‘Disagreeably Scottish’? By Carol Baraniuk The writers preparing the Ordnance Survey Memoirs for County Antrim during the 1830s were unhindered by constraints of political correctness as their commentary on local speech characteristics reveals: ‘Their accent, idioms and phraseology are strictly and disagreeably Scottish, partaking only of the broad and coarse accent and dialect of the Southern counties of Scotland.’1 Such a judgement, of course, bears the hallmark of official writing in what was a period of imperial expansion and consolidation within Ireland and throughout the globe. A further, this time self-congratulatory, official evaluation made in the 1880s shows the desired end of such a process: ‘Owing to the spread of well-managed schools the Scotch accent and the dialect words are passing away’.2 As this article will demonstrate, however, officialdom may have been deluding itself with regard to the permanence of any ‘success’ achieved. Writers from within Ulster’s rural communities3 confirm the findings of government employees regarding their ‘Scotch’ character. The poet James Orr (1770-1816) affords the reader a glimpse of ordinary people grappling with issues such as decorum and register as they switch between their natural vernacular tongue and the English required in a formal setting. In his great poem The Irish Cottier’s Death and Burial, Orr records the arrival of the minister to attend a death-bed. The house is already full of the Cottier’s friends and neighbours who, in order to converse with the minister, attempt: To quat braid Scotch, a task that foils their art; For while they join his converse, vain though shy, They monie a lang learn’d word misca’ and misapply.4 The marginalisation, indeed stigmatisation, of the Scots vernacular evident in those quotations will be familiar to Scots speakers from whatever region, but in the late eighteenth century many among the Ulster population embraced the Scottish aspect of their identity with pride. Samuel Thomson, Orr’s friend and fellow poet, enthusiastically expressed his consciousness of hybridity: I love my native land no doubt, Attached to her through thick and thin, But though I’m Irish all without, I’m every item Scotch within.5 A dynamic, co-operative relationship between Ulster and Scotland has existed since prehistoric times, due in particular to the close proximity of the north-east of the Province and the Dumfries and Galloway region. Without doubt, however, the greatest influx of Scots settlers into Ulster occurred during the plantations (both private6 and government sponsored) of the seventeenth century. The Scots planters brought with them fiercely independent spirits and an appropriately robust, expressive language: the Central Scots of the western Lowlands. For the most part these were ‘economic migrants’, in search of land and greater prosperity. Later in the same century, however, their numbers were
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further swollen by asylum-seeking Covenanters, fleeing persecution under Charles II. By the mid-twentieth century, the Scots-speaking population was concentrated in four main ‘heartlands’ within the historic province of Ulster: east Donegal, north-east Derry; north-east Down and the Ards Peninsula, and most of county Antrim. By this time, as imperial certainties faded and regional voices asserted their right to be heard, the likely disappearance of ‘the Scotch accent and the dialect words’ began to be viewed as a matter of urgent concern, rather than a reason for quiet congratulation. Thus, the middle and later decades of the twentieth century saw detailed and significant research into Ulster speech and its origins. This is evident from the papers published in Ulster Dialects: An Introductory Symposium (1964), which recorded the findings of a generation of remarkable and influential scholars such as Brendan Adams, John Braidwood and Robert Gregg. These men had in common their meticulous approach to scholarship, respect for the locality they studied and their own close personal relationships with both region and language. Braidwood, originally from Renfrewshire and possessing an MA from Glasgow University, was, at the time of the symposium, Senior Lecturer in English Language at Queen’s University, Belfast. In a paper discussing the persistence of Elizabethan English in Ulster he notes the dominant nature of Scots within the Province: ‘It seems to be a fact that the Ulster English dialects have suffered more encroachment from Scots than the reverse.’7 It was Robert Gregg, however, a native of Larne and eventually Head of the Linguistics Department at the University of British Columbia, whose work focused very specifically on the development of Scots in Ulster. He reported on detailed research with native speakers that enabled him to identify and map those areas of Ulster where Scots language was employed at greatest density. His findings confirm Braidwood’s with regard to the influence of Scots on Ulster dialects in general: ‘The Lowland Scots dialects have […] been preserved in the areas of intensive Scottish settlement. That typically Scots lexical items (as distinct from the full-blown historicalphonological system) are found everywhere in Ulster reflects the fact that many small groups of Lowlanders pushed far beyond the limits of the homogeneously Scots-settled areas and in time assimilated to the surrounding […] speech, but not before bequeathing many expressive items to the vocabulary of their neighbours.’8 Gregg’s painstaking work identified linguistic variations occurring between localities within the Scots-speaking areas, particularly at the phonological and lexical levels. The language of these districts fell into two categories: ScotchIrish Urban speech, and Scotch-Irish rural dialects. Brendan Adams, Dialect Archivist of the Ulster Folk Museum who had been exploring the diversity of Ulster speech since the 1940s, uses the term Ulster-Scots for these speech types,
