Interdisciplinary essays of the history of an Irish County
IN the late 1970s the GAA approached academia to discuss how the association’s upcoming Centenary celebrations could be recognised in academic publications. A plethora of mostly historical publications resulted that has since filtered down through county, provincial and club histories.
Academia also responded in adopting a project that would publish a volume of inter-disciplinary essays on each of the 32 counties exploring their diversity. The first volume, Tipperary History and Society, was edited and published by Willie Nolan and Thomas G McGrath in 1985. In their preface to the volume the editors stated that they hoped the essays would “embrace the collateral disciplines of archaeology, history, geography, Irish literature, folklore and planning” to thereby contribute to a greater understanding of the regional dimension of county’s history.
Over the next 40 years Willie Nolan and his wife Teresa have overseen a steady drip feed of publications from each county. On Friday evening both were in attendance in The Great Hall of Queen’s University for the publication and launch of the 32nd and final volume of essays, Antrim History and Society.
The editors are husband and wife team Professor Eileen Murphy and Dr Colm Donnelly, both of the School of Natural and Built Environment in Queen’s. Murphy, a native of Fermanagh, was involved in the publication of that county’s volume in 2004. Donnelly is a native of Ballintoy but now domiciled in Belfast where he is an active member of Gort na Móna CLG through which he became involved as Fixtures’ Secretary on the Antrim Camogie Board.
It was in this capacity that he met Séamas McAleenan and asked him to contribute an essay on the “History of Camogie in Antrim”. McAleenan, a founding member of the Brídíní Óga camogie club in Glenravel and at one period full-time Ard rúnaí of the Camogie Association, had helped research and write the MacNamee-award winning history of his home club Liatroim Fontenoys for its centenary in 1988 and also the subsequent 125 years’ publication in 2013.
This is the first time that a camogie history has been included in a county volume. McAleenan’s condensed essay extends to more than 12,500 words across 36 pages and is one of 31 essays in the publication that runs to an impressive 884 pages. It is illustrated with photographs from the Ardoyne GAA and Camogie History and Creggan Kickham’s GAA History publications as well as a number of photographs from John Curly McIlwaine’s personal collection.
In it, the author explores the first written evidence of camogie in the county: “There were girls ‘practising at Seaghan’s Park, Belfast’ in the summer of 1906”. The development of a camogie league in the city followed with references to various trips to games at Dundalk Feis, Armagh, Clones and a challenge match between Greenan’s Cross (Monaghan) and Ardoyne as a curtain raiser to the Ulster hurling semi-final on April 10th 1910.
However there were many obstacles to the development of camogie in the city and county and it wasn’t until the 1930s that there were county-wide organised leagues and championships. As a result a county board was formed and an inter-country team followed.
Each of the six senior All-Ireland winning campaigns are described in detail with reference to interviews the author had carried out over the past three decades with key players, Cella Quinn, the Dooey twins, Moya Forde, Máiréad McAtamney-Magill and Fr Paddy Delargy, coach to the 1979 winning team.
The troughs and peaks since 1979 at inter-county and club level are raked through to bring the history up to the end of the 2023 season. The essay concludes with a list of achievements by Antrim teams at inter-county and club level, including the names and scoring stats of each player on All-Ireland winning inter-county teams at senior, intermediate, junior, national league, under 18 and under 16 levels as well as those on the Rossa (senior, 2008) and Brídíní Óga Glenravel (junior, 2022) club teams. Provincial winning years for Antrim inter-county teams at all levels and club teams are also chronicled.
Many of the other essays in the volume will also be of interest including Brian S Turner’s “The surnames of County Antrim”, Frances Kane’s and Mícheál B Ó Mainnín’s “The place-names of County Antrim” or Patricia Lysaght’s exploration of folklore collecting in the early part of the last century. A full list of chapters is included BELOW.
Initially the publication is available for purchase from www.geographypublications.com – enquiries to books@geographypublications.com. It will in time become available in most major bookshops.
Contents
1. The Geology of County Antrim by Alastair Ruffell, Mark Cooper and Michael J. Simms (QUB)
2. Prehistoric Antrim by John Ó Néill (Author)
3. Early Medieval Antrim: A Historical Archaeology c. AD400-1100 by Russell Ó Ríagáin and Patrick Gleeson (QUB)
4. The Medieval Chieftains in County Antrim: Irish, English, Scots and Welsh
by Katharine Simms (TCD)
5. The Castles of Ballycastle by Colm Donnelly and Eileen Murphy (QUB)
6. Medieval and 17th Century Belfast by Ruairi Ó Baoill (QUB)
7. George Rawdon’s World – Lisburn in the 17th Century by Brenda Collins (QUB)
8. The Origins of the Boyds of Derrykeighan, County Antrim by Jonathan Gray
9. The Provision of Places of Worship of the Established Church in County Antrim,
1660-1740 by William Roulston (UHF)
10. Rathlin Island, Antiquarians and the Gaelic Revival by Wes Forsythe (Ulster University)
11. Republicans and Heretics, Philosophers and Poets – The Rich Diversity in County
Antrim Presbyterianism by Stewart Jones ϯ
12. Reading and Writing in Co. Antrim c.1760-1860: A Community and its Poets by Linde Lunney (RIA)
13. Migration in Antrim History by Patrick Fitzgerald and Brian Lambkin
14. The Towns of County Antrim during the 19th Century by Stephen A. Royle (QUB)
15. Physical and Human Landscapes of County Antrim: A Photographic Essay by Noel Mitchel ϯ
16. Female Criminals in Nineteenth-Century County Antrim by Elaine Farrell (QUB)
17. The Famine in Belfast by Gerard MacAtasney (Historian)
18. Catholicism in Belfast in the 19th Century by Oliver Rafferty (Boston College)
19. A Tale of Two Cities: Industrial Belfast in the Nineteenth Century by Olwen Purdue (QUB)
20. The Middle Class of Victorian Belfast by Alice Johnson (Belfast Metropolitan College)
21. Science in 19th-Century Belfast by Diarmid A. Finnegan (QUB)
22. ‘The World Moves, and we May Thank the Ladies for its Progress’: Women’s
Unionism in County Antrim, 1886-1939 by Diane Urquhart (QUB)
23. A View from Ulster: Northern Nationalism, the Great War and the 1916 Rising by Eamon Phoenix ϯ
24. Belfast and the First World War by Richard S. Grayson (Goldsmiths University London)
25. Belfast and the Start of the Troubles by Simon Prince (Canterbury)
26. Belfast– Caught Between the Planners and the Bombers by Marcus Patton (Royal Ulster Academy)
27. The Surnames of County Antrim by Brian Turner
28. The Place-Names of County Antrim by Frances Kane and Mícheál B. Ó Mainnín (QUB)
29. ‘Boys, you wanted to see the Islay girls dance!’: Folklore Collecting in County Antrim
in the First Half of the 20th Century by Patricia Lysaght (UCD)
30. Camogie in County Antrim by Séamus McAleenan (GAA reporter)
31. Lough Neagh and its Antrim shoreline by Liam Campbell (Ulster American Folk Park)