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I’ve always frequented antique shops, enticed by the tranquil air of mystery that pervades the space, but also the beauty of antiquity. The above cigarette packets speak to me of times long past, friends smoking in camaraderie discussing the price of animals or the fine summer that had passed. In terms of Quin village in the 1940’s and 50’s, locals recall Clune’s shop on Newline and Fanny Corbett’s on the main street who sold the following brands: Woodbine (which was the most popular and sold in packets of 5), Gold Flake and Craven A.  (that sold in packets of 10’s and 20’s)

Fanny Corbett sold the cigarettes singularly and also boxes of 50 Sweet Afton at Christmas time. Tobacco too was popular: a round box of Mick Mc Quaid or the 16” block of Garryowen that Fanny’s husband Patrick cut into 2” pieces for sale. ‘Give me an ounce of Garryowen’ was heard daily as the ritual of pipe filling began. 

That was in itself an art form, the pen knife carefully shaved the required amount off the plug (not a speck was lost) it was then kneaded with great love in the palm of the hand and then firmly positioned into the pipe. A Patterson and Maguire obliged and the sweet scent wafted heavenly. Often the top of a YR sauce bottle provided ‘the draw’ needed to get a good red hue. No more needed to be said, it was time to take stock, relax, think about the day left behind and the one to yet come.

Tobacco as we know it, originated in America where the native population chewed and smoked the leaves. But by the time of Columbus arrival 1492, tobacco had reached across the continent and the leaves became a cash crop and currency of the American colonies. It spread far and wide through sailors in ports and it was Jean Nicot de Villemain, the French ambassador to Lisbon who introduced it to the French court. Eventually his name was synonymous with the plant and called ‘Nicotiana tabacum’.

Tobacco first made its way to Ireland in the late 16th century through Sir Walter Rally’s estates in Youghal Co Cork. It became a popular indulgence, to the point that in 1830 Wexford alone had 1,000 acres under plant. This provided employment for 1,500 people in 10 tobacco factories. The British growers were envious of the Irish success and the British King James the First suppressed the industry in Ireland. He called it ‘perversion of the soil’. This continued under King Charles but by 1779 prohibition was removed.

 

Initially, tobacco was smoked in wooden pipes and the more elaborate the pipe, the higher your social status. The only historical evidence for the manufacture of tobacco pipes in Ireland was a license granted in 1617 to J. Coker of Dublin to manufacture and sell tobacco pipes for twenty-one years at a rent of £10. WW1 glamourised smoking as the troops were provided with a constant supply which suggested it brought relief from stress. By 1940 it became an acceptable form of social behaviour, at least 60% of Irish men smoked – a badge of manliness. However, women were demonised if they smoked as is evidenced in articles from the ‘Irish Independent’ 1921. They were already depicted as ‘the weaker sex’ and insisted that smoking robbed them of their femininity. At this time when people struggled to make ends meet, cost too was an overarching obstacle – 10 cigarettes in 1914 was three pence (the same price as a man’s shirt, ladie’s blouse or a two-pound loaf of bread) To fully contextualise it, an agricultural labourer’s wages in 1914 was 10 shillings and nine pence a week. Men went out to work and this was perceived as their ‘luxury’ item along with a few weekly pints. Women had no such luxuries – their place was still at home, but this too would change as they became more educated and influenced by advertising such as Marlboro ‘Mild as May’ cigarettes. Smoking for women equated to liberation.

 

But it was in Navan 1898, that the tobacco industry flourished on the Randlestown estate owned by Sir Nugent Everard. It provided 100 jobs preparing plants for market and boosted the local economy from a 100-acre tobacco plantation. He was a typical Anglo-Irish aristocrat who pursued his vision of the tobacco industry in Meath.

 

 

Sir Nugent Everard

 

Randlestown Estate Meath

He sent his son Major Richard to the United States in 1904 to learn all he could about the subject. He described how the industry provided much needed work in the area, ‘…even children during their school holidays take part in the weeding operations. This enabled many parents to keep their children at home instead of sending them out to service or across the sea’. He also stated, ‘Strangers came to visit the plantation…were impressed, especially Americans, with our knowledge of tobacco growing.’ He succeeded for a while but ultimately by 1919 unfavourable Government policy brought about its demise. A subsidy was introduced for tobacco growers which brought Irish tobacco into competition with tobacco grown cheaply in British colonies. The Irish growers couldn’t compete.

 

 

Siobhán O’ Sullivan 2024

 

References:

The Irish Times – Frank Mc Nally

Navan Historical Society

CSO.ie

 

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!