Irish English Part 3 doc

3 History II: The settlement of Ulster 3.1 Background Any treatment of English in Ireland must take special account of the situation in Ulster. The reason for this lies in the settlement history of this province which led to the introduction of Scots and forms of northern English which were, and still are, distinct from all varieties of English in the south of the country. There has also been, as in the south, interaction between forms of English and Irish which has added a further dimension to the linguistic complexity in the north. The northern part of Ireland is usually referred to as ‘Ulster’, the most northerly of the four present-day provinces. It literally means the country of the Ulaidh, the people who historically inhabited this area. The word Ulster con- sists of Ulaidh + s + t´ır,aNorse-Irish formation, similar to Munster and Leinster, provinces to the south and east respectively.The now opaque compound contains the Irish name of the people, Ulaidh,followed by a Norse genitival /s/ and a phonetically reduced form of /ti r/, the word for ‘country’ in Irish. 1 The label ‘Ulster’ is also used loosely today to refer to Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom, which came into existence when Ireland was partitioned in 1921. Northern Ireland consists of six counties – Antrim, Down, Armagh, Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh – but the province of Ulster actually consists of nine counties: the three additional ones are Donegal (north-west Ulster), Monaghan and Cavan (south Ulster) which are within the Republic, although they are linguistically northern. The early political history of the province can be traced back at least to the various kingdoms which existed before the Middle Ages (see map of these at around 800 in Bardon 1996: 17). A prominent kingdom was that of the D ´ al Riata in the Glens of Antrim (in the north-east) which in the fifth century extended its ∗ My thanks go to the following colleagues who have been very helpful with comments and advice on the structure and contents of this chapter: Karen Corrigan, Kevin McCafferty and Michael Montgomery. Needless to say, they are not to be associated with any shortcomings. 1 There is, however, another view, namely that the second syllable in each of these words derives from Old Norse sta ð r ‘place’ (Geipel 1971: 151). 85 86 History II: The settlement of Ulster range across the North Channel into Scotland (Bardon 1996: 14). The Scottish colony was so successful that the Latin term for Ireland, Scotia, came to be applied to the overseas lands of the D ´ al Riata, yielding the later name ‘Scotland’ (Duffy 2000: 40). The early period of Irish involvement in Scotland was also the beginning of the Christian era and the settlement of Scotland was connected with religious conversion. The people who moved up north-eastwards to Scotland took the Irish language of the time with them and thus initiated the development of Q-Celtic in the north of Britain. The forms ofIrishspokeninScotlandremainedindistinguishable from those in Ulster for several hundred years. It is not until the thirteenth century that the first signs of an independent form of Q-Celtic in Scotland begin to appear in writing. With the demise of a classical language in Ireland and Scotland (based on older inherited forms of the language), Scottish Gaelic emerged as a form of Gaelic distinct from Irish (Thomson 1977). The two forms are no longer mutually comprehensible despite the dialect continuum which Ulster, west and north-west Scotland form to this day. 2 The spread of Irish into Scotland and the early monastic ties were the begin- ning of a long association of Ulster with its north-eastern neighbour. Political and broader ecclesiastical links followed. Later on there were also military bonds, especially in the early fourteenth century when Edward Bruce invaded Ulster with his defeat in 1318 at the hands of the Gaelic lords of the time. Scottish mer- cenaries, called ‘gallowglasses’ (from Irish gall-´oglach ‘foreigner warrior’), were recruited from western Scotland to serve in Ulster armies. There were also clan connections among the great Gaelic-speaking families, such as the Macdonnells who in 1399 acquired Rathlin Island (off the north Antrim coast) and the Glens of Antrim (Montgomery and Gregg 1997: 572). These links (Adamson 1994) were of importance linguistically as they led to an importation of Scottish Gaelic into Ulster and strengthened Ulster and Scotland as a linguistic area. 3 Events in the south of Ireland also had an effect on Ulster. After the Anglo- Norman conquest, several prominent Norman families established bases in Ulster. Of these, two were particularly successful in their domination of the region: the de Lacy and de Burgh families who held the earldom of Ulster throughout the thirteenth and into the fourteenth century (Bardon 1996: 24– 41). Here, as elsewhere in Ireland, a gradual resurgence of Gaelic power set in. In the south, many of the new lords were themselves Anglo-Norman in origin, butinUlster the Gaelic element was particularly strong. The Tudor conquest of Ireland (see section 2.1.3) applied equally to Ulster. The determined attitude of the English during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Bardon 1996: 43–65) meant that there were continuous battles with major Gaelic clans, such as the O’Neills and O’Donnells. This was the time of 2 See T.F. O’Rahilly (1932: 122–60 and 176) for examples of features common to Ulster and Scotland but not found in southern varieties of Irish. 3 See T. F. O’Rahilly (1932: 166) where he discusses the negator cha which is an import to Ulster from Scottish Gaelic. 3.1 Background 87 the Tudor policy of ‘surrender and regrant’ where the strategy was to force the native lords to relinquish their territories which would then be restored to them under conditions dictated by the English. By the late sixteenth century, the O’Neill clan had reasserted its leading posi- tion in Ulster. Strong Gaelic resistance to English rule developed in the province and this led to more or less open rebellion, peaking with Hugh O’Neill (c. 1540– 1616) and his followers in Ulster engaging in what is known as the Nine Years War from 1594 to 1603. The Gaelic forces were concentrated in Ulster and there were significant successes such as that at Yellow Ford in 1598. This convinced the Spanish to agree to O’Neill’s plea for their engagement in Ireland. They intervened with an army of over 3,000 which landed in September 1601. They were besieged by English forces under Mountjoy and, despite O’Neill arriving to help, both the Irish and the Spanish were defeated in a decisive battle at Kinsale (south Co. Cork) on Christmas Eve 1601. In Ulster the rebellions ultimately led to failure with the subsequent repression of the Irish. By the time of Elizabeth’s death in 1603 the dominance of the Gaelic lords of Ulster was broken, depriving the province of effective native leadership. In the ensuing years the political situation of the Gaelic leaders became less and less tenable and on 3 September 1607 a number of these left Ireland for France without the permission of the English crown. This action has entered history as the Flight of the Earls (Bardon 1996: 68) and had far-reaching consequences for the power structure of Ireland. It paved the way for more successful and long-lasting plantations. ..    The succession of James VI of Scotland (1566–1625) as James I (1603–25) to the English throne led to the establishment of the Stuart monarchy. It lasted until 1688 with an interruption during the Interregnum of 1649–60, which included the Commonwealth and two Protectorates of Cromwell. The latter ended with the restoration of the English monarchy under Charles II. After the Irish lords left Ulster in 1607, James I moved quickly and their lands were escheated. The government decided to initiate the plantation of Ulster along the lines of the Munster plantation in the late sixteenth century. This time, however, the land was reserved for Scots settlers, encouraged by their compatriot James I, together with Englishmen, mostly from the north Midlands and north of England (Adams 1958: 61ff.; 1967: 69ff.). Because of the union of the crowns in 1603 the Scottish were allowed to settle in Ireland without difficulty. Settlers were a mixture of private individuals along with royal officials (servitors) and some ‘deserving’ Irish, i.e. those loyal to the crown during the Nine Years War. The plantation settlements were to form the basis for the demographic split of the country (Heslinga 1962). Due to the Scottish and English background of these immigrants the division of Ireland came to be as much linguistic as political and confessional. 88 History II: The settlement of Ulster The plantation of Ulster (Robinson 1989a) was initiated in 1609 and encom- passed the counties of Armagh, Derry, Tyrone, Donegal and Fermanagh. 4 It also included most of Co. Cavan in south Ulster (now in the Republic of Ireland). Co. Monaghan, also in the Republic, was not part of this plantation, partly because it had been unofficially planted by ‘regrants’ before (Robinson 1994 [1984]: 67). The position of the eastern counties of Antrim and Down was special at this period. Officially, these counties were outside the plantation scheme, but most Scots settled there (as these were nearest to Scotland). The properties they even- tually came to possess were not escheated but acquired from native owners who could not survive under the new plantation dispensation with its emphasis on a more market-style economy. There was some disagreement in the English camp about how to proceed vis- ` a-vis the native Irish. Some, like Lord Deputy Chichester, favoured a cautious settlement, while others, including James I and his advisor Sir Francis Bacon, were inclined towards a more radical approach which was embodied in the ‘orders and conditions’ issued in 1609 which offered the framework for the