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Decline of Irish / English language headstones in 1700s Tipperary

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  • 21-10-2015 8:56am
    #1
    FURET
    Closed Accounts Posts: 685 ✭✭✭


    I found a family headstone dating from 1792 that yielded a lot of information. It gave the name of the person who erected the stone in 1792, and the names of those interred including their ages and years of death. The name of the oldest person interred is anglicized with the "O" absent (as in Donnell instead of O'Donnell). This person was born in 1725. His wife's name was also anglicized (and it is her maiden name that is listed, not her married name) and she was born in 1736 (d. 1774). All inscriptions were in English apart from the sign-off in Latin.

    The stone itself is relatively large and engraved with very florid, swirling script. Two questions have now occurred to me:
    • How common would it have been for a tenant farmer to be able to afford to erect such a stone, right beside the wall of a ruined church, in 1792? What does the fact that he was able to commission such a headstone suggest in terms of his financial / socio-economic status?
    • The location is south Tipperary (barony of Middle Third). Was this area speaking English as a norm throughout the 1700s?


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    #2
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Great to find a headstone that old and still legible!

    Both “Mac” and “O” were dropped by most families centuries ago and their re-introduction was widespread in the late 1800’s with the advent of growing nationalism and the Gaelic Revival.

    A large headstone would be unheard of for most and very unusual even for a tenant farmer, unless he had a very substantial holding. It is quite possible that the person who paid for/erected the headstone had “made good” and the earlier generations did not have headstones, hence their inclusion on the one dating from 1792. A grave near the church is an indicator of status. Being buried inside the church has greater importance. There is significance on being buried on the Gospel or the Epistle sides , and also there is a belief that the heads should be placed on the west side of the grave, the feet at the east, signifying the anticipation of the resurrection.

    By 1800 I'd suggest that English was the main language in Tipperary; Irish was spoken in the 1700’s and into the 1800’s but in general was confined to the poorer people in the remoter places of the county. The RSAI interviewed one of my Clanwilliam ancestors in the late 1800’s (about an antiquity on his land) and in explaining its local names he made a point of stating that he had the name from his great grandmother “and she could speak Irish”.


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    #3
    FURET
    Closed Accounts Posts: 685 ✭✭✭FURET


    pedroeibar1 wrote: »
    Great to find a headstone that old and still legible!

    Both “Mac” and “O” were dropped by most families centuries ago and their re-introduction was widespread in the late 1800’s with the advent of growing nationalism and the Gaelic Revival.

    A large headstone would be unheard of for most and very unusual even for a tenant farmer, unless he had a very substantial holding. It is quite possible that the person who paid for/erected the headstone had “made good” and the earlier generations did not have headstones, hence their inclusion on the one dating from 1792. A grave near the church is an indicator of status. Being buried inside the church has greater importance. There is significance on being buried on the Gospel or the Epistle sides , and also there is a belief that the heads should be placed on the west side of the grave, the feet at the east, signifying the anticipation of the resurrection.

    By 1800 I'd suggest that English was the main language in Tipperary; Irish was spoken in the 1700’s and into the 1800’s but in general was confined to the poorer people in the remoter places of the county. The RSAI interviewed one of my Clanwilliam ancestors in the late 1800’s (about an antiquity on his land) and in explaining its local names he made a point of stating that he had the name from his great grandmother “and she could speak Irish”.

    Thanks, interesting reply. The graveyard in question is Boytonrath, which is right beside Clanwilliam. It seems my family readopted by "O" by the time of the famine, because one of them is listed in Griffith's Valuatio with the "O" present.


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    #4
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    The GGrandmother I mentioned above is "Dwyer" on her Solohead marriage cert but her relative are "O'Dwyer" later on. In Griffiths she appears as "widow".


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