E 2.9: The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo: a phonemic studyby Éamonn Mhac an Fhailigh 1968 (repr. 1980). xvii + 261 pp. €25 ISBN 0 901282 02 2 With a grammatical supplement PrefaceTHE barony of Erris occupies the north-west corner of the Co. Mayo. Broadhaven from the north and Blacksod Bay from the south penetrate to meet at the isthmus of Belmullet and cut off from the rest the Mullet peninsula[xi, 1] to the west. On the east Erris adjoins the barony of Tirawly. The term Erris, in the language of the older inhabitants of Dû[xi, 2] Chaocháin, is of restricted meaning and applied to the Mullet peninsula only. P. Knight, at p. 4 of his book,[xi, 3] writes: 'Erris means western peninsula and strictly speaking should be confined to the portion within the isthmus of the Mullet, ... the natives call all beyond that "the mountains" .' At two points in the barony I found Irish in full vigour as the vernacular : (1) Faulmore and adjacent townlands to the west ; (2) Dû Chaocháin, comprising Kilgalligan, Carrateigue, Stonefield, and Comboy, in the north of the barony beside Beinn Bhuí Head. At these two places Irish was in 1936 the everyday speech of old and young, and the majority of the children acquired their first knowledge of English on attending school. Many of the older people knew Irish only. The entire population of the two islands of Inishkea had been accommodated in new holdings by the Irish Land Commission at Glosh and Nakil[xi, 4] on the opposite mainland soon after 1930. In their new homes on the mainland these migrants from Inishkea formed a compact community whose main pursuit continued to be fishing. They have always been entirely Irish speaking. Faulmore was, before the Land Commission's scheme of consolidation there was completed in 1936-37, an old-world rural village or 'baile', made up of a score or more of thatched houses built close to one another. The main harvest of the community was from the sea. With the coming of consolidation each household acquired additional land and a new dwelling on its own holding. The old village was demolished. In the past Faulmore had considerable contact with the Inishkea islands, and intermarriage between members of the two communities was not uncommon. Doohoma is on the southern coast of the small peninsula or headland south-west of Geesala village, and has its extension in Ceann Reamhar Head pointing in the direction of Achill. In Doohoma in 1935 those of the older generation were fluent Irish speakers, but English was fast replacing Irish as the everyday speech of the younger generation and those of school-going age. There has been heavy emigration to Scotland and England for many years from Doohoma district. Minor differences of speech are noticeable as one travels from one point to another of the places I have mentioned. These are not very marked, however, and are differences rather of vocabulary than of sounds or accidence. In Dû Chaochain in the north, for instance, they seem to use more typically Donegal[xii, 1] words than in Faulmore. As between Faulmore and Inishkea speech there was a very marked difference in intonation. Characteristic of Inishkea was a striking monotone which I did not observe elsewhere in Erris. The final syllable of an utterance was unduly drawn out or lengthened. Inishkea migrants now after thirty years' residence on the mainland have - most of them - lost much of this peculiar intonation. Phonetically and in its accidence Erris Irish is in marked contrast with the Irish of Ballycroy and Achill, where Donegal influence is much in evidence.[xii, 2] Doohoma folk used to quote the Ballycroy version of the proverb 'cat after kind', viz. siúl a' chuit ag a phisín, for which Doohoma people said siúl a' chait ag a' bpisín. They contrasted, too, ar a' phortach, insa bhád, ar a' bhethíoch, of Ballycroy, with their own ar a' bportach, insa mbád, ar a' mbethíoch. They also adverted to the Achill and Ballycroy pronunciation of déanamh as deánú, for which they in Doohoma would say díonú. The Irish of Erris seems to be typical of Mayo Irish in general; it is conservative in its sounds, as also in its declensional patterns, and has not gravely digressed from Classical Irish, though there are some features in which it shows a striking departure from classical forms. Two scholars in the past have had observations to make which are apposite liere and may be quoted. John Mac Neill in Clare Island Survey, Section I, part 3, p. 7, says of the local dialect of Clare Island: 'Its phonetic system is the best preserved of all the extant Irish dialects known to me, that is to say, is the most fully in conformity with the orthography of Early Modern Irish.' T. F. O'Rahilly in his Irish Dialects, p. 246, remarks : 'On the whole it would seem that the Irish of N. Connacht has the fewest deviations from the older pronunciation.' Their remarks would appear to be equally applicable to the Irish of Erris today. Erris has had its poet in