Finding the Irish language in the history of London
- N16Breda
- 3 hours ago
- 19 min read
If you're anyway connected with Ireland on social media, it soon becomes clear that the month of March is about more than the festivities surrounding St. Patrick's Day. It's also the month of Seachtain na Gaeilge ['Irish Week'], an Irish language festival first established in 1902 which is now celebrated worldwide. Although not a fluent Gaeilgeoir [Irish speaker] myself, seeing the #SnaG26 hashtag prompted me to revisit my research for evidence of how Ireland's native tongue Gaeilge has long been present in London's past.
Rather than develop individual blog posts about each item, I decided to collate these here as a chronological timeline. It's a reminder of how much the presence of Gaeilge in London has always been about more than the Irish pub signs promising Céad míle fáilte [A hundred thousand welcomes] and Ceol agus craic [music and fun]!
Featured locations:
1620s: Drury Lane, London WC2
1896: 55 Chancery Lane, London WC2
Context: the decline & revival of Ireland's native language
The Irish language evolved over the centuries from the oldest written form carved in stone (the Ogham writing system) into what linguists term 'Late Modern Irish', incorporating loanwords along the way. These first came from Old Norse as a result of Viking raids and settlements from the 9th century. But it was the Anglo-Norman conquest of the 12th century which introduced, alongside loanwords from Norman French, the English language. This would come to dominate all aspects of life across the island of Ireland, especially following the Tudor reconquest of Ireland in 1603.
Dr. Aidan Doyle's book A History of the Irish Language provides some estimates of the changing patterns of language usage in Ireland as the population increased and, after the Great Famine of 1847-1852, dramatically decreased:
1700 ~2 million: 80+% Irish-speaking & 30% English-speaking
1800 5.4 million: 50+% Irish-speaking & less than 50% understand English
1841 8.1 million
1851 5.1 million: 23% Irish-speaking, of which about a third speak only Irish
1901 3.2 million: 19% Irish-speaking
In 1893, the Gaelic League was set up in Ireland with the aim of reviving the Irish language and preserving Irish literature, music and traditional culture.
And in 1896, the London branch of the Gaelic League (today Conradh na Gaeilge i Londain) met for the first time at 55 Chancery Lane, London WC2.
1830: Preaching in Irish in St. Giles-in-the-Fields
1851: Speaking Irish in everyday London life
1852: Common Lodging House landlords speaking Irish in court
1852: Irish-speakers observed by Protestant Missionaries: Rev. Samuel Garratt
1853: Irish-speakers observed by Protestant Missionaries: John Garwood
1853: Irish language skills needed by Whitechapel's Catholic clergy
1896: The London branch of the Gaelic League established
Gaeilge in 17th Century London
1605: Soldiers & refugees east of the Tower
In an earlier post about the origins of the Irish settlement east of the Tower of London, we saw that the Lieutenant of the Tower Sir William Waad wrote in 1605 to the Secretary of State for England about “the great offence that is taken by occasion of the great number of Irish people that frequent these parts".
Waad was reacting to the sudden appearance of a large group of Irish men, many of whom "seemed to be of the better sort", who were accompanied by "many women", and who mainly spoke Irish. They were passing through London en route to their new jobs as soldiers in the service of the Spanish ArchDuke rulers of the Netherlands.
But while in London, they were noisily demonstrating outside the Tower in support of the imprisoned James fitz Thomas Fitzgerald, the 'Sugán' Earl of Desmond. He had been appointed by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and leader of the Gaelic Irish rebels recently defeated at the end of the Nine Years War of 1593-1603.
"Understanding there was above 100 last Sunday before the Spanish Ambassador's lodging, I caused a constable of East Smithfield to bring 5 or 6 of them before me that speak English. By examining them I learn that Captain De la Hide, an Irishmen, took up 200 of them in Munster, Connaught and Leinster, by warrant, as he told them, from the King to levy such as were willing to serve. These embarked at Waterford, landed at Penrin in Cornwall, and came to the City. Their captain gave them only 2s. a man, so for want of money they have sold their swords and some apparel to defray their charges. Their often repair to the Ambassador's house is because De la Hide lodges there.
Waad surmised that a contributory factor to their presence was a settlement of Irish people east of the Tower, in an area known as Knockfergus'. While Waad described them as "Irish of very base sort, who live only by begging", other sources indicate many were working as skilled weavers. It's thought these people fled the conflict in Ulster during the Nine Years War because Knockfergus was then the name of Carrickfergus, a key stronghold of the English Crown.
Given these circumstances and the fact that Ulster had been the most Gaelic of Ireland's four provinces, it seems likely that Gaeilge would have regularly been heard in these streets east of the Tower.
1620s: Learning Irish in Drury Lane
The Irish language also appeared in an earlier blog post about the London life of James Butler (1610-1688), 12th Earl and 1st Duke of Ormond, and four times Viceroy (a.k.a. Lord Deputy, Lord Lieutenant) of Ireland during the reigns of Charles I and Charles II.
His biographer recounts how, while living with his grandfather Walter Butler on Drury Lane near Covent Garden, the teenage James made a point of "conversing with such gentlemen of Ireland as spoke the language of the original inhabitants of that kingdom". As a result, he understood the Irish language "perfectly well, and could speak it well enough in familiar things" .
Later in life, for "discourse of serious and important matters" with "Irish gentlemen that found themselves...at a loss to express themselves in English" during "the troubles of Ireland" , Butler found the best solution was for him to speak in English and the Irish gentlemen to speak in Irish "so as they perfectly understood each other".
1681: Printing Irish using Cló Gaelach typeface
The original written form of the Irish language used different letter shapes to the Roman alphabet as well as linguistic symbols not used in English. As a result, printing in the Irish language required the casting of a metal typeface specifically designed for this purpose: Cló ['type'] Gaelach [Irish].
Following the Protestant Reformation in England, some efforts were made by both the established Church of Ireland and various NonConformist traditions to convert the Catholic Irish by preaching through Ireland's vernacular language, Geailge. It was in this context that the famous Anlgo-Irish scientist and devout Anglican Robert Boyle (1627-1691) financed the casting in London of a metal type for the Old Irish script.
Boyle's funding also paid for the printing in 1681 of the New Testament in Irish, Tiomna Nuadh ar dTighearna agus ar Slanuigheora Iósa Criosd [New Testament of our Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ], using this new Cló Gaelach type. The work was carried out by the printer Robert Everingham of Ave Maria Lane (near St. Paul's Cathedral).
Today, you can still see one of the copies produced by Everingham's printworks by contacting the St. Bride Foundation (14 Bride Lane, Fleet Street, London EC4) who have a copy in their archive of the printing industry.
Gaeilge in 18th Century London
1765: Speaking Irish while under arrest
On 27 February 1765, Mary Ryan, her husband John, and their son Jeremiah Ryan were on trial at the Old Bailey. They had been charged with theft from a man staying in their lodging-house "up an alley, in Rag-Fair" near Rosemary Lane (today Royal Mint Street in Whitechapel).
He was a Muslim trader from Bengal in India who went by the English name John Morgan. Morgan was visiting London to deliver a "she tyger" [a cheetah] to the royal household of George III on behalf of Sir George Pigot, a senior colonial administrator in India.
The transcript of evidence given at the Old Bailey tells us that Mary and John Ryan were arrested at the Ship Inn in Well Street.
"we took them away; but going along, they talked Irish together; so I took one, and [the beadle] Mr. Cottrell the other, to prevent their talking" - From the evidence given by Constable John Murry
Mary and John Ryan were found guilty of theft and sentenced to transportation.
Gaeilge in 19th Century London
1830: Preaching in Irish in St. Giles-in-the-Fields
In 1830, the Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish through the Medium of their own Language purchased a mission chapel, originally built for Huguenot Protestant refugees from France, on West Street in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. The Irish Society was one of the most important Protestant missionary organisations in Ireland where it had first been established in 1812.
As in Ireland, London's 'Irish Chapel' used preaching through the vernacular language of Gaeilge as the core part of their strategy to convert the Catholic Irish from "the errors of Popery". The target audience was primarily made up of the Irish poor who for centuries had congregated in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, most notoriously within the slum area known as the 'Holy Land' or 'Little Dublin' in the Rookery of St. Giles.
The Irish Chapel was active throughout the early 1830s under the stewardship of the Rev. Henry Hamilton Beamish (1796-1872), an Irish language scholar and previously the Anglican Vicar of Kinsale in Co. Cork.
The journalist and novelist Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna (1790-1846), a champion of women's rights and evangelical Protestantism, wrote a vivid account of the local tensions generated by the activities of the Irish Chapel and the fervent anti-Catholicism which informed its Protestant evangelism.
"It is pretty generally known that, in the year 1830, through the blessing of God on the efforts of a few Christian friends, a chapel was opened at Seven Dials, in London, where the Liturgy of our Church is used, and the pure gospel is preached in the Irish language. Such an assault upon the enemy, in the very heart of one of his strongest holds, could not but lead to great excitement ; persecution, carried to the utmost extent short of murder, was the certain lot of those poor victims of popery who dared to inquire what ihey should do to be saved, and join the congregation of the zealous servant of God, who had left some comfortable preferment in his native land, to assume the office of a missionary among his wretched countrymen here". - Charlotte Elizabeth, Floral biography : or, Chapters on flowers (1840).
1850s: Speaking Irish in everyday London life
In 1849, the English journalist Henry Mayhew started writing a series of reports in the Morning Chronicle newspaper detailing the realities of everyday life for London's vast expanse of working-class and poor people. Mayhew's innovation was to include in his reports writeups of indepth interviews which he carried out with individuals making their living in a huge variety of ways.
Over 1851-1852, these were republished as a collection titled London Labour and the London Poor Volume I & Volume II. Amongst hundreds of references to the London Irish, there are occasional mentions of the Irish language which give a sense of how much Gaeilge could be heard amongst communities of the first-generation Irish in London.
"IRISH LODGING-HOUSES FOR IMMIGRANTS. Often an Irish immigrant, whose object is to settle in London, arrives by the Cork steamer without knowing a single friend to whom he can apply for house-room or assistance of any kind. Sometimes a whole family is landed late at night, worn out by sickness and the terrible fatigues of a three days’ deck passage, almost paralysed by exhaustion, and scarcely able to speak English enough to inquire for shelter till morning”.- Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. I (1851)
"Rosemary-lane, too, is more Irish. There are some cheap lodging-houses in the courts, &c., to which the poor Irish flock; and as they are very frequently street-sellers, on busy days the quarter abounds with them. At every step you hear the Erse tongue, and meet with the Irish physiognomy" - Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, Volume II (1851-52)
1852: Common Lodging House landlords speaking Irish in court
Widespread concern about the insanitary conditions of London's lodging houses and the 1848 cholera epidemic led to the passing of the Common Lodging Houses Act of 1851. The police were made responsible for lodging-house regulation and the Medical Officers of local Poor Law Unions were tasked with informing the police about unregistered houses and rooms discovered during the provision of medical relief. (See the earlier blog post 'Death in Irish Whitechapel: Cholera in Blue Anchor Yard E1, 1848'.)
Given the importance of Irish-run common lodging houses for the community of settled and newly arrived Irish migrants in London, it's not suprising that there are numerous newspaper reports of Irish proprietors being charged with breaching the new sanitary regulations. Since Irish-speakers were widespread amongst London's Irish poor, it's also not so surprising that language barriers sometime appear in these court reports.
To take just one example, a series of Irish proprietors of lodging houses around Royal Mint Street (previously Rosemary Lane) appeared before the Whitechapel magistrate Mr. Yardley in October 1852. But in an unexpected turn of events, the court gaoler Mr. Roche had to be called upon to act as interpreter for the defendants who had limited English langauge skills.
Richard Nowlan, "lately come from Ireland and who did not understand many words of English" defended himself in Irish with the court gaoler Roche translating his words into English:
“he could not read the notice [served to register his place], and it was not properly explained to him, and that when he proceeded to Scotland-yard to obtain a register for his room, no one could understand him”.
The magistrate Mr. Yardley responded by saying:
"the peculiarity in this case was that the defendant only spoke Irish, and perhaps did net understand the notice served upon him... Mr. Yardley then directed Roche to explain to the defendant that before he could be registered or allowed to receive anymore lodgers, his room must be cleansed and limewashed, bedsteads must be procured, the water laid on, and proper retiring places erected. The defendant must not allow persons of the opposite sexes to sleep in the same bed, unless they were man and wife, rnd there must be partitions for the separation of the sexes. He would adjourn the case for a month, if the defendant would promise not to receive any more lodgers until he had complied with all the provisions of the statute, and registered his room. The defendant made the required promise. Mr. Yardley: Very well; then I will adjourn this case for a month, but if his promise is not kept, I shall inflict a heavy fine upon him, and if it is not paid he will be sent to gaol, rely upon it".
There are also occasional reports of Irish defendants strategically losing their ability to speak or understand Irish!
"Mary Lyons, a dirty and wretched old woman, appeared to answer two summonses issued against her...The defendant, on being calied on for her defence, put on that look of astonishment which the Irish know so well how to assume, and uttered a few words of the Celtic language. Mr. Reason, and Mr. Humphries, registrar of common lodging-houses, said that they had frequently conversed with Mrs. Lyons in English; and she then defended herself in very tolerable Saxon," - 'The Common Lodging Houses Act', Morning Post, 30 October 1852.
1852: Irish-speakers observed by Protestant Missionaries: Rev. Samuel Garratt
On Monday 6 December 1852, the Anglican evangelical priest Rev. Samuel Garratt gave a lecture about 'The Irish in London' to the 'North London Auxiliary Church of England Young Men's Society for aiding Missions at Home and Abroad' at the Store Street Music Hall (near the British Museum). Having been appointed minister of the Anglican Trinity Church on Little Queen Street in the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields in 1850, conversion of the neighbourhood's large Catholic Irish population was one of his priorities.
Not surprisingly, Garratt's writings reflect the widespread anti-Irish prejudice of the time but, having evidently studied the history of Gaeilge, he also gives us a valuable insight into the languages spoken by London's Irish poor in the year that conventionally marks the end of the Great Famine.
“What is the language of the Irish in London ? Those born in London have learned English from infancy. It is their mother tongue, and they know no other. But the native Irish whom I am now describing speak both English and Irish, and understand two neither perfectly. They do not mix together. The languages have so little in common, that they will not readily unite into a Patois, and these people have in fact no medium of communication in which they are well versed. They know something of Irish and something of English but are thoroughly at home in neither. There is a mystery in the Irish language not unlike that which rests over the Etruscan monuments. In each we have the unmistakeable civilized traces of a once civilised race. It is impossible population to imagine the Celtic population of Ireland forming the Irish language..."
" ...Here is in fact another of that strange series of mistakes in our manner of dealing with the Irish, to which much of their present ignorance must be attributed. First we used every effort to destroy their language, and to replace it by English. When that failed, after leaving them for centuries to live and die without the knowledge of the truth, in the hope of extinguishing Irish, we at last turn round, and give them the Bible, not in the Irish which they speak now, but in that which perhaps their ancestors spoke, when they lived in Gaul and sacked Rome. We keep back from them the knowledge of salvation, unless they choose either to learn English or study old Irish…”.
“…The Irish in London do gradually forget their own mother tongue and speak English, but they never speak ancient Irish. And the evident interest with which even those who seem to know English as thoroughly as Irish listen to an Irish speaker whom they do understand, and perhaps still more the delight which the sound of ancient Irish when read, imperfectly as they understand it, excites within them, does hold out a promise of much blessing from the use of that most obvious instrument for good, a vernacular version, enabling men to hear and read in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. …”
“The Irish born in London constitute a totally distinct class; unlike the English and also unlike the natives of Ireland. Their language is English, and in the ease and gracefulness with which they speak it they far excel their Saxon neighbours. They are never at a loss for words, and there is often a propriety in the way in which they express themselves, and a pleasant glow about their thoughts, which one cannot but admire…” - Rev. Samuel Garratt B.A., The Irish in London (1852)
1853: Irish-speakers observed by Protestant Missionaries: John Garwood
In 1853, Garratt's lecture on 'The Irish in London' was referenced at length in a book called The Million-Peopled City; Or, One-half of the people of London made known to the other half written by John Garwood, Clerical Secretary to the London City Mission and Editor of the The London City Mission Magazine.
Garwood's book contains a long chapter describing the Irish poor in London at the middle of the nineteenth century. As with Garratt, the text reflects the anti-Catholic and anti-Irish prejudices of the time while admiring (if in a patronising way) the "excellences of the Irish character" and bemoaning "How Popery has Marred and Debased the Irish Character". Nonetheless, it provides another highly valuable perspective on the everyday life of London's Irish poor and the languages they used.
"...with a population in the midst of our metropolis undisguisedly and avowedly Romish in its creed, and numbering 200,000 souls, what efforts ought not to be made by Protestants on their behalf! They require to a great extent a distinct agency, peculiarly adapted to themselves. Persons who understand the Irish character, the Irish controversy, and even the Irish language, are the parties needed, as well as men who can endure a large amount of very rough work..."
"It is a common mistake to suppose that the Irish in London cannot read. This is by no means the case. Since the Government schools have been established, and the efforts of religious Societies have been enlarged, education in Ireland has become much more general, especially among the Roman Catholics; and the priests, who before opposed schools, have been brought to give their patronage to schools of a certain order, in which the scholars are, at all events, taught to read...The consequence is, that there are very few of the Irish emigrants under 20 years of age who cannot read English, and of those above 20, the male population can now also very generally read".
"The reading of Irish is a higher advance in knowledge. Probably not more than a fourth of those who can read English can read Irish, although Irish is the language which this class ordinarily speak among themselves, and which they know much better than English. The Irish language is one of a somewhat learned character, and is decidedly more difficult than the English. This in itself clearly shows that the nation speaking it could not have been originally of an illiterate order. The peculiarity in Irish of spelling the words so differently to their pronunciation, and of altering the accents and inflexions in the different dialects of the different provinces, without altering the written word, adds to the difficulty of reading Irish in the Irish character. Fully as large a proportion, however, of the Irish of London, especially under 20 years of age, can read English, as of the English poor, probably a larger proportion. For the purpose of avoiding the taking of Protestant tracts, the Irish will, however, feign that they cannot read them”. - John Garwood, The Million-Peopled City (1853). Chapter V: 'The Irish of London'
Further observations on London's Irish poor can be found in Chapter VII 'Romanists, Aliens and Jews' of a history of the London City Mission published in 1875, Round the Tower; or the story of the London City Mission
The author John Matthias Weylland (c.1823-1897) provides phonetic reproductions of some of the Irish phrases heard by the London City Missionaries e.g.
"Machree" : Mo chroí ['my heart'].