plantation. The allocations of land were smaller than they had been in Munster: 2,000, 1,500 and 1,000 acres were the proportions of ‘profitable land’ with a certain amount of waste land and bog (Canny 2001: 200). The recipients were to be of three types. English and Scottish ‘undertakers’ who were ‘to build defensible buildings, to remove the existing occupiers from their estates by a designated date, and to populate their lands exclusively with English or Scottish Protestant tenants’. The second type consisted of servitors, civil or military servants of the crown in Ireland. The third type comprised ‘individuals who could lay claim to previous landowner or freehold status in Ulster and who were considered deserving either by the king or the Dublin government’ (Canny 2001: 200). The twenty-eight baronies, into which the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Fer- managh, Derry and Tyrone were divided,hadeightreserved for English and eight for Scottish undertakers. The remaining twelve baronies were for servitors and native Irish. The Scottish undertakers tended to have smaller estates than the English, probably because they were not in as financially a robust a position as the latter (Robinson 1994 [1984]: 79). In fact, the Scottish undertakers had just slightly more acreage in plantation grants (81,500 acres) compared to the English (81,000) although they were more numerous (Robinson 1994 [1984]: 86). The settlers from lowland Scotland received the slightly less profitable lands because their average incomes were somewhat below that of the corresponding English undertakers. Furthermore, their estates were scattered across the escheated land. Additional factors for the demographic development of Ulster are important here: in 1610 many landless Irish, who were supposed to move to estates administered by the church or by officials, were given a stay of eviction. Initially, this was because 4 See Foster (1988: 62) and Dudley Edwards with Hourican (2005: 160) for maps showing the plantation of 1609–13. 3.1 Background 89 undertakers had not yet arrived in Ulster. But when they did, tenancies were granted to the Irish because these were willing to pay higher rents. Indeed by 1628 this situation was given official recognition by a ruling which allowed undertakers to keep native tenants on maximally a quarter of their portions at double the normal rent. There was much competition between Irish, English and Scottish settlers with the Irish generally having to be content with poorer, more marginal land, such as the Sperrin Mountains of central Tyrone, while others, for whatever reason, remained to work under Scottish/English owners. In the context of the plantation, one can mention that James I convinced merchants from London to participate. The Irish Society was set up by twelve London-based companies and was instrumental to the plantation of Co. Derry, then renamed ‘Londonderry’ to reflect theengagement of thesecompanies. How- ever, this involvement was not continuous and the momentum waned. There were also Scots settlers in the city, forming a sizeable proportion, indeed the majority, by the 1630s. The success of the Ulster plantation was relative: the numbers envisaged by the English administration did not always reach the targets set, nor did the landlords always have the capital to carry through the agricultural and urban projects which the government had envisaged. Many of the companies retained Irish tenants (against the wishes of the English crown) and there were conspiracies against the English, notably in 1615. Furthermore, for lack of funds or because of debt, many English and Scots withdrew from the scheme. Their land was taken over by others who extended their own estates. However, because of the Scottish credit networks, those settlements run by Scots tended to remain in Scottish hands (Canny 2001: 234), so that success or failure of the settlements did not necessarily lead to a demographic shift. The plantation of Ulster is regarded in works on Irish history, e.g. Canny (2001) and Foster (1988), as the major event at the beginning of the early modern period. There are differences in the assessment of both its significance and value. The major grievance which it triggered stemmed from the banishment of local Irish to poorer, more marginal lands in Ulster with the fertile lowlands left in English or Scottish hands. Scholars such as Philip Robinson are grounded within a Protestant tradition and stress, in their treatment of the plantation, the achievements it brought with it in terms of improved infrastructure and economy for the province. Others scholars largely in this tradition are T. W. Moody (1939) and Raymond Gillespie (1985), both of whom have written widely on Ulster history. Such authors tend to highlight the amalgam of cultures which has occurred in the province (Robinson 1994 [1984]: 186–94), despite claims to the contrary. Many southern historians, such as Nicholas Canny, are less keen to see Protes- tant settlement in a positive light. They point to the loss of native culture and the marginalisation of the Catholics in the province, both geographically and socially, from which the nationalist community was essentially never to recover (A. Clarke 1994 [1967]: 154). 