mediabookthe legacy of the 1641 rebellion ian paisley last friday, october 22, marked the...

MediaBook

Summary Source Media Headline Date Page

Irish Times PRESS IRISH ROOTS 15-Nov-2010 1

Irish Examiner PRESS Letters to the editor - Asecond look at the 'devilincarnate'

11-Nov-2010 2

Agenda NI PRESS A dark story of our land 08-Nov-2010 3

The Phoenix PRESS 1641 AND ALL THAT 05-Nov-2010 5

Newsletter PRESS Accounts shine light onmassacre of 1641

01-Nov-2010 6

Newsletter PRESS Peace paves way for records tobe studied

01-Nov-2010 7

Belfast Telegraph - EarlyEdition

PRESS quotes " of the week 30-Oct-2010 9

Belfast Telegraph - FinalEdition

PRESS quotes of the week 30-Oct-2010 10

Liffey Champion PRESS Kildare and the 1641Depositions

30-Oct-2010 11

Newsletter PRESS The legacy of the 1641Rebellion

29-Oct-2010 12

Gaelsceal PRESS Ciumhní Éirí Amach 1641 29-Oct-2010 13

Donegal News DerryPeople

PRESS Bloody times in Donegal 29-Oct-2010 14

Northern Standard PRESS News in Brief...... 28-Oct-2010 15

Belfast Telegraph - EarlyEdition

PRESS It's time to stand up and startfighting these unwanted cuts

25-Oct-2010 16

The Sun PRESS KILLING TRUTH 25-Oct-2010 17

North West Telegraph PRESS It's time to stand up and startfighting these unwanted cuts

25-Oct-2010 18

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Date 01 November 2010 Page 3

Copyright material. This may only be copied under the terms of a Newspaper Licensing Agency agreement (www.nla.co.uk) or with written publisher permission. For external republishing rights see www.nla-republishing.com

Accounts shine lighton massacre of 1641REBECCA [email protected]

THE mystery surrouding one ofIreland’s most controversial periods ofhistory is set to be untangled in whathas been termed the world’s oldestpublic inquiries.

Depictions of events of 1641 oftenadorn the banners of Orange lodgesbut the events have always beenmurky with reports of the numbersof Protestants killed by republicansranging from 12,000 right up to200,000.

The violence was widespreadthroughout Ireland with Protestantplanters robbed, forced from theirhomes and, in some cases, murdered.

But now for the first time theaccounts of what really happened areavailable online after academics spentthree years painstakingly transcribing19,000 pages of depositions frompeople who took part in all sides of therising.

And, like most inquiries, the teambehind the project is very diverse ledby the universities of Cambridge andAberdeen as well as Trinity College,Dublin.

Trinity have described the risingas “one of the least understoodmassacres in European history, inwhich many thousands of men,women and children lost their lives”.

The depositions make brutalreadings at times with witnessaccounts of savage mass murder.

One example examines the story ofEleanor Price, a widow and motherof six from Co Armagh, who wasimprisoned by insurgents before fiveof her children were drowned, alongwith other settlers, in the River Bannat Portadown Bridge.

The account describes how therebels “then and there instantly andmost barbarously drowned the mostof them: And those that could swimand come to the shore they eitherknocked them in the hands and soafter drowned them, or else shot them

to death in the water”.The uprising by Irish Catholics

in October 1641 followed decadesof tension between settlers and thenative Irish.

Professor John Morrill, from theUniversity of Cambridge, one of theproject’s principal investigators andchair of the management committee,said the events of 1641 transformedIrish history.

“GK Chesterton once wrote that theproblem with the English conquest ofIreland is that the Irish cannot forgetit and the English cannot rememberit,” he said.

“Now, for the first time, the Irishwill be able to read about whathappened in full and the Englishwill have complete access to anepisode that they have frequentlyoverlooked.”

The next stage of the project willbe analysing the depositions, it is setto start next March and last for a yearand will examine the reliability of thedepositions.

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Peace paves way for records to be studiedPeace in Northern Ireland as well as moderntechnology has made the 1641 depositionsaccessible to all, writes Trinity Research FellowDr Elaine Murphy.THE rebellion broke out onOctober 22, 1641 with a failedplot to seize Dublin Castle and anuprising in Ulster.

The depositions were mainlygiven by Protestants and describetheir experiences during therising including the loss ofgoods, military action and crimesallegedly committed by the Irishinsurgents.

The depositions were given toTrinity College Dublin in 1741 andconsist of 31 volumes containingapproximately 19,000 pages.Every county is covered butsome, such as Louth and Donegal,have very few depositions whileother counties, such as Cork, havemultiple volumes.

For the past three years Ihave been working as part of ateam with Dr Edda Frankot, DrAnnaleigh Margey and ProfessorAidan Clarke to transcribe the1641 depositions and make themavailable online.

