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Up until the 1680’s, Bardic schools were in existence and instructed in literature, history and Brehon law through the native Gaelic tongue. They provided what amounted to a University education and this proud tradition produced an abundance of poets, historians and Brehons.

 Subsequently, the Hedge School came into being in response to the 1690 Penal Laws that Britain imposed on Ireland, in an attempt to suppress thenative people. One of the laws declared schools illegal, but little did Britain realise that 9,000 hedge schools and 40,000 scholars would emerge by defying the ban.

As their name suggests, the nomadic teacher and his pupils met wherever they could find shelter, and an informal education was offered of varying quality. Initially, they clearly weren’t seen as too much of a threat, as the British chose to ignore them. Joe Power’s article entitled ‘Education in Clare’states that “some of the best-known teachers of this era included John Floyd of Tulla, Stephen O’ Halloran and Tomás O’ Míocháin of Quin…”

An 1824 document informs us of the eight hedge school teachers in our parish, out of a total of 312 in the county:

Jeremiah Connell Carhumore Quin

George Hennessy Cahircalla

Michael Hennessy Quin

J. Shaughnessy Cullane Quin

Michael Hartney Carahan Clooney

John Mc Mahon Spancilhill Clooney

Patrick Shannon Derramore Clooney

Patrick Walsh Clooney

It must be acknowledged how the teacher was driven to teach in secret, when weather permitted, typically outdoors in a remote spot away from prying eyes. Teacher and pupil would sit upon the grass, whilst another student was on ‘lookout’ to warn of strangers approaching. If a hedge school was ‘discovered’ – the teacher was often imprisoned or fined. Of course, the informer could always be relied on and was rewarded in helping to convict the teacher.

An anonymous writer in 1776 relates how a poor ragged boy was “well acquainted with the best Latin poets”. Later, when the laws against education eased, school was taught in cabins or any usable building.

The schools were quite strict, and from an 1812 ‘Report of Schools’ surveyed we learn; ‘Instruction, except in a few instances, extends no further than reading, writing and the common rules of arithmetic’. The price paid for the tuition was on average ten shillings per annum for Reading, seventeen shillings and four pence if writing was added and one pound six shillings if arithmetic was part of the tuition.It was also common that teachers were often paid with turf, butter, eggs, home-cured meat, lodgings and a few pence per pupil. It was expected that ‘each scholar would bring two sods for the fire’. But the teacher often fulfilled another important role in the community as we learn from Hely Dutton’s accounts of travels in Co. Clare. He informs us how teachers often carried out legal transactions, dealing with bills, accounts, warrants and summons. This clearly added to their prestige in the locality. A diary entry from Dutton tells us of a master who wrote the following:

‘’7th Jan (1793) – Constant smart rain the whole day and most part of the night. Drew marriage articles between Thos. Woodc and Bridget Murphy, and got 8s. 1 1/2 d. for my trouble. The remainder of the 58th Regt. Marched this morning for —. Crouch gave me two pots of porter at my fireside. I wrote a letter for him to J.D. Maindue, M.D. Esq., Bloomsbury Square, London’.

As P.J. Dowling states in ‘The Hedge Schools of Ireland’, Life was increasingly difficult for men who endeavoured to maintain the independence of their schools after the establishment of the National Board of Education in 1832. The Board was a political response to the difficulties the British Empire had in controlling its closest colony. It was seen as a means to strengthen the link to the Empire. It was also a social response to the widespread poverty and quest for education in Ireland. The hedge school masters witnessed the passing of the old Hedge Schools, slowly giving way to the schools under the new Board. Parents were sending their children to them, because the fees were lower than in the Hedge Schools. Teachers took positions there as they were certain of a wage – it wasn’t as precarious as the life of a Hedge School múinteoir.

Padraic Colum in his poem, A Poor Scholar’, describes how the hedge school teacher felt with the demise of their profession,

‘My eyelids red and heavy are

With bending o’er the smouldering peat.

I know the Aeneid now by heart,

My Virgil read in cold and heat,

In loneliness and hunger smart.

And I know Homer too, I ween,

As Munster poets know Ossian’……

I teach these by the dim rush light,

In smoky cabins night and week.’

Siobhán O’Sullivan – April 2nd 2022

What did the Anglo Normans ever do for us?

We are well aware of the impact of the Anglo-Norman invasion on our history, the undermining of Gaelic society and the replacement of our native structures. Poor old Diarmuid MacMurrough takes a lot of blame for all of this, despite the fact that Henry II in England had already sought and had been given approval by Pope Adrian to invade and civilise us. Henry was just waiting to finish his war in France before sorting us out!

Anyway, in they came, conquered, settled, married and eventually becoming more Irish than even ourselves, ‘níos gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin’! But besides building towns and castles, robbing our women (and probably taking our jobs!), what did the Anglo-Normans do for us – if anything?

Well, for one, they gave us a whole new suite of names, both forename and surname, to choose from.

The Norman influence on Irish surnames

Following the invasion of 1169, a large number of Anglo-French first and last names entered into Ireland. Many, such as Power, Browne, Fleming, Joyce, Burke, Barry, Costello, Nagle, Nugent, D’arcy, Roche and Walsh/Welsh/Wallace, are nowadays considered Irish and are commonly found in Clare. So, too, are those with the Fitz prefix such as Fitzmaurice, Fitzgerald, Fitzgibbon and Fitzpatrick which most people would regard as Irish as the shamrock. Fitz, meaning ‘son of’, can be considered the Norman version of Mac (it derives from the Latin/French ‘fils de’, meaning ‘son of’). Burke came from de Burgh, Roche from de Roiste, Power from de Paor.

In 1366, a law was passed that “Every Englishman do use the English language, and be named by an English name, leaving off entirely the manner of naming used by the Irish.” This was introduced to dissuade the settlers from adopting Celtic prefixes or forms of surname. It didn’t have much affect as many settler families added Mac or ‘O’ and Norman names evolved into an Irish form (eg McHenry, McArthur).

In 1465 a law was passed enacting “that every Irishman that dwells betwixt or amongst Englishmen in the County of Dublin, Myeth, Vriell, and Kildare … shall take to him an English Surname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, Corke, Kinsale; or colour, as white, blacke, browne; or arte or science, as smith or carpenter; or office, as cooke, butler ….”

Many of the trades of the early medieval period such as Archer, Butler, Cooper, Carpenter, Draper, Skinner, Tanner found their way into our surnames. Other introductions from this period came from the mercenary soldiers who accompanied the Norman invasion: Walsh (meaning Welsh), Joyce and Fleming (from Flemish mercenaries) are examples.

Incidentally, the Normans usually took their surnames from the place of their family origins. So, D’arcy originates in Arcy in Normandy. De Clare originates in Clare in Suffolk where the Anglo-Norman family were based. While De indicated their place of origin, Le was used to describe them, eg Le Poer meant ‘a poor person’.

De Burgh – Burke – from a placename in Suffolk, France

Le Botilier – Butler – Occupation bottle steward

De Barra – Barry – from an estate in Wales

Le Waleys – Walsh – the Welshmen

De Angulo – Costello/Nangle – from Nangle Pembrokeshire

What of their influence on forenames?

 Many of the Normans forenames introduced here were of a biblical or European saintly origin.

 In 1922, Reverend Patrick Woulfe wrote extensively on the topic of Irish name origins as follows:

In the same manner Norman and English names became current in Irish families during the thirteenth and subsequent centuries. These have now almost completely supplanted the old Gaelic names. The names borne by the Normans and by them introduced into Ireland, were of three kinds :

 (1) names of Scandinavian origin which their ancestors had carried with them to Normandy ;

(2) names of Germanic origin which the Frankish conquerors had brought across the Rhine and which had ousted the old Celtic and Latin names from France ; and

(3) Biblical names and Latin and Greek names of saints,, which the Normans began to adopt about the beginning of the eleventh century.