commenting: ‘The north-eastern or Ulster Scots dialect […] an offshoot of the Central Scots dialect as spoken in Galloway, Ayrshire and Renfrewshire […] still preserves the marks of its Scottish ancestry in most of the areas in which it is spoken. Such features are: the preservation of the original spirant in words written with gh in the ordinary spelling, eg. bocht for bought[…]; the loss of b, d, g in words like thimmle, hannle, single, finger (rhymes with singer); the loss of final d after n: han’, owl’ for old, and of l after short vowels: wa’ for wall […].’9 Later scholars would refer to this group of ‘Scotch-Irish’ dialects as the Ulster-Scots Language,10 or Ullans. It was recognised by the Governments of Britain and Ireland as a distinct language in the Belfast/‘Good Friday’ Agreement of 1998: ‘All participants recognise the importance of respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity, including in Northern Ireland, the Irish language, UlsterScots and the languages of the various ethnic communities, all of which are part of the cultural wealth of the island of Ireland.’11 The purpose of this recognition was, in part, to assist the Northern Ireland community in moving beyond the simple opposition of British and Irish identities (and the associated conflict) by affirming the cultural diversity within Ireland that could be enjoyed by all. It should be understood that UlsterScots language use crosses the religious and political divide, particularly in the north-west of the Province. Local speech surveys, now fashionable, are regularly carried out in Ulster, but the studies of Gregg, Braidwood and Adams were truly ground-breaking and seminal. In July 2001, the Government of the United Kingdom gave official recognition to the Ulster-Scots language under the terms of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Part 2). While this development has not been without controversy, it was endorsed in principle by Professor Michael Montgomery of the University of South Carolina. In an essay for Ullans, the magazine of the Ulster-Scots Language Society, he stresses the crucial relationship between Scots and UlsterScots and discusses the right of a speech community to determine the status of its own language: ‘First, scholars generally consider Ulster-Scots to be a regional variety of Scots. […] Any assessment of the status of Ulster-Scots rests on an assessment of Lowland Scots. […] Scots is most appropriately seen today as a regional language that under pressure of English has lost many of its functions, particularly for writing. It is now far from a fully-fledged language like English, French or German, but this hardly denies it the status of language on other grounds. […] Ulster-Scots has remained a medium of life in parts of four counties […] and has now had a stable community of speakers for four hundred years.’12 Montgomery and others argue that the status of a language is supported by its generation of a written literary tradition. It is significant, therefore, that in parallel with the mid-twentieth century linguistic research, exploration was taking place into Ulster’s vernacular literature, which also had roots firmly in Scottish soil. The investigation was carried out by John
Hewitt, a poet of planter stock and a prominent champion of distinctive regionalism in art and literature. In the 1940s, while working for his MA thesis, Ulster Poets, Hewitt re-discovered a vernacular poetic movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He describes it as ‘a period of surprising poetic activity on many levels, including peasants and craftsmen’.13 He had, in fact, rediscovered the Ulster branch of the Scottish vernacular tradition of Ramsay, Fergusson and Burns, whose works achieved an exceptional popularity in the Province that was retained until relatively recent times. Hewitt’s thesis, hand-written on now-yellowed sheets of foolscap, lies in an archive box in the library of the University of Ulster at Coleraine, overlaid with the torn and crumpled scraps of paper on which he scribbled his notes about the ‘little books’ of poetry he was exploring. He pored over early editions of James Orr of Ballycarry, Samuel Thomson of Carngranny, David Herbison of Dunclug, Francis Boyle of Gransha and many more – all published through subscriptions gathered from their neighbours, and nearly all resident in the Ulster-Scots heartlands that Gregg would later identify. This was truly poetry for the people, by the people: poetry that recorded and dignified community life in the people’s own words. A brief quotation from Orr’s ‘To the Potatoe’14 illustrates this: ‘Sweet to the boons that blythely enter At dinner-time, the graise in centre, Champ’t up wi’ kail, that pey the planter