Riocard Bairéad, familiarly known in the district as Dick Buiréad, who lived in the latter half of the 18th and early part of the 19th century. The year of his death very probably was 1819. He composed many ballads, topical, bright, and light of touch, and his ironic satire is still savoured by Errismen. Knight[xiii, 1] in 1836 wrote of him : 'One man of real genius died about sixteen or eighteen years ago.' He goes on to describe him as 'sweet, correct, mellifluous in his language and verse ... ; his songs were sung and listened to.' He 'seemed to follow the style of Swift, ... was an enthusiastic admirer of his.' The bulk of the material for this work was collected as long ago as 1935 and 1936. In both these years I spent the Easter and longer summer vacation periods in Erris, staying longer at Faulmore than at anywhere else there. In Faulmore my principal informant, on whose speech this work is based, was Stiofán Beag Ó Maolfhábhaill, a monoglot speaker of Irish, then in his sixties. He was steeped in the traditions of the district, and had lived all his life in his native Faulmore except for a short period when as a child of two he was taken to America, of which he had scarcely any recollection at all. His home was the 'visiting' house where the local young men gathered in the evenings ag cuartaigheacht, and there among them I was always Stiofán's cordially welcome guest. With him by day on his little plot of land or by the seashore, and at his home in the evenings, I was able to collect those words, phrases, and pieces of local lore on which I mainly relied as material for my study. Stiofán was ever patient with my enquiries and proud to be able to help me. I should like to place on record here, so many years afterwards, how grateful I have felt to him and the many others who gladly recited for me their songs, stories, and traditions. As for Erris itself, I cannot do better than repeat what Knight wrote[xiv, 1] about it a century and a quarter ago : 'Early associations and recollections of friends, as well as of scenery never to be forgotten, make it dear to him.' In its main sections this work resembles the earlier monographs of the series published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. It consists of two parts. In the first are set down the sounds of the living speech of today, just as if one were recording an unwritten language. Classical historical spelling - when it is available - is added for the purpose of identification of words. In the case of words which are not found in Early Modern Irish, the more recent dictionary spellings, if they exist, are adopted. In Part II the spelling of E. Mod. Ir. is taken as the starting point, as indicating E. Mod. Ir. pronunciation, and the subsequent development of the sounds in the dialect is shown. Additional in this work is the grammatical supplement in which an outline of the main features of the accidence and morphology of the dialect is given. The phonetic system employed is that of Professor Daniel Jones, and is based on the phoneme theory. Two of his works An Outline of English Phonetics, and The Phoneme given guidance throughout. In the summer of 1941 it was my good fortune to be able to attend the course at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies given by Miss E. Evans (now Mrs. Whitley). My training in phonetics I owe to her, and I still have pleasant memories of her lectures. That this work appears in print today is due to Professor Myles Dillon, present Director of the School of Celtic Studies. From Professor Dillon I have received every encouragement and facility, for which I feel deeply grateful. Professor Ó Cuív read a draft of the work in manuscript. I am indebted to him for pointing out to me a number of inconsistencies, errors, and faults of principle, and for making some very helpful suggestions as to how improvements might be made. I have to thank Professor Delargy, editor of Béaloideas, for permission to reprint here parts of the story Mártan an Bhradáin Ghil, which has been already published in full (without phonetic text) in Iml. IX - Uimh. i, pp. 106-113, of that journal; and Professor Ó Cuív, present editor of Éigse, for permitting me to reprint the song Tomás Ó Fionáidh, which appeared in Éigse II, PP. 33 sq. I revisited Faulmore in the summer of 1961 and spent the greater part of a month there. None of my informants of 1935-36, it was sad to find, was still living. I paid two visits there again in the summer of 1962. Of my Dû Chaocháin informants of 1935-36 POC is still alive. Abbreviated References employed in Texts and elsewhere. Names of, and notes on, my principal Informants of 1935-36:
Footnotes to the PrefaceFootnotes, page xi (first page of the preface)
Footnotes, page xii (second page of the preface)
Footnote, page xiii (third page of the preface)Footnote, page xiv (fourth page of the preface)Footnote, page xvi (sixth page of the preface)Footnote, page xvii (seventh page of the preface) |