Together with these came in a few Celtic names from Brittany, a small number of Anglo-Saxon names, some Danish and Norse names from England, and one or two British or Welsh names. These were nearly all very rare and most of them soon died out. Of the Anglo-Saxon names, only two, Edmund and Edward, survived. Alfred has been revived in recent times. At the period of the Invasion, Frankish names were by far the most popular among the Normans, but Biblical and saintly names were coming rapidly into favour.

The following is a list, in order of frequency, of the more common names borne by the early Anglo- Norman invaders, the Biblical and saintly names of Latin and Greek origin being printed in italics :

William, Robert, Richard, John, Walter, Roger, Ralph, Adam, Hugh, Henry, Thomas, Nicholas, Gilbert, Geoffrey, Elias, Peter (Piers), Osbert, Reginald, Jordan, Simon, Alan, Stephen, Philip, David, Arnold, Alexander, Laurence, Baldwin, Herbert, Martin, Maurice, Godfrey, Andrew, Alfred, James, Samson, Turstein, Warin, Ailward, Daniel, Edward, Gregory, Bernard, Benedict, Hamon, Matthias, Michael, Gerard, Gervase, Lambert, Wilkin, Patrick, Edmund, Edwin, Hubert, Ivor, Joseph, Oliver, Mark.

 The following in alphabetical order were rare :

 Abraham, Adelard, Ailmer, Antony, Augustine, Brian, Clement, Constantine, Estmund, Eustace, Everard, Gocelin, Isaac, Leonard, Luke, Matthew, Miles, Milo, Odo, Osbern, Osmund, Pagan, Ponce, Randulf, Redmund, Rodulf, Silvester, Turold, Ulf, Vincent.

 The following names only came in, or at least became popular, at a later period :

Bartholomew, Christopher, Francis, Gerald, George, Paul, Roland, Theobald.

 Women’s names among the Normans were nearly all of the Biblical or saintly class:

 Agnes, Alice, Amelina, Anastasia, Annabella, Catherine, Cecily, Christina, Dorothy, Egidia, Eleanor, Evelyn, Frances, Honora, Isabella, Johanna, Matilda, Margaret, Susanna.

 The name Mary does not seem to have come into use in Ireland before the end of the16th century. Brigid only began to be used about the same period.

 

Extracted from ‘Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall’, Patrick Woulfe 1922

Out with the old, in with the new

The Anglo-Normans also brought with them new animal species such as the rabbit and fallow deer, new foods such as wheat, orchard fruits, mutton and farming practices such as hay-making. They introduced us to continental European religious saints and practices of the Roman Church. European religious orders soon followed such as the Franciscans, Augustinians, Cistercians, Dominicans etc. These replaced the structures of the native Irish Christian Church.

Up to then, the Irish natives did not adopt the name of saints as they considered this to be placing themselves on a par with the saint. Such naming convention was reserved for those of higher status in the monasteries. This was circumvented by use of the prefix Maol or Giolla meaning follower or servant. The Normans changed all of that and it was now acceptable to be called Peter, James, Michael, John, Mary, Brigid or Margaret.

Very few of us to this day do not have either a forename or surname that is not of Norman origin. Eventually, arising from the Gaelic Revival in the late 19th century, new Irish language versions of these forenames appeared such as Séan, Seamus, Peadar, Máire, Bríd, Mícheál, Cathal and many more appeared.

The Irish Church did not condemn the practice of slave-trading by the Irish until the invasion by the Anglo-Normans and the encroachment of the Roman Church. The story of Patrick (Patricius, son of a Roman administrator), which was introduced here after the Norman conquest, presents the native Irish as uncivilised pagan slavers who needed to be brought to heel. So the Normans inadvertently gave us our native saint and a forename for a good chunk of our population for generations following.

Out with the new, in with the old

Children are rarely given these European saint names today. Authentic Gaelic forenames are much more popular. We are nevertheless, unlikely to see the demise of the Anglo-Normans surnames that were introduced here. But all of us Mikes, Jimmies, Johnnys, Paddys, Kittys, Cathys, Maggies and Bridies can thank the Normans for what they brought us!