90 History II: The settlement of Ulster .. --  By the third decade of the seventeenth century, the pattern of emigration had begun to change. After several thousand English and Scottish had been recruited as settlers by undertakers from their home regions, many more went to Ulster on their own initiative. From the port of entry they spread to the hinterland into areas already planted by fellow countrymen. This led to a reinforcement of the Scottish and English areas. With further internal migration the ethnic regions within the province were consolidated. The result of this on a linguistic level was that distinct areas of Scots, English and Irish speech developed. These remained recognisable well into the twentieth century (Gregg 1972). The greatest concentration of Scottish settlers was in Antrim and Down, followed by north- east Derry with further settlement areas in Donegal, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Armagh. As the seventeenth century proceeded, the developments in Ulster were inex- tricably linked to those in England, especially during the reign of Charles I. It is beyond the scope of the present book to consider events in England as this time, but it is appropriate to mention the most significant English official active in Ireland. This is Viscount Thomas Wentworth who was appointed lord deputy in 1632. He was a loyal supporter of Charles I and was determined to rein in both native Irish and independently minded Protestants (Lydon 1998: 175). His aim was to organise Ireland as an effective source of income for the English crown and thus render the latter’s dependence on parliament unnecessary. His disregard for the Old English, especially in his attempts to plant Connaught, was a grave error of judgement (Duffy 2000: 111). With his ruthless administration in Ireland, Wentworth also succeeded in alienating the New English whom he saw as too liberal in their attitude to the English crown. For his efforts he was made Earl of Strafford in 1640 and promoted to lord lieutenant in Ireland. But after the parlia- ment assumed authority in England his fortunes waned and he was executed in May 1641. The turbulence during Wentworth’s tenure (Canny 2001: 300–401), and the uncertainty of who held political power in England, led to leaders in Ireland such as Phelim O’Neill and Rory O’More attacking centres of English sovereignty, notably Charlemont Fort in Tyrone and Dublin Castle in October 1641 (Duffy 2000: 112). The rising was initially quite successful in Ulster where there were two major issues for the Catholics, (i) the restoration of property misappropriated by Protestants and (ii) the unhindered practice of their religion (Canny 2001: 469ff.). The strategy seems to have been to take several bastions of Protestant power in Ulster and then negotiate from a position of strength. During the ensuing fighting indiscriminate violence abounded, for instance, the attack on Protestants at Portadown or that on Catholics at Islandmagee. These and similar atrocities of the 1641 uprising – both alleged and factual – entered the folk memory of Ulster Protestants and Catholics alike, much as did the defeat of the Jacobite forces at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. In the course of the 1640s the uprising was lost by the Catholics and finally the English were victorious over 3.1 Background 91 Table 3.1. Demographic percentages for seven counties in Ulster, c. 1660 (after Robinson 1994 [1984]: 105) Country English /Scots Irish Country English /Scots Irish Antrim 45% 55% Donegal 28% 72% Derry 45% 55% Fermanagh 25% 75% Down 43% 57% Monaghan 11% 89% Armagh 35% 65% the Gaelic Ulster forces under a Parliamentarian army at the Battle of Scarifhollis in 1650 (Canny 2001: 570). ..    -  There are no population censuses in the seventeenth century, but an estimate of the British and Irish segments of Ulster society was made by Robinson on the bases of poll-tax returns from c. 1659 (Robinson 1994 [1984]: 104f.). These show that for Antrim, Down and Derry the combined English and Scots sectors were over 40 per cent of the entire population, the remainder being Irish (see table 3.1). Robinson (1994 [1984]: 94) also has a map of English and Scottish settlement on the basis of surnames in the muster rolls of 1630. Typical areas with Scottish settlement are(1)theArds (north Co.Down),Carrickfergus (Co. Antrim, north of Belfast), (2) Coleraine (north-east Co. Derry) and adjacent north-west Antrim, (3) the Laggan area, west, south-west of Derry, (4) the Lifford-Strabane area between Tyrone and Donegal, south Tyrone, as well as (5) parts of Fermanagh and Down with mixed English and Scottish settlement in various areas such as north Armagh.Robinson (1994 [1984]: 