Beans, pa’snips peas! Gosh! cud a cautious Covenanter Wait for the grace? The weel-pair’t peasants, kempin’, set ye; The weak wee boys, sho’el, weed, an’ pat ye; The auld guid men thy apples get ay Seedlin’s to raise; An’ on sow’n-seeves the lasses grate ye, To starch their claes.’15 Their concerns were not simply local, however. Orr, for example, was a radical weaver and United Irishman whose poetry reflects his intense involvement in the social, national and global issues of the day. To a committed supporter of the distinctive and the regional in literature as Hewitt was, these works of local verse were a gift. He set about publicising them through radio talks, magazine articles16 and correspondence, communicating his excitement at his discoveries to academics and literary individuals throughout Ireland. Their responses reveal the extent of the work of rescue and recovery that he was undertaking. The legendary JC Beckett, Professor of History at Queen’s University, writes: ‘James Orr and David Herbison were familiar as names, but Herbison is the only one whose works I have ever gone through’.17 Another correspondent commends Hewitt but adds a timely warning: ‘I’m greatly interested in these poets and I’ve often wished somebody would compile an anthology such as you mention, but unless it’s done within a few years, I’m afraid a glossary will be necessary for Ulster readers!’18 A further reply allows the inference that Hewitt’s interest
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and dogged promotion of these writers was grounded not only in his commitment to vernacular literature for its own sake, but in his desire to promote greater understanding of the essential nature of the Ulster-Scots: ‘We are an individual people. I fully agree with you that we should establish this fact […] in many other ways than just in political controversy.’19 This theme of promoting understanding and respect for difference was one to which Hewitt would return in his own poetry, particularly in his great series of public readings The Planter and the Gael undertaken in partnership with nationalist poet John Montague during some of the worst days of the Ulster ‘Troubles’ in the 1970s. Hewitt’s research into the Ulster vernacular bards was eventually published in 1974 as Rhyming Weavers and Other Country Poets of Antrim and Down. It includes the anthology (with glossary) for which he had argued, and has recently been re-issued. It remains the best and most comprehensive work currently available on the subject. The efforts of Hewitt, Adams, Braidwood and Gregg, in recovering and bearing witness to ‘the hoarded store of well rubbed words’20 that characterise Ulster speech, have left a legacy of inspiration which has motivated others. Towards the end of the last century, Philip Robinson, a native of Ballycarry, the home of the weaver poet James Orr, published Ulster-Scots: A Grammar of the Traditional Spoken and Written Language.21 This descriptive work deals with syntactical matters as well as with spelling and pronunciation. Furthermore, Robinson has anthologised and re-published selections from the works of three eighteenth-century Ulster folk poets.22 James Fenton, Robinson’s contemporary, has authored The Hamely Tongue: A Personal Record of Scots in County Antrim.23 In addition, both Robinson and Fenton have been active in keeping the poetic tradition alive by publishing their own volumes of verse. Fenton’s, like his dictionary, is nostalgic, rooted in pastoral writing.24 He himself says of it: ‘These poems are about everyday life in a rural community, aspects that are gone, or are going. I mean the traditional forms of husbandry, leisure activities, social relations […].’25 Robinson’s recent collection Alang the Shore,26 however, has attempted to extend the dimensions of Ulster-Scots verse beyond the limits set by reflection on bucolic subject matter. He explores a variety of themes, including the political. This development surely points the way ahead for literature in Ulster-Scots. At present Ulster-Scots stands in an uniquely favoured position, endorsed by both northern and southern governments27 and by European Charter. There is, therefore, an urgent requirement for new writers from within and outside the native-speaker communities to emulate the achievements of the ‘weaver’ poets in dealing with local, national and international issues in vernacular verse. They may take encouragement from the successes of fine contemporary Scots language poets across ‘the sheugh’. Ulster-Scots has travelled a long road since those
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supercilious, facile judgements made in the 1830s. This is in many respects due to the assiduous and at times downright ‘thran’ grafting of the mid-twentieth century linguistic and literary scholars. In a moving sonnet, Hewitt dedicated his 1974 Rhyming Weavers to Brendan Adams who, he believed, had done more than anyone to define ‘the textures of our tangled speech’.28 Hewitt’s vision, expressed in the same poem, retains the force of an imperative that may be addressed to any who would mock or trivialise the speech and writing of indigenous peoples: ‘[...] learn respect for the rich colours of each dialect; this given ready usage, yet might teach our tense minds to unclench, and, open, reach across the gap that sunders sect from sect.’
