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

Folklore, August, 2004 by Guy Beiner

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These narratives from Leitrim and Longford reflect the growing tension between the French and the Irish as the situation of the insurgent army became more desperate. They also resonate with the knowledge of hindsight, that the French, under Humbert, were to abandon their Irish allies on the battlefield by surrendering and negotiating a truce that only protected French soldiers. Following the structural folk narrative motif defined by folklorist Axel Olrik as the law of "two to a scene," whereby the plot focuses on the contrast between two leading characters, the French commander (Humbert) was juxtaposed in folk memory against a well-known Irish commander (Blake), each representing his respective camp (Olrik 1992, 41-61).

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In several folklore accounts, blame for the catastrophe at Ballinamuck and the failure of the Connacht Rebellion was pinned personally on Humbert. Stories of French treachery were not uncommon. For example, in an account of the battle of Ballinamuck, eighty-seven-year-old John Clancy of Faughill, county Leitrim spoke of French betrayal: "I often heard that the French didn't act well to the Irish after the battle. It is said that they pointed out the Irish to the English when they were separating them after the battle" (Hayes 1979, 321; this information was supplied by the Honorary Director of the Irish Folklore Commission, James Delargy). [3] Through such stories of treachery, the Rebellion's failure and the traumatic calamity of Ballinamuck were comprehended and simplified in social memory. In several folklore accounts, this general bitter sentiment towards the French was, once more, personally directed against Humbert. Folk narratives of betrayal by Humbert developed at an early stage of folk historiography. In the early nineteenth century, Castlebar schoolteacher Mathew Archdeacon wrote a novel titled Connaught, A Tale of 1798 based on accounts he had heard from participants of the Rebellion and local peasantry. He noted that: "The insurgents themselves (at least a great portion of them) have always ignorantly accused Humbert of treachery and alleged that he was bribed to surrender" (Archdeacon 1830, 299). Traditions of Humbert's treachery became rooted in folklore. When interviewed in the summer of 1935, blind eighty-year-old Patrick Mulligan from Granard, county Longford revealed that many locals were still vindictive in their explicit accusations against Humbert: "Twas thought by some that General Humbert was a bit treacherous. He didn't care whether Ireland won her freedom or not. He dined with the parson at Killala and showed him his maps" (Hayes 1979, 295).

Folk traditions often transform the image of famous historical characters. The finest example in modern Irish history is the case of the celebrated political leader Daniel O'Connell, who generated more traditions than any other historical character in Irish folklore. O'Connell was commonly known in folklore as "The Counsellor" or "The Liberator," and his image was canonised as a "king without a crown." In oral tradition O'Connell was a folk hero par excellence (ui Ogain 1995). In contrast, there are remarkably few folk narratives about Humbert. Although A Handbook of Irish Folklore, which guided the field workers of the Commission, specifically directed collectors to ask for stories about Humbert (O Suilleabhain 1942, 533), relatively few stories were collected. Humbert was known to have had a striking physical appearance and, according to his French biographers, several oral traditions in the villages of his native area in Lorraine lauded his heroic adventures as a youth (Pellet 1930, 61-85; Jacotey 1980, 16-23; Baeyens 1981, 5-7; Freyer 1982, 24; see also Cooney 1998, 10-11). Yet, surprisingly, Irish historical traditions had little to say about the leader of the insurgent army. In this respect, folk historiography differs drastically from academic historiography, which places Humbert in the centre of all historical narratives of 1798 in Connacht.

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

Folklore, August, 2004 by Guy Beiner

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