127)alsooffersaschematicrepresentation of colonial processes in seventeenth-century Ulster, identifies internal migration and confirms that consolidation through clustering of ethnic groups played a role. Although the bulk ofScottishemigrants to Ulster came in the early seventeenth century, giving rise to the patterns just discussed, settlement from Scotland did not cease completely. In the last decade of the seventeenth century there was an increase in emigration, not because of Protestant hegemony in Ulster but, significantly, because of the recurrent crop failures and famine in Scotland in this decade (Bardon 1996: 93). The figures given in table 3.1 do not distinguish between English and Scottish, and it is assumed on the basis of later assessments that in the seventeenth century the number of Scottish settlers outnumbered those from England by some 6 to 1 and that in all there were some 150,000 Scots settlers and approximately 25,000 English (Adams 1977: 57; Harris 1984b: 115). 92 History II: The settlement of Ulster ..    The Presbyterian Church rests on a particular theological tradition that resulted from the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. The tenets of Presby- terianism can be traced to the thinking of the Swiss Reformationist John Calvin (1509–64) from Geneva. Calvin wished to establish a church which would be gov- erned by elders much as indicated in the New Testament. The term Presbyterian derives from Greek presbuteros ‘elder’, the comparative of presbus ‘old’. Calvinist ideas were quick to spread throughout Europe, first to France, Ger- many and Holland as well as eastern Europe and later to Britain and North America. The label ‘Reformed’ was used for Calvinists who organised their church with a presbyterian form of government. In the English-speaking world such churches came to be known as ‘Presbyterian’. They established a particular foothold in Scotland where this form of religion was conceived of as parallel to other forms of Scottish resistance to English hegemony, as it was separate from the established Anglican Church. However, the tension between Presbyterian- ism and Anglicanism always receded in the face of the much greater antithesis between Catholicism and Protestantism. In general the Presbyterians were anti-Catholic but they were excluded from public office by the so-called ‘sacramental test’. This was first introduced in England in 1673 and required that those holding offices under the crown should show their eligibility by taking communion in the Anglican Church. Such an act was anathema to religious dissenters like the Presbyterians and when it was extended to Ireland by a clause added to the anti-Catholic act of 1704 (one of the Penal Laws) it caused great consternation among the Ulster Scots. Emigration of Scottish Presbyterians to Ulster continued throughout the eigh- teenth century. Two groups in particular sought refuge in Ulster. The Seceders were dissenters who seceded from the Church of Scotland in 1733 because of general dissatisfaction with the Williamite church settlement of 1690 and the general liberal trends within the church in Scotland. The Covenanters were a group of Presbyterians who adhered to the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, which was a religious–political pact between Scottish and English oppo- nents of Charles I. Their goal in Scotland was the suppression of Catholicism and their discontent grew when the Williamite settlement failed to be fully implemented and when the church became somewhat more liberal in the early decades of the eighteenth century, leading to immigration to Ulster by many Covenanters. Within Ulster there were two conflicting factions of Presbyterianism: the Old Lights were conservative Calvinists and the New Lights were slightly more liberal and disagreed with the requirement of subscription which demanded that ministers and ordinands subscribe to an orthodox confession of faith drawn up by the Westminster Assembly in the seventeenth century (Byrne 2004: 207). In general the Seceders joined forces with the Old Lights in Ulster and the split in the Synod of Ulster was not resolved until 1840 with the formation 3.2 English in Ulster 93 Table 3.2. Types of English in Ulster (see map A6.5 in appendix 6) 1. Ulster Scots. Most of Co. Antrim (except the extreme north-east). North Co. Down, upper half of the Ards peninsula. North Co. Derry, centred around Coleraine. North-west Donegal, the lowland area immediately west and south-west of Derry city (the Laggan). 2. Mid Ulster English. South Co. Derry. Co. Tyrone. The north of Co. Fermanagh, Co. Monaghan and Co. Armagh. South and central Co. Down. 3. South Ulster English. South-west Fermanagh. South of Co. Monaghan and Co. Armagh. 