Irish Speakers

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="097f0f21egerdp.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#66334C" FACE="Arial" ><B>Our Family  Past and Present</B></FONT><B>      |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Our Family Past and Present"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id369.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Eirinn"><U>Eirinn</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id243.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Co Leitrim"><U>Co Leitrim</U></A>   |   <B>Irish Speakers</B>   |   <A HREF="id248.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Oughteragh"><U>Oughteragh</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id377.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Cafferty Genealogy Chart"><U>Cafferty Genealogy Chart</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id246.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Caffertys"><U>The Caffertys</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id156.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mary Theresa Cafferty"><U>Mary Theresa Cafferty</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id59.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Creamer"><U>Creamer</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id395.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Origin of the Name OBrien"><U>Origin of the Name O'Brien</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id376.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="OBrien Genealogy Chart"><U>O'Brien Genealogy Chart</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id333.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The OBriens of Leitrim"><U>The O'Briens of Leitrim</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id375.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The OBrien Farm"><U>The O'Brien Farm</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id55.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Patrick Farrell OBrien"><U>Patrick Farrell O'Brien</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id177.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Farrells of Co Longford "><U>The Farrells of Co Longford </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id346.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Battle of 1798"><U>Battle of 1798</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id57.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mary Farrell"><U>Mary Farrell</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id244.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="County Kerry"><U>County Kerry</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id396.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Origin of the Name Sullivan"><U>Origin of the Name Sullivan</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id58.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Florence Sullivan"><U>Florence Sullivan</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="096f2f02egerdp.jpg"> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id94.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="From the Emerald Isle"><U>From the Emerald Isle</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="099f0f03.jpg"> <div> <I>Irish Speakers</I></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="1efb9930.jpg" border=0 width="185" height="147" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Sliabh an Iarainn </div> <div> Iron Mountain</div> <div> Co Leitrim, Ireland</div> <bR> <div> The Coming of the Ultachs</div> <bR> <div>      The 1821 census gives the population of the civil parish of Oughteragh as 6,833. Ten years later, in 1831, the figure was 8,449, a remarkable increase of 19% which contrasts sharply with a 14% increase for the rest of the county and 13.4% for the whole country. </div> <div>      By 1841, the population had peaked at 9,252. Although rapid growth in population was a national trend in the years leading up to the great Famine, it was accelerated further by an influx of refugees from Ulster, especially into the upper part of Aughnasheelin.</div> <div>      This migration began following the Battle of the Diamond near Portadown, Co Armagh in September of 1795. The battle between rival gangs of Protestants and Catholics which led to the setting up of the Orange Order sparked off a sharp persecution of Catholics by Protestant gangs calling themselves Peep-o'-Day Boys.</div> <div>      An estimated ten thousand Catholics, mostly weavers, are said to have fled to the province of Connaught after that in what became a second "to hell or to Connaught." </div> <div>      The Earl of Gosford, the Protestant governor of Armagh at the time, described the persecution as having "all the circumstances of a ferocious cruelty". </div> <div>      Jimmy Hope, a fugitive from the persecution, who settled in Keshcarrigan, Co Leitrim,  recalled hearing Peep-o'-Day Boys "boasting of the indulgence they got from the magistrate for wrecking and beating the papists, as they called their neighbors and the snug bits of land that their friends got when the papists fled to Connaught and the fun they had in committing the depredations."</div> <div>      Leitrim became the gateway to the west for the fleeing "Ultachs" as they were called.  [Irish speakers]</div> <div>      Some of them settled on it's mountain slopes, while others pushed into Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon and even Galway. Lord Altamont of Westport estimated that some four thousand of them settled in Mayo, as far west as Belmullet. He described them as mostly weavers, decent, well-behaved, peaceful, industrious but utterly destitute. An examination of the Tithe Applotment Books [1833] for Oughteragh shows and unusually high concentration of easily recognizable Ulster surnames in the parish, especially Aughnasheelin, where there were thirty four , McTeague and Cafferty names  among them.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <U>Refugees from the North</U></div> <bR> <div>      Armagh had been disturbed to varying degrees since 1784. The Peep-o'-Day Boys and the Defenders were still active and involved in faction fighting, riots and disturbances at the fairs and markets. The name "Defenders" was no longer and accurate description of the Catholic secret society. They too had learned to act offensively. By the summer of 1795 things were coming to a head in Armagh. There had been a fight between two men at the Diamond, a crossroads near Loughgall, in June, and when two rival crowds gathered, the violence threatened to escalate. Large-scale fighting was averted then, but three months later, on Thursday, September 17, crowds of Defenders and Peep-o'-Day Boys gathered once more at the Diamond. A stand-off, punctuated by minor skirmishes and attempts to broker a settlement, lasted four days. Then on Monday, September 21, the Defenders, who had superior numbers, attacked the Peep-o'-Day Boys, who were well positioned and better organized. The Defenders were routed. Estimates of the number of Defenders killed ranged from fifteen to forty. The Peep-o'-Day Boys had no casualties. This "Battle of the Diamond" was a decisive event giving the Protestants ascendancy in the area, and it was to have huge repercussions for Leitrim and for much of north Connaught for years to come. </div> <div>      Within hours of the Battle of the Diamond the victors founded The Loyal Orange Order and almost immediately set about attacking their Catholic neighbors and driving them from their homes. The majority of those attacked were weavers, part of the then thriving cottage linen industry in Ulster. The usual procedure was to place a placard or threatening notice on the weaver's house, giving the occupants two or three days to "go to hell or to Connaught". They  generally opted to go to Connaught. If they hadn't quit their house by the specified time they were attacked, their webs and looms broken and their house destroyed. These attacks continued during the autumn and winter of 1795 and during most of 1796. John Short wrote about the situation in Armagh in January 1796:</div> <bR> <div> "Any of us that are Catholic here are not sure of going to bed that we shall get up with our lives, either by day or night. It is not safe to go outside the doors here. The Orangemen go out uninterrupted and the gentlemen of the country do not interfere with them but I have reason to think encourage them in their wickedness...The Orangemen go out in large bodies by day and night and plunder the poor Catholics of everything they have, even the webs of linen out of their looms...</div> <div> Any of the Catholics they do not wish to destroy, they give two or three days notice to clear out of the place by pasting papers on their doors, on which is written "Go to hell or to Connaught". If you do not, we are all haters of the papists, and we will destroy you."</div> <div> The Orangemen come then and after they have taken away everything worth carrying out of the cabins, they then dig round the bottom of them, as the cabins are mostly mud walls and easily dug around, and so let them tumble onto the unfortunate creatures. The houses that are not built with mud walls, these savages go up to the top of them with saws, and saw beams on which the roof is supported and let the entire roof fall down on top of the poor creatures, by which they are bruised to pieces. I think you will hardly credit this account nor would I myself  were I not on the spot."</div> <bR> <div>      Lord Gosford wrote to Pelham about the increasingly disturbed state of the country. He reported houses being burned every night, dreadful murders being committed every week and that it appeared that it was `the fixed intentions" of the Protestants to "exterminate their opponents".</div> <bR> <div>      Soon, these attacks spread beyond Armagh into neighboring towns. As a result, thousands of Catholics salvaged whatever belongings they could carry, and headed for Connaught.</div> <bR> <div>      The peasantry of Leitrim, so recently and so effectively suppressed by the military...</div> <bR> <div>  [Battle of Ballinamuck, Longford, when the French arrived to help the Irish, they marched through Leitrim and into Longford. After the battle, there were many reprisals against the local people who supported the Irish cause]</div> <bR> <div> ........     were aroused once more when they heard the northerners relate their stories of intimidation and terror. Camden accurately stated how the weaver refugees "related their sufferings and I fear excited a spirit of revenge among their Catholic Brethren."</div> <bR> <div> Seeing such large numbers fleeing the terror of the north and hearing of their dreadful experiences, made a deep impression on the people of Leitrim. George Nugent Reynolds stated that in Leitrim the Orangemen "are more dreaded...than any other description of men."</div> <bR> <div> The northern refugees brought with them a detailed knowledge of the workings of such secret societies as the Defenders and the United Irishmen, and a determination to combine once more in these secret societies in their new location.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>