place des Diligences: FILÍOCHT: Art Mac Cumhaigh, 1738-1773

Ag Úrchill an Chreagáin a chodail mé aréir faoi bhrón,
is le héirí na maidne tháinig ainnir fá mo dhéin le póig,
bhí gríosghrua ghartha aici agus loinnir ina céibh mar ór,
is gurbh é íocshláinte an domhain bheith ag amharc ar an ríoghain óig.

A fhialfhir charthanaigh ná caitear tusa i ndealramh bróin
ach éirigh ‘do sheasamh agus aistrigh liom siar sa ród,
go tír dheas na meala nach bhfuair Gallaibh ann cead réim go fóill,
mar’ bhfaighir aiobhneas ar hallaíbh do mo mhealladh le siansa ceoil.

Cha dhiúltfainn do chuireadh ar a gcruinníonn siad na ríthe d’ór
ach gur cladhartha liom scarúint le mo charaid tá sa tír go fóill;
an céile úd a mheallas le mo ghealladh tráth bhí sí óg,
dá dtréigfinn anois í gur fiosach domh go mbeadh sí i mbrón.

Cha shaoilim gur caraid duit a maireann de do ghaoltaibh beo,
tá tú faofa, gan earra, bocht earraoideach baoth, gan dóigh;
nach mb’fhearr dhuitse imeacht le hainnir na maoth chrobh meor,
ná an tír so bheith ag fonóid faoi gach rabhán dá ndéan tú ceol?

A ríoghan deas mhilis, an tú Helen fár tréaghdadh sló,
nó an de naoi mná deasa thú ó Pharnassus bhí déanta i gcló,
goidé tír insa chruinne dar hoileadh thú, a réalta gan cheo,
ler mhian leat mo shamhailse bheith ag cogarnaigh leat siar sa ród?

Is é mo ghéarghoin tinnis gur theastaigh uainn Gaeil Thír Eoghain,
agus oidhríbh an Fheadha, gan seaghais faoi léig ‘ár gcomhair,
géagaibh glandaite Néill Fhrasaigh nachar dhiúlt do cheol,
chuirfeadh éide fá Nollaig ar na hollaimh bheadh ag géilleadh dóibh.

Ó tréaghdadh na treabhaibh bhí in Eachroimh, is faraoir fón mBóinn,
sliocht Íre, na flathaibh bhéarfadh foscadh do gach draoi gan ghleo,
nach mb’fhearr dhuitse isna liosaibh agus mise le do thaoibh gach neoin,
ná saighde chlann Bhullaí bheith ag tolladh fríd do chroí go deo?

A ríoghan deas mhilis, más cinniúin domh tú féin mar stór,
tabhair léigse is gealladh domh sul fá n-aistre mé leat siar sa ród:
má éagaim fán tSeanainn, i gcrích Mhanainn, nó san Éiphte mhór,
gurb ag Gaeil chumhra an Chreagáin a leagfar mé i gcré faoi fhód.

AMHARC EILE
The Decline of the Irish Language in Lislea
Hugh A Murphy notes Irish leaving South Armagh with Sally Humphreys

Some years ago I came across a document which contained significant information concerning the status of Irish in Lislea in the early 1830’s. It was brought to my attention by a fellow past pupil of the Abbey. Where he got it from I do not know.

This document was written in the year 1925 by a man called Nugent, a Gaelic scholar of the period and a schoolteacher, and it was still in its original manuscript form. Amongst other information, it stated that in the year 1833, the year in which the first 'National' School was opened in Lislea, Irish was spoken as widely in this area as it then was (i.e. in 1925) in Rannafast.

As most people know Rannafast was, and still is, the dominant Gaelic speaking area in the North. When I myself first began to frequent this part of Donegal in the late 1950s, it would be very seldom that one would hear a word of English there. This would have been much more so the case in 1925.

Allowing for even a very large amount of exaggeration on the part of the writer, this is still a very striking claim and it would suggest that when Lislea National School was first opened, the language that was carried through its doors would have been predominantly Irish.

That situation was to change utterly before the end of that same century, due in some part, perhaps, to the system of National School education itself, but much more so to the very traumatic years that were soon to follow. Years of famine, emigration and mass extinction during the mid 1840s, were destined to have a devastating effect on the social, economic and cultural history of Ireland as a whole.

A clear sign of this effect in Lislea, can be seen in the demographic changes in the area, after this traumatic period. As revealed by Mr T Keane in his book Lislea Church And Community, the number of children of school-going age in Lislea in the year 1831 was estimated at 200. Just thirty years later, in 1861, this number had dropped to '100 or less'.

Equally revealing, as regards the changes in the financial fortunes of the people, is the fact that, since a small school fee had to be paid, the actual average number of pupils attending the school 'was a mere 30!'

It would appear that the decline of the Irish language in this area, as in most other areas throughout South Armagh, matched these significant demographic changes. My own father was born in the year 1897 and he knew only three people in the Lislea area who could speak Irish, only one of whom, Sally Humphreys, was a native speaker. The language had been almost completely wiped out in Lislea in the space of some sixty years.

A hundred years prior to this, such a linguistic change would have been unimaginable. During the eighteenth century, the last great Gaelic literary age in Ireland, normally referred to as the golden age of Irish literature, all the major poets of Ulster came from the South East Ulster area, and predominantly from the South Armagh/North Louth region, the territory traditionally known as the Fews. Men such as Peadar Ó Doirnín, Pádraig McAlinden, Art Mc Cooey, Séamas Dall MacCuarta.

In addition to these there were a host of lesser poets such as Randal Dall MacDónaill, Fergus Mac a’Bheatha, Séamas MacGiolla Choille, Muiris Ó Gormáin. As a result, this area was referred to as Ceantar Na bhFilí, the land of the poets, and also Ceantar Na n-Amhrán, the land of the songs.

Whatever changes might take place in other areas, one would have assumed that South Armagh would have been the last to forego its outstanding linguistic tradition. This, however, was not to be. Within a hundred years of the death of Art McCooey in 1773, the last of these major poets, the Irish language had virtually ceased to exist.

In many ways, this great change was mirrored in the life of Sally Humphreys herself. When she was born in Levelamore in the first half of the nineteenth century, into a family called McGlade, Irish was the language of her household, as it was of the other households around her.

It was her natural mode of expression, something she would never have given any thought to. However, she lived long enough to see this change utterly, until in the years before her death she came to occupy the unenviable position of being the last native Irish speaker in the area, an object of curiosity and of some interest.

Sally Humphries had been a noted Gaelic singer and she had a large repertoire of songs and airs, especially those from the eighteenth century. As a result, her house was visited often by song collectors and by a new breed of young Irish scholars who had started to take an interest in the language.

Ironically, perhaps, this house in which she spent her married life had formerly been occupied by the famous Gaelic Bishop, Dr. Pádraig Ó Donnghaile, whose memory is enshrined in the song The Bard of Armagh.

Sally Humphreys died in 1918, some twenty odd years before I was born, and with her died a linguistic tradition in Lislea which, subject only to its own natural changes, had stretched back in an unbroken line to the dawn of history.

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