4. Contact Ulster English.West Donegal Gaeltacht, approximately from Falcarragh down to Dunglow (An Cloch ´ an Liath) and in the less robust south-west Gaeltacht from about Glencolmcille to Kilcar. of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church which unified the vying factions. The Ulster Covenanters on the other hand remained outside the Irish Presbyterian Church. Both Seceders and Covenanters were major sections of the Ulster population immigrating to the New World in the course of the eighteenth century. Among those who remained in Ulster a sense of grievance at having been slighted by the English establishment led, at the end of the eighteenth century, to an unusual alliance with the Catholics as United Irishmen, active in the 1790s in both Belfast and Dublin and embracing northern Presbyterians as well as southern Protestants and Catholics. They joined forces briefly in the uprising of 1798 in the Ulster Scots core areas of Antrim and Down. But the sympathies between the two groups were shallow and after the Act of Union (1801) the sectarian divide between Catholic and Protestant became as sharp as ever (Bardon 1996: 112–14). 3.2 English in Ulster 5 The north of Ireland (Adams 1965) can be divided linguistically into three main areas (see table 3.2): (1) Ulster Scots, stemming from seventeenth-century Scot- tish immigrants; (2) mid Ulster English, deriving from immigrants, largely from the north of England, who arrived at roughly the same period (Adams 1965, 1967); and (3) south Ulster English consisting of transitional varieties between the north and south of Ireland. 6 In Co. Donegal, the most westerly county of the 5 Forageneral overview of scholarship on this subject, see Corrigan (1990, forthcoming), Kirk (1997b) and the relevant sections of Hickey (2002a). See also Kallen (1999). Lunney (1994, 1999) offers information on questions of community and attitude. Robinson (2003)gives the perspective of a historian. 6 There is some debate about whether south Ulster English is an independent variety. Certainly, it does not show the clarity of profile of the first two (see section 3.4.2). English in Belfast is both an amalgam of different strands and an area sui generis (see section 5.5.1). 94 History II: The settlement of Ulster province, there are Irish speakers in the Gaeltachta ´ ı (Irish-speaking areas, see map A6.3 in appendix 6) all of whom are bilingual. The English of this small group justifies a further subtype (4), contact Ulster English, which can show an influence from native-speaker Irish. Although the latter group is not of great relevance today, 7 transfer from Irish to English in Ulster in its formative period in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is taken by some authors to have been significant. Adams (1966a)isconcerned with the influence of Irish on English in Ulster, as are the later linguistic studies by Corrigan (1993b, 2000b). 8 The influence of Irish may well be responsible for the maintenance of distinctions and of segments lost in other varieties of English, such as [ ] and /x/ (Adams 1981b) and the non-existence of h-dropping (in all forms of Irish English). Adams also sees the existence of palatalisation on a systemic level in Irish as supporting the palatalisation ofvelars found,albeitrecessively today, in different forms of English in Ulster, e.g. cap [kjæp], gap [gjæp]. For discussions of grammatical features, see sections 3.4.4 and 4.4. See also the various articles presented in the posthumous collection of studies by Adams in Barry and Tilling (1986). ..    The story of Irish in Ulster, as elsewhere in Ireland, is one of decline in speaker numbers and of reduction in geographical extension. Before the seventeenth century it was the native language of the overwhelming majority in Ulster. The Scottish and English immigration into the province led to alterations in Irish- speaking areas as many native Irish were shifted off their land into sections of the province which were not settled by immigrants from Britain (see discussion above). Since this time the language has withdrawn rapidly and the only points in Ulster outside Donegal where it could still be found when Heinrich Wagner published his monumental Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects (1958)were (1) west Ulster in Co. Fermanagh (his point 64 with one speaker, 1958: xix), (2) south-east Ulster in north Co. Louth (his point 65 with one speaker, 1958: xix), (3) mid Ulster in north Co. Tyrone (his point 66 with approx. 12 speakers, 1958: xix), (4) north-east Ulster on Rathlin Island (his point 67 with two speakers, 1958: xix). This last pocket is of significance because the distribution of Ulster Scots 7 Traynor (1953)isavery comprehensive dictionary (over 300 pages) of English from Co. Donegal. There is a brief introduction ofa few pages in which a little historyis offered but no discussion of the English of Donegal as a subvariety of (northern) Irish English. Traynor drew heavily on literature from Donegal authors and from a collection of dialect words made by one Henry Chichester Hart (1847–1908), whose family came from Donegal. Traynor also used material from Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary. 8 Corrigan (1993b) notes traces of Irish phonology, e.g. epenthesis, and of Irish grammar, e.g. clefting and various aspectual constructions. Corrigan is careful to distinguish non-standard features which most likely stem from the English input of planters. [...]