Who were "The Men of the West"? Folk historiographies and the reconstruction of Democratic histories

[4] My thanks to Dr Rionach ui Ogain of the Department of Irish Folklore in University College Dublin for this reference.

[5] This verse does not appear in other versions of the lament (see, for example, O Gallchobhar 1940, 237). For folklore traditions relating to Fr Manus Sweeney, see O Moghrain (1947).

[6] IFC and IFC S are the Main Manuscript Collection and the Schools' Manuscript Collection of the Department of Irish Folklore, University College Dublin, respectively, presented as volume number and page number(s). I would like to thank the Head of the Department for his permission to publish material drawn from the Irish Folklore Collection.

[7] In another version of this story, a sympathetic Protestant farmer declined to join the Rebel cause and cautioned: "Its no use; ye will be beaten this time; ye are a hundred years too soon. This time 100 years ye'll win" (IFC S vol. 758, 435).

[8] A similar motif, of being informed upon despite paying money, is recognisable in Ulster 1798 lore relating to Henry Munro, leader of the Down rebels at the battle of Ballynahinch, and features in a contemporary ballad (Zimmermann 1966, 156).

[9] My thanks to Mary MacNamara and Betty Greegan for facilitating a visit to the 1798 Memorial Hall in the Ballinamuck Visitors' Centre.

[10] Traditions on Gunner Magee are widespread in folklore sources (see, for example, IFC vol. 1858, 11-2 and 100-2; IFC S vol. 219, 248-9; IFC S vol. 221, 5a; IFC S vol. 222, 619-20; IFC S vol. 225, 149-50; IFC S vol. 758, 56-8 and 462-3; IFC S vol. 760, 133 and 476-8; Hayes 1979, 227-8, 229, 231-2, 235 and 324; Mac Greine 1933-4; Farrell 1886, 106; Michael Connell MSS reproduced in Devaney 1981, 129-33).

[11] Similarly, among the seventeen informants Richard Hayes mentions by name, in his chapter on "Traditions of the Insurrection," only three are women (Hayes 1979, 216-39). In a more general context, the folklorist Nuala Nic Suibhne has estimated that only 6000 out of 40,000 informants interviewed by the Irish Folklore Commission were female (Nic Suibnhe 1992, 12).

[12] A dubious story appeared in the memoirs of Morreau de Jonnes (an artillery officer in the French expedition) regarding a young woman named Henrietta de la Tour who took part in the expedition disguised as a man. This story, which was written some forty years after the events, cannot relate to the folklore of allegedly conspicuous French women, as de Jonnes insisted that de la Tour's identity was kept a complete secret and that he himself was "completely dumbfounded" when he later made this discovery (de Jonnes 1969, 184). Several French historians have voiced reservations concerning elements of "haute fantaisie" in the memoirs of de Jonnes (Gasty 1952, n. 19; Joannon 1998, viii).

References Cited

Archival Sources

Auckland Papers. British Library MSS 34454.

Humphrey Thomson. "Personal Narrative." Bodleian Library MSS Eng. Hist d. 155.

Irish Folklore Collection (IFC). Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin.