It Occurs To Me: The Vikings in Donegal

I’ve written here before of my father’s memories of the Downings launch in 1962 of Leslie Lucas’s fascinating and authoritative book, Mevagh Down The Years. 

I devoured it as a child and still have well thumbed copies of it, and More About Mevagh. As someone who loved Tramore Beach, Mulroy Bay and Sheephaven Bay, and walked to what is now the Glenree Boardwalk and looked across at the Ards Friary, one feature of Lucas’s book particularly enchanted me. He wrote: “In the year 919, according to the Four Masters, 20 ships of Danes sailed up Mulroy Bay as far as Kinivere, the territory adjoining Rosgoill on the south-east, but committed no depredations. The ruins of several forts, said to have been Danish, still remain in Rosgoill.” 

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Now, Letterkenny native, Megan McAuley, a PhD student in Maynooth, has published an absorbing book entitled Dún na nGall, Fort of the Foreigners? and asks the question - who were the foreigners? 

What grabbed my early attention in Megan’s book was this extract: “At Rinnaraw, on the western side of Sheephaven Bay (a place name associated with possible Old Norse origins) a coastal cashel was excavated which unearthed a  medieval house. The house, dating to around the ninth century, was compared to similar Viking examples with rounded external corners in the Orkneys. Whetstones recovered at Rinnaraw were likened to examples found in Viking Dublin. More recent discoveries have also been made, such as the hoard of eight silver arm-rings unearthed at Lurgabrack, Horn Head, in 2011.” Sheephaven Bay comes from the Norse ‘skip havn’.  

We didn’t have metal detectors in our innocent youth but it could have been fun!

It shouldn't be any surprise that our ‘fjords’ attracted the Scandinavian invaders, whether Sheephaven, Mulroy, Swilly and Lough Foyle. Megan writes that the Vikings left a ‘permanent legacy’ in Donegal, they clearly did assimilate into the county’s political and social culture. This is most evident in languages, surnames, place-names and folklore.

Forgotten loanwords emanating from Old Norse that survive in the Irish language are still spoken daily in Gaeltacht Dún na nGall.

Sheephaven Bay - a place name associated with possible Old Norse origins

Peaceful relations and intermarriage between Vikings and native Irish are reflected in personal names and family names associated with Co Donegal, such as McManus, McAuley, Grimes, Higney, Reynolds, Sweeney and others.

McManus is also a big Fermanagh name which may point to the Vikings influence along the Erne. Megan concludes in her excellent treatise that Dun na nGall “attests to Viking Heritage” and I would highly recommend it. Published by Maynooth Studies in Local History, it manages the delicate balance between scholarly and very readable. 

                                    Where are the chargers?

A friend who made the long journey from Dublin to Glencolmcille in his electric car had about 80 miles left but the nearest charging outlet was in Killybegs. Ridiculous, in one of our prime tourism areas! The charging point is located at Shore Road, and it is part of the ESB network, containing one device and three connectors. I’m reminded of Liam O’Cuinneagáin’s campaign years ago to get an ATM in Glen, as the nearest ones were in Ardara and Killybegs! Mercifully, in 2017, Byrne’s Foodstore in Carrick got an ATM. but the Folk Village or Oideas Gael environs would be two good places to locate one, as well as chargers. When election canvassers call to your doors, don’t be shy about reminding them of these examples of south-west Donegal being a forgotten corner in The Forgotten County. 

                                Maga: Making America ghastly again?

At the time of writing, I don’t know who the next US President will be, but  I’m praying that it isn’t Donald Trump. Also, it may be the case as in previous elections that we don’t know for definite as yet. On this day in 2000, the US presidential election ended in a statistical tie between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush, only to be settled on December 12 by the US Supreme Court after a bitter legal dispute which lasted five weeks.  Florida’s votes gave Bush 271 electoral votes, only one more than the 270 required to win the Electoral College, but unlike Trump in 2020, Al Gore graciously conceded. In 2020, it was still a four-day wait before US media were confident in declaring Joe Biden to be the next President of the United States. Watching Donie O’Sullivan on CNN interviewing Maga supporters sent shudders down my spine as they boasted of their contingency plans in the event of Trump losing. How can any self-respecting woman, black or Latino person give a vote to a convicted felon who - in the words of retired General Mark Milley - is “the most dangerous person to this country” and “is fascist to the core”? 

Incredibly, Ireland AM did a small Irish poll last week on Virgin Media and Trump managed to get 30%! Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, given the support he gets from many Irish-Americans. 

I hope I woke up yesterday morning to a new dawn with President-elect Kamala Harris. One final thought - watching Trump last week getting into the cab of a ‘fake’ garbage truck made me ponder why he didn’t get in the other end…and stay put! 

                                    How the Irish ‘rocked’ Britain

When the Beatles played in Dublin in 1963, John Lennon declared: “We’re all Irish!” He had Irish great-grandparents on his father’s side, while Paul McCartney and George Harrison had Irish grandparents on their mothers’ sides. In 1971, shortly after the Troubles began, Paul McCartney’s band Wings recorded ‘Give Ireland back to the Irish’. When the BBC banned it, the band responded by releasing a children’s nursery rhyme, Mary had a little lamb.

Around the same time, John Lennon and Yoko Ono also wrote The Luck of The Irish and Sunday Bloody Sunday, which they sang at protest marches around the world. Profits from both songs were given to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement. Cilla Black – another famous Liverpudlian and friend of The Beatles – said that every single one of her great-grandparents was Irish.

In 1851, 13% of Manchester’s population was Irish-born. In 1961, Peggy Sweeney emigrated from Mayo and met Thomas Gallagher from Meath. Noel and Liam Gallagher went on to form Oasis.  All four members of the Manchester band The Smiths are second generation Irish. One of their most well-known songs Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want was originally called The Irish Waltz, because Irish ballads inspired guitarist Johnny Marr to write it. Marr’s parents emigrated from Athy, County Kildare in the 1960s and continued to sing Irish songs throughout his childhood. He says his English-Irish upbringing offered the best of both worlds.

The band’s lead singer Morrissey, whose father Peter was from Dublin, once described himself as “ten parts Crumlin, and ten parts Old Trafford”. 

Robbie Williams’s  maternal grandfather Jack Farrell, was born in Kilkenny and David Bowie too had Irish grandparents. Born to Irish parents in 1930s London, Dusty Springfield was christened Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien and Kate Bush’s mother comes from Waterford. Gilbert O’Sullivan and Val Doonican were 100% Irish and, undoubtedly. I’m missing a few - particularly in Scotland - but it’s a very impressive list and most bear witness to Morrissey’s song, Irish blood, English Heart.