... Southern Irish English may show these items on occasions, e.g gawk ‘stare’ (Todd 1990: 80) 3. 4 Ulster English In the list of main varieties of English above (see table 3. 2) the term ‘mid Ulster English was used for forms of the language characteristic of areas settled in 21 These retentions have led authors, both academic and popular, to liken Ulster English to ‘Elizabethan’ or ‘Shakespearean’ English; ... transition from Irish to English No matter how long this bilingualism lasted, the goal of the shift was obvious and those who shifted to English ultimately abandoned Irish, even though this took many generations The remaining bilinguals today are mostly native speakers of Irish in the Irish- speaking districts, all of whom also speak English There was never any functional distribution of Irish and English, ... (Montgomery and Gregg 1997: 619) 3. 4 Ulster English 111 the main by people from the north of England In a way, ‘mid Ulster English is a blanket term for English in the province which is not (i) Ulster Scots, (ii) English in contact with Irish (now outside Northern Ireland) or (iii) English in the transition area to the south For the present section, the simpler phrase ‘Ulster English is used, bearing in... seminal work on Irish dialects is T F O’Rahilly (1 932 ) which contains a chapter entitled ‘Ulster Irish (1 932 : 161–91) The issues involved are generally of interest to scholars concerned with the historical development of Irish One should mention here that until the early eighteenth century no dialect differences between Ulster and southern Irish were visible in the written ´ language (O Dochartaigh 1987:... perfective of Irish English which is expressed by using the word-order object + past participle (see discussion in section 4.4.1.4.2) The second is habitual aspect This shows different realisations in Irish English but the category is widespread throughout the country (see discussion in section 4.4.1.4 .3) The third feature is so-called ‘subordinating and’ (see discussion in section 4.4.6.2) Apart from... variation in varieties of (British and Irish) English has been studied recently by several authors such as Alan Cruttenden (Cruttenden 1995) and more recently in detail by Orla Lowry (Lowry 2002) and Esther Grabe (Grabe 2004) 120 History II: The settlement of Ulster Table 3. 7 Grammatical features of both northern and southern Irish English 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Resultative perfective, He... of Irish English, north and south These are listed in table 3. 7 and will be discussed in the relevant sections of the following chapter 4 The emergence of Irish English 4.1 Language shift in Ireland The most remarkable fact in the linguistic history of Ireland since the seventeenth century is the abandonment of the Irish language by successive generations, to such an extent that the remaining Irish- speaking... New World English in the formative period of its development The remarks here refer to literature written entirely in Ulster Scots There are many instances where dialect is used for characterisation and effect, most notably in William Carleton’s (1794– 1869) Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry which appeared between 1 830 and 1 833 Sections of these tales are contained in A Corpus of Irish English, ... that Irish was spoken throughout the province at the time of the initial immigration from Scotland carries with it the implication that there was considerable contact, if not bilingualism, between Scots settlers and Irish speakers in the seventeenth century and for as long a time as Irish was still spoken in English- dominated parts of the province (Gregg 1959) Historically, there was contact between Irish. .. transfer phenomenon from Irish (J Milroy 1981: 4; Crozier 1984: 31 8), arising as a calque on the Irish adverb riamh which can co-occur in positive contexts with verbs in Irish 9 10 By the mid twentieth century there were no speakers left in south Armagh although this area has been and still is populated by a majority Catholic, i.e former Irish- speaking, population See Corrigan (1993b) for a discussion . (1794– 1869) Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry which appeared between 1 830 and 1 833 . Sections of these tales are contained in A Corpus of Irish English, see Hickey (2003a). Carleton was from mid Ulster. the split in the Synod of Ulster was not resolved until 1840 with the formation 3. 2 English in Ulster 93 Table 3. 2. Types of English in Ulster (see map A6.5 in appendix 6) 1. Ulster Scots. Most of Co the English input of planters. 3. 2 English in Ulster 95 (see map in appendix 6) does not traditionally cover the north-east corner of Antrim and Rathlin. These parts of north-east Ulster were Irish- speaking