Footnotes 1. A. Day, P. McWilliams and N. Dobson, eds, Parishes of County Antrim 10, 1830-1, 1833-5, 1839-40, (Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1994), Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, XXVI. This and similar hostile references to Scottish characteristics may be found throughout the Memoirs for Antrim and Down. 2. Quoted in John Hewitt, Rhyming Weavers and Other Country Poets of Antrim and Down (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1974), p. 17. 3. For the purpose of this article the term Ulster refers to the historic province of Ulster, three counties of which – Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal – are now in the Republic of Ireland. 4. James Orr, The Country Rhymes of James Orr,The Bard of Ballycarry (1770-1816), Vol. 2 in The Folk Poets of Ulster (Bangor: Pretani Press, 1991), p. 30. 5. Samuel Thomson, The Country Rhymes of Samuel Thomson, The Bard of Carngranny (1776-1816),Vol.3 in The Folk Poets of Ulster (Bangor: Pretani Press, 1992), p. 62. 6. Hamilton and Montgomery’s private plantation of Antrim and Down which followed a purchase of land from the chieftain, O’Neill. 7. John Braidwood, ‘Ulster and Elizabethan English’ in Ulster Dialects: An Introductory Symposium, ed. Brendan Adams (Ulster Folk Museum, 1964), p. 47. 8. Robert J. Gregg, The Scotch-Irish Dialect Boundaries in the Province of Ulster (Canadian Federation for the Humanities: Ottawa, 1985), p. 12 9. Brendan Adams in his introduction to Ulster Dialects. 10. Philip Robinson, author of the Grammar of Ulster-Scots follows Gregg’s map in identifying the Ulster-Scots language areas. 11. Full text of the Agreement may be accessed at http:// www.nio.gov.uk/agreement.pdf 12. Michael Montgomery, ‘What is Ulster Scots?’ in A Blad o Ulster-Scotch Frae Ullans (The Ullans Press, 2003), pp 121-128. 13. John Hewitt, Rhyming Weavers and Other Country Poets of Antrim and Down (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2003), p. 2. 14. Orr’s spelling of potato. 15. The Country Rhymes of James Orr, p. 2. 16. Since many of the poets were handloom weavers, he published three articles in Fibres, Fabrics Cordage, vol 15, nos 7, 8 and 9 (1948), the magazine of Ulster’s then-thriving linen industry. These articles and the MA thesis became the basis for his Rhyming Weavers, published with an anthology of the vernacular poetry in 1974 and recently re-issued. 17. PRONI D38/38/3/18. Letter dated 17/10/48.
18. PRONI D38/38/3/18. Letter from Jeanne Foote, dated 3/11/48. 19. PRONI D38/38/3/18. Letter from D.P., dated 17/10/48. 20. John Hewitt ‘Once Alien Here’ in The Planter and the Gael: An Anthology of Poems by John Hewitt and John Montague (Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1970). In context the line refers to Planter’s English but is equally applicable to Ulster Scots. 21. The Ullans Press, 1997. 22. James Orr, Samuel Thomson and Hugh Porter. 23. The Ullans Press, 2000. 24. James Fenton, Thonner an’Thon (The Ullans Press), 2001. 25. Ulster-Scots Agency press release of 6 April 2001. 26. The Ullans Press, 2005. 27. The North-South Language Body is one of six crossborder bodies. The body is composed of the Ulster-Scots Agency and the Irish Language Agency. 28. John Hewitt. Dedication of The Rhyming Weavers, Belfast (Blackstaff Press), 2003.
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