"Mavourneen": 'Mo mhuirnín' ['my love']
"In one of rookeries the missionary had been badly treated, and whenever he entered the cry of "Sassenach sarragchows (Protestant wretch)" was raised, and effective visiting became impossible". - John Matthias Weylland, Round the Tower; or the story of the London City Mission (1875)
1853: Irish language skills needed by Whitechapel's Catholic clergy
On 24 May 1853, a foundation stone was laid with great ceremony for what would become known as east London's 'Cathedral of the East': the Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary & St. Michael on Commercial Road. This was to be the successor to Whitechapel's Catholic mission chapel which had been first established on Virginia Street in 1760. (See the earlier post 'Religion and riots in Irish Whitechapel: Virginia Street, London E1').
However, despite the presence of a number of Irish-born Catholic priests in the parish, most of them lacked the Irish language skills needed to minister to their flock. Writing in December 1853 to Rev. Robert Whitty, the Vicar-General of the Catholic diocese of Westminster, Fr. William Kelly described the challenge they were facing in the Catholic mission district of Whitechapel:
'"Father Toomey tells me he hears four fifths of his Penitents in the Irish language. In this end of the District also there is a large body of people who neither speak nor understand English. Neither Foley not myself understand a word of Irish. These people therefore do not [???] the Sacrament and cannot be properly prepared for death. Last week Father Foley anointed one of these poor creatures, who neither understood nor spoke English. She died immediately afterwards. Another of these came to my Confessional and I had to get another woman to direct her to go to the Virginia Street Chapel where the Priests have at present more that they can do. A zealous Priest who could speak the Irish language would not only benefit this class by the exercise of his Ministry, but would also create from this his income equal to his support." - Fr. William Kelly, 5 Dec 1853. Archbishop of Westminster Archives. AAW/DOW/PAR/36/1/4
Jean Maynard's A History of St.Mary and St.Michael's Parish: Commercial Road, East London (2007) notes that Irish-speaking Fr. David Toomey was 'a precious asset' for the Whitechapel mission clergy, 'since about a third of the East End Catholics spoke Gaelic more readily than English, and down in Wapping, a lot of people couldn't understand English at all'.
1896: The London branch of the Gaelic League established
The newly formed London branch of the Gaelic League (today Conradh na Gaeilge i Londain) met for the first time at 55 Chancery Lane, London WC2 on 9 November 1896.
An overview of the early years and subsequent growth of the branch is available on the website of Conradh na Gaeilge i Londain. It says that 'the first committee, which had grown out of the Irish Literary Society comprised of a motley band of scholars, Fenians and members of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and they quickly set to work organising classes, concerts and the London Irish Language library'.
Various historical documents and ephemera associated with the London branch of the Gaelic League are available to view online, e.g.
1903 Leabhar Cinn Bliana [Year Book]
1914 March edition of its own journal Guth na nGaedheal
1912 Membership card for Maighréad Ní Trinseach [Margot Chenevix Trench]
1923-24 Income and expenditure account
That is the longest blog post I have written to date! I hope you found this trail of evidence for the presence of Gaeilge in London over the centuries as interesting as I did. Given the length of this blog post, I haven't listed below all of the sources I used to compile the chronological timeline. You can click on the inline links in the blog post text above to take a look at the digitised sources used in putting the timeline together.
Blog sources & further resources
If you're not at all familiar with Gaeilge
There are 18 letters in the Irish alphabet, from A to U. From Aiteall to Uisce takes you on 'a journey through Ireland's culture, nature and history, one letter at a time'
If you'd like to learn or revive your knowledge of Gaeilge
Check out the many classes now available in London https://www.irish-london.com/irish-culture-in-london/irishlanguageinlondon
History of the Irish language
In preparation for compiling this timeline, I found it very useful to read first A History of the Irish Language: from the Norman invasion to independence by linquistics expert Dr. Aidan Doyle, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Modern Irish at University College Cork.
You can hear Aidan Doyle in conversation on Flor McCarthy's podcast The Language Question - Ceist na Teangan', which is also available on YouTube.