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From ‘The Man In The Big House’. Stories collected by Eddie Lenihan from the late Jimmy Armstrong of Ballyroughan.

‘Quin Abbey, now; did you ever hear about the founding of that abbey? ‘Twas built, in 1402 I think, by John MacNamara of Daingean.

Well, now, these stories about the founding of it you can judge for yourself. The truth of one of ’em seems to be more authentic than the other one, but you can judge for yourself.

The first story is that he had one son whom he called Sioda MacNamara. An’ one mornin’ he was missing. They were livin’ in Daingean, o course; that’d be, I s’pose, about three an’ a half miles or four from Quin.

They searched everywhere for him. Couldn’t find him. They searched next day, an’ the third day they found him in a pond that was near the castle. I know, now, where the oul’ formation o’ the pond is. ‘Tisn’t a dozen yards from the castle. This oul’ pond, now, last time I saw it, ’twas dry but ‘twould take in an area of about roughly half an acre. An ’twas all rough oul’ ground, you know, an’ lumps here an’ there in it. On these lumps there were bull-rushes growin’ an’ ‘twould give you the idea that at one time ’twas full o’ water.

‘But, anyway, the third day that Sioda was missin’ their neighbours, I spose, or his father, got him in the pond, drowned. He brought him into the castle. He there an’ then took an oath to the Almighty God that if he was restored to life he’d build a monastery for the Dominican friars at Quin. The following feast of Saint Francis, Sioda was playin’ an’ friskin’ around the castle again!

John MacNamara gathered a crowd of neighbours an’ masons an’ they started the abbey in Quin on the ruins of an old Norman castle that was there. There were four round towers in it. He constructed the abbey, an’ the abbey was to be, according to the way I heard it, a thousand paces long, an’ five hundred paces wide. So there’s only, I suppose, an eighth of it there now.

But at the back of the present parish church in Quin that’s in Bobby Clune’s field in Daingean Breac you can see the formation of the walls in the field. If you went up the tower in Quin Abbey, now – the tower is exactly a hundred feet high – an looked towards John Clunes, you’d see all the formation of the houses. The river wasn’t where it is now at all then, an’ the abbey was goin’ right up as far as the present street.

Now, I gave a hand at the building of Saint Finian’s Hall in Quin, an Canon Vaughan, he bought Dan Clune’s house – twas a thatched house – an’ the garden at the back of it. So, they knocked the house, an’ in the sinkin’ of the foundation they went down twelve feet in it, an’ the twelve feet they got were, eight feet of the finest of grey sand an four feet of earth on top of it. They kept that sand to make concrete blocks out of it. They got as far as rock then an’ they filled with stones – they go t’em in the bank the river above the abbey. But, through the sand an’ through the earth there were eight horse-loads o’ bones got in it, an’ skulls. So they came to the conclusion that there should have been a battle fought there one time, when all the bones an’ skulls were there. An’ there was, too.

Well, the other story that’s told about it was this, an all I can say, now, are the words o the man that told it to me. There was a holy man at Tom Fionnlach, an’ John MacNamara of Daingean had several dreams an’ in these dreams he saw friars wandering about looking for a home an’ a place to teach. But he went to this holy man, anyway, to know what his dreams were about. But, the holy man said to him, according to what I was told, “now, the Franciscan friars, you had dreams about ’em. Well, in fact, says the holy man, “I had dreams too about these Franciscan friars, that they wanted a home an’ a school. Is it possible for you to build one?

Well, says John Mac to him, “my son is after bein’ got in a pond, unconscious, an’ I’ll do anything,” says he, “that my son will live.”

“”Is it possible for you, says the holy man to him, “to build an abbey or a monastery for these holy friars?”

“Money is no object to me” says John Mac to him. “Will I build here?”

“No,” says the holy man. “You’ll build at the village of your own parish. Part o’ the foundation is laid for you in an old Norman castle. You’ll build there.”

‘He started the abbey, an as soon as he did his son was as well as ever he was.

So they’re the two stories that were told about the founding of Quin Abbey?

‘According to old local people the abbey was commenced in 1402. I told you that already. But according to Tommy Mac in Creevagh it took thirty years to build it, and, at the opening ceremony that John MacNamara who was responsible for the commencing of it was there, an’ his son was there, Francis Sioda MacNamara, an’ a man whose name was John Clune. This John Clune, in his youth, he got infantile paralysis an’ lost the use of his two legs, an he used to go about on his hands an’ knees. Anyway, at the opening ceremony the friars had him there, an’ John Mac’s son had him there. An’ according to Tommy Mac — who claimed that he was a descendant of John Mac that founded the abbey – when they opened it John Mac was ninety-four years of age. An’ according to Tommy Mac the friars prayed over John Clune who was goin around on his hands an knees, an’ after some prayers he stood up an walked about. An’ the friars said that as long as the parish ơ Quin would be the parish o Quin ‘twould never be without a MacNamara or a Clune family. An’ ’tis full o MacNamaras an’ Clunes today.

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!