There are numerous challengesinvolved in transcribing 17thcentury handwriting.

The spelling is inconsistent andmany of the abbreviations are nolonger is everyday use.

For example Ulster is oftenspelt ‘Vlster’ and words often endwith an ‘e’ such as ‘kingdome’.

Personal and place names arealso very inconsistent and thereare numerous versions of each.Some of the variants of Pheliminclude ‘Felim’, ‘Phelym’ andPhelime’.

One of the first issues to beaddressed was whether or not thespellings and names should bestandardised and modernised.The decision was taken thatthe depositions would a faithfulrepresentation of the original text.

The handwriting itself is alsodifficult to read with erraticpunctuation, faded text andcrossed out words. Using highquality digital images we were

able to decipher most of thedepositions.

The 1641 depositions are

well known for their graphicdepictions of atrocities thattook place during the rebellion.Accounts of individual sufferingare often more harrowing thanthose of massacres at places likePortadown and Belturbet.

For example, Margey Barlowa widow from Fermanagh,described being stripped nakedand forced out into the snow withher six children to starve.

One of the real surprises forme working on this project hasbeen how much informationthe depositions contain aboutso many aspects of life in 17thcentury Ireland. With details ofhousehold goods and furniture,different types of livestock andmoney lending the depositionsprovide an insight into thelives of all levels of society notavailable in other sources for thisperiod.

Previous attempts to transcribeand publish the depositions failedbecause of the controversialnature of the material. Peace andmodern technology now make itpossible to make the depositionsavailable freely.

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Historical drawings of the events of the 1641 rebellion in which an estimated12,000 Protestants across Ireland lost their lives

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Date 30 October 2010 Page 24


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The legacy of the 1641 RebellionIanPaisley

LAST Friday, October 22, markedthe anniversary of the 1641Rebellion in Ireland, a rebellionthat began in Ulster.The documentationrelating to this rebellion is thelong-time property of TrinityCollege, Dublin. Despite severalattempts to exhibit these recordsin the past, they are only now onexhibition and their full contentavailable online to the generalpublic. For this, Trinity Collegedeserves congratulations.Aberdeen and CambridgeUniversities have also beeninvolved with this hugeundertaking.If you are unable to visit thisexhibition you certainly shouldseek it out online.No Ulsterman or woman should beignorant of the events of 1641.Trouble does not discriminate. Weall experience troubles in ourlives, either in great or small

measure.Our fellow-countrymen andwomen of the 1600s knew troubleas we, thank God, have not had tobear.The testimonials of theirexperiences, now translated andavailable for us to read, tell ingraphic detail the losses theysustained and the crimes carriedout against them.These troubles were not borne byone social class or another or byone gender or another. They werenot limited by age and they werenot in fact limited by religiousbelief either.Perhaps the most telling aspect ofthese records is that they bearwitness to the scale of thewrongdoing while at the same timeindividualise it.One by one people tell their storyand these add upto thousands upon thousandsof stories. These tragic andheartbreaking experiences ofindividuals teach the sad story ofour island’s history.

Understanding this period ofhistory, I believe, is to knowwho we are and why we have hadto witness our own recent time oftroubles in what became a dividedisland.

The 1641 rebellion first began inUlster. The date, October 22, oughtto be known by every Ulstermanand woman as well as they knowtheir own birth date. Alas, this isnot so.One Tony Blair, when on a well-documented visit to Ulster earlyin his days as prime minister, usedthe phrase “the hand of history”.The handwritten testimonials ofthis rebellion are the real hand ofhistory!That hand is a meticulous hand.Its duty was to record the horrorsof the evil hands that persecuted.I have no doubt that in the processit also was a hand required toreach out in comfort, for it is hardto imagine that the recording ofthese experiences could have beendispassionate.In time, it was a hand thatbeckoned the academics and thescholars and the students.And now that hand reachesout beyond its page, beyond itscentury, and touches us.Knowledge is responsibility. Theknowledge these depositionsprovide demands a response. Weshould willingly learn the lessonsthey teach and use those lessonsto help us unlock a stable andpromising future for our province

and our neighbours on the restof this island. Ours should be thehands that carry the informationof the past to the next generationto ensure that they are notdispossessed of a peacefulfuture.

THINK ON THIS“To everything there is a seasonand a time to every purpose underheaven.A time to be born, and a time todie; a time to plant, and a time topluck up that which is planted;A time to kill, and a time to heal; atime to break down and a time tobuild up;A time to weep and a time to laugh;A time to mourn, and a time to

dance;A time to cast away stones, and atime to gather stones together;A time to embrace, and a time torefrain from embracing;A time to get, and a time to lose;a time to keep, and a time to castaway;A time to rend, and a time to sew;a time to keep silence and a timeto speak;A time to love, and a time to hate; atime of war, and a time of peace.”

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