooling, most of our childrens' friends come from what used to be called 'broken homes', now single parent families, or parents who never committed to a marriage in the first place – or else families with multiple biological parents. That's just how it is. The 'structural' family is a rarity for the forthcoming generation. It's a middle class luxury of a sort.

• A 'good turnout' at an old-fashioned event - whether religious or secular - is interpreted by its organisers as a great success, thereby staving off thoughts of decline for another day. They're good folk but they have no idea of how to grow, adapt, to release control, to do 'succession planning', to bring on a new generation. "Ach it'll do me my day" is a familiar defeatist drone. Or "we've always done it this way". Survival is seen as a mere numbers game, the emphasis on recruitment and 'bums on seats', rather than anything to do with purpose and meaning and relevance. Few ask themselves "Why do we do the things we do?", or "why should anyone care?".

Crawford's article is right on many levels. Old 'identitarian' Protestant Ulster is long-gone. I recall a story of a parade about 10 years ago, where a wee country accordion band was playing hymns, and they were verbally abused by red white and blue clad onlookers – "take your effing hymns to effing Cornmarket". The lazy public and voluntary sector shorthand of PUL (for 'Protestant, Unionist & Loyalist') makes no meaningful sense.

It has been "slowly, then all at once". The ground has shifted on this island. It will not shift back.

But the silver lining is that in doing so, if these shifts create space for a new and better articulation of what the Reformed faith is actually about, freed from perceptions of social 'power', that will be a good thing.

......................

PS – Crawford's article could be considered an equivalent to his 'Catholic Ireland is Dead and Gone' from 2018, (link here).

PPS – American rock band Soul Asylum have a song called Homesick, with the line 'I'm homesick for the home I've never had'. It challenges notions of rose-tinted nostalgia, and also points us towards an eternal future. As CS Lewis famously wrote –

'If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.'