REMARKS ON THE IRISH DIALECT OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

By the Rev. Canon Hume, D.C.L., V.P.

(READ 7TH FEBRUARY, 1878.)

IN treating of the dialect of the English language used in Ireland, we may view it from three distinct points of view. We may consider (1) its origin, (2) its internal peculiarities, and (3) its relation to other dialects. Or, the three considerations may be called (a) the historical examination of it, (b) the anatomical, and (c) the comparative.

I. INTRODUCTION OF ENGLISH.

As the English language was introduced from without, and as, like civilization in North America, its general progress was from east to west, nothing could be more natural than that we should find several stages of its progress diminishing towards the Atlantic. One could suppose an extreme case,which has, no doubt, been frequently exemplified in the changing fortunes of the country,—(a) that at a point on the east coast the ancient language had been entirely driven out; (b) that at a corresponding point on the west coast it was still the only prevailing one; whilst (c) that in moving eastward or westward the per-centage of the one diminished and that of the other increased, each being the complement of the other at any particular poiut.

While the struggle of languages for precedence was thus going forward, it is clear that it would have been out of place to speak of an Irish dialect; for almost every county, and

often each great division of a county, exhibited its own special degree of progress. But when the English language has become for generations the recognised language of the country, when even its newspapers and books are printed in that tongue, its laws administered and its children instructed in it, it is clear not only that we can, but that we must, speak as a whole of the form which the language assumes in the country at large.

But, besides the irregularity arising from unequal progress, there was a further irregularity arising from the nature of the article imported, which gave one version at one point and another at another. The English language, as spoken in England, is, in a certain sense, not one but many; so that to introduce a fair specimen of it into another country, it would be necessary to select the individuals either according to locality or acquirements. This, of course, was not done, though the soldiers and adventurers who found a home on the Irish side of the Channel were often of so promiscuous a character, that the special features of any one locality were effectually neutralised by those of several others.

There were a few cases, however, in which the inhabitants of foreign countries, or of particular districts of the island of Great Britain, settled down at one spot of Ireland, and thus imparted to a particular neighbourhood the specialities which they had themselves inherited. I need not go back to notice the three great settlements of the Danes at the ports of Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford; for though they have left their name in such places as Oxmantown (that is, Ostmantown), near Phoenix Park, they were soon merged in the general population. The same remark applies to the Scandinavians who settled in Donegal; to the Scythians or Scots, who found a home in Dalaradia, or the north part of Antrim and the adjoining districts; and to the Belgic and Scandinavian immigrants, who occupied the sea coasts of

Waterford and Cork. But though language is an important element in ethnological inquiries, and ethnology is, in turn, important in linguistic ones, the two subjects dont always afford mutual assistance. Sometimes, on the contrary, they have a tendency to lead astray. People the most dissimilar in character may come to speak a common language, like the population of the United States; and people whose origin and characteristics are in a great degree identical, may come to be widely different in their modes of expression. Those ancient immigrations, therefore, are of no value whatever for our present purpose; and they have only been referred to with the negative object of showing that, while the smallest body is supposed to influence the largest to some extent, even when it is absorbed, the traces of its influence may in time be wholly obliterated. The following cases, however, are of a very different kind, as their effects remain upon the language to this hour, or have only recently disappeared.

1. The original invaders under Strongbow, who first obtained a footing in the island in 1167 to 1169, or rather more than 700 years ago, occupied the part of the county of Wexford known as the Baronies of Forth and Bargy. There their descendants remain separate, ethnologically as well as geographically, to this hour. They were also distinct in language; but their peculiarities in this respect have disappeared only since the commencement of the present century.

2. The Fingallians were another colony sometimes supposed, but erroneously, to have been Scandinavian. They were unquestionably English, though their name indicates the "fair strangers;" and Stannihurst notices them nearly 300 years ago as speaking "good Chaucer English." Reaching from Dublin northward as far as Swords, they occupied the sea coast, and retained some of their peculiarities of language and customs till within the last fifty or sixty years.

3. The remaining English people along the east coast were

called, generally, Anglo-Normans; but as the two opposing elements in England had become fused into one, it is not unlikely that in the more recent times there was a considerable infusion of pure Saxons. The nobility and knights, however, indeed all the leaders, were probably of pure Norman blood.

4. In the county of Down, especially the part of it which adjoins the Channel and is known as the barony of Lecale, very early Norman settlements were effected. Sir John de Courcy, Earl of Ulster, resided at Downpatrick; and the whole country round, especially between that town and the sea, is filled with square towers or castelets similar to those which are common in Forth and Bargy.

5. The settlement at Londonderry was, as its name indicates, from England; though the greater influence of Scottish people, from whose homes it was more accessible, soon gave it the appearance of a Scottish town. Further, the number of incorporated guilds or trading companies from the city of London, who obtained lands in the county of Londondery, led to the immigration of English; whilst the lands of less promise, and requiring more self-denying and hardy cultivators, were in general occupied by the Scotch.

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6 About the year 1607, when much of Ulster required to be planted or resettled, immigration, instead of being as previously a mere rivulet-or largely dependent on the condition of the regiments serving in the country-became a flood, and strangers settled, not by tens but by thousands. large number of these were from the apple districts of Warwickshire, Worcester, and Gloucester; several were from Chester, through which the adventurers passed to take shipping at the mouth of the Dee; a few were from the neighbouring county of Laucaster; and some from London. The great English settlement commenced on the two sides of Belfast Lough; at Carrickfergus on the west, and Ballymacarrett on the east. It included the town of Belfast, which was at first English,

but, like Londonderry, became Scotticised, owing to the preponderance of North Britons in the rural districts on both sides. Pressing on by Lisburn and to the east bank of Lough Neagh, the English settlers cover eleven parishes in Antrim alone, all of which preserve to this hour their English characteristics; and crossing still further, over Down to Armagh, they stopped only at the base of the Pomeroy mountains in Tyrone. Thus, from the tides of the Channel to beyond the centre of Ulster there was an unbroken line of English settlers, as distinct from Scotch; and the district which they inhabit is still that of the apple, the elm, and the sycamore of large farms and two-storied slated houses.

7. The Scotch settlers entered at the two points which lie opposite to their own country-namely, at the Giant's Causeway, which is opposed to the Mull of Cantyre, on one side, and at Donaghadee, which is opposed to the Mull of Galloway, on the other. Two centuries and a half ago, Ireland was to them what Canada, Australia, and the United States have been to the redundant population of our own times; and it is only necessary to state that people of all grades, but especially cottagers, farm labourers, and very small proprietors, flocked into the country by thousands. They not only occupied the ground in the line of their march, but brought under cultivation most of the unpromising lands in the immediate neigbourhood. The county of Antrim, therefore, is as a whole Scotch, and those of Down and Londonderry are very largely so. But these are the only three counties in which the descendants of Scottish immigrants outnumber those of English origin.

8. In numerous other districts-in Armagh, Tyrone, and Fermanagh—the people of the two countries were mingled in varying proportions, so that the English language was introduced with unequal degrees of purity, and sometimes with a marked provincial accent.

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