Irish English, volume 1 - Northern Ireland 9780748634309

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Irish English, volume 1 – Northern Ireland

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Dialects of English Series Editors Joan Beal (University of Sheffield) Patrick Honeybone (University of Edinburgh) April McMahon (University of Edinburgh) Advisory Board Laurie Bauer (Victoria University of Wellington) Jenny Cheshire (Queen Mary, University of London) Karen P. Corrigan (Newcastle University) Heinz Giegerich (University of Edinburgh) Peter L. Patrick (University of Essex) Peter Trudgill (University of Fribourg, UEA, Agder UC, La Trobe University) Walt Wolfram (North Carolina State University) Volumes available in the series: Robert McColl Millar, Northern and Insular Scots 978 0 7486 2317 4 David Deterding, Singapore English 978 0 7486 2545 1 Jennifer Hay, Margaret Maclagan and Elizabeth Gordon, New Zealand English 978 0 7486 2530 7 Pingali Sailaja, Indian English 978 0 7486 2595 6 Karen P. Corrigan, Irish English, volume 1 – Northern Ireland 978 0 7486 3429 3 Forthcoming titles include: Bridget L. Anderson, Smoky Mountain English 978 0 7486 3039 4 Sandra Clarke, Newfoundland English 978 0 7486 2617 5

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Irish English, volume 1 – Northern Ireland Karen P. Corrigan

Edinburgh University Press

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© Karen P. Corrigan, 2010 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in 10.5/12 Janson by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 3428 6 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 3429 3 (paperback) The right of Karen P. Corrigan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published with the support of the Edinburgh University Scholarly Publishing Initiatives Fund

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Contents

viii x

Abbreviations and glossary Preface 1

Geography, demography and cultural factors 1.1 Geography and linguistic ecology 1.2 Topography, communications and settlement in Northern Ireland 1.3 Dialect territories and representative speakers 1.4 Demography 1.5 Legal, political and socio-cultural factors 1.6 Conclusion

1 1 3 15 23 27 28

2

Phonetics and phonology 2.1 Introduction 2.2 NIE/US vowels 2.3 NIE/US consonants 2.4 NIE/US suprasegmentals 2.5 Conclusion

29 29 31 40 47 49

3

Morphosyntax 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The nominal system 3.3 Prepositions 3.4 Verbs 3.5 Adverbials/adjectives/intensifiers 3.6 Yet/whenever/all 3.7 Syntactic structures 3.8 Conclusion

51 51 52 56 58 66 67 68 78

4

Lexis and discourse 4.1 Introduction

79 79 v

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4.2 History of lexicography in NI 4.3 Sources of vocabulary and associated semantic fields 4.4 Discourse

81 87 99

History, including changes in progress 5.1 Models of language contact and language shift 5.2 The language ecologies of prehistoric and early Christian peoples (9000 BC–AD 1000) 5.3 The linguistic ecologies of the medieval and Tudor periods (1177–1602) 5.4 The language ecology of the Stuart era (1603–88) 5.5 The language ecology of modern times (1700–1945) 5.6 Current changes to the linguistic ecology of NI

104 104

6

Annotated bibliography 6.1 Bibliographies and reviews 6.2 Historical works on NIE/US 6.3 Monographs and edited collections 6.4 Phonetics and phonology 6.5 Morphosyntax 6.6 Lexis and discourse 6.7 Linguistic contact 6.8 Regional variation and the local standard 6.9 Language censuses and language planning 6.10 Electronic resources

132 132 133 135 137 142 145 149 153 156 160

7

Sample texts 7.1 Ulster Scots 7.2 Mid-Ulster English 7.3 South Ulster English

162 162 163 172

5

Notes General bibliography Index

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105 109 114 121 128

174 179 187

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This book is dedicated to Molly Grimley, a much loved aunt, who awakened my curiosity in language and dialect in Northern Ireland by observing her use of phrases like: ‘We’ll be needing you for to carry all our parcels.’

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Abbreviations and glossary

BMUA Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area BNFC Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club CLCS, TCD Centre for Language and Communication Studies, Trinity College, Dublin CSJNI Campaign for Social Justice in Northern Ireland CUD Concise Ulster Dictionary DENI Department of Education, Northern Ireland DUA Derry Urban Area H ‘High’ language in a diglossic situation HRT High rising terminal ICE-GB International Corpus of English, Great Britain ICE-IRL International Corpus of English, Ireland (Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland) IE Irish English IPA International Phonetic Alphabet L ‘Low’ language in a diglossic situation L1 First language L2 Second language LGD Local Government District LSS Linguistic Survey of Scotland MC Middle class MUE Mid Ulster English NFC National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin NI Northern Ireland NICEM Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities NIE Northern Irish English NISRA Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency NITCS Northern Ireland Transcribed Corpus of Speech NORM Non-mobile, old rural male NSR Northern Subject Rule viii

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ABBRE VIATIONS AND GLOSSARY

PRONI QUB Ramsar ROI SED SPICE-IRL SUE SVLR TRSHE URL US

ix

Public Records Office of Northern Ireland Queen’s University, Belfast A Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971 The Republic of Ireland Survey of English Dialects Systems of pragmatic annotation in the spoken component of the ICE-Ireland Corpus South Ulster English Scottish Vowel Length Rule (‘Aitken’s Law’) Tape-Recorded Survey of Hiberno-English Speech Uniform resource locator Ulster Scots

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Preface

This volume highlights aspects of language and dialect in Northern Ireland that are in need of further research, especially those that might make suitable projects for student dissertations. It is also intended to be a reference tool for a general readership. The book evolved from my enduring interest in this topic which started as a childhood game with my sister in which we mimicked different Irish English varieties for the amusement of our parents. Later, I became aware that they used expressions like for to instead of to that our generation did not – though, of course, at the time I had no idea why this might be (see §3.7.4) nor why my uncle from the Republic of Ireland was perceived to have a ‘softer brogue’ than they did (see §1.3). This curiosity was also fuelled by my exposure to other local language attitudes, starting with my mother’s enrolling us in elocution lessons where we worked hard to eradicate the distinctive Northern Irish [əʉ, aʉ, ɑʉ] diphthong in MOUTH words (see §2.2.2.5). There was also my grandfather’s conviction that my cousins who went to a state school had ‘Protestant accents’ which his Catholic-educated grandchildren did not (see §1.4.3). This book is designed to provide an accessible overview of research addressing questions like these relating to the distinctive phonological (Chapter 2), morphosyntactic (Chapter 3) and lexical/discourse features (Chapter 4) used in Northern Ireland. Since these are influenced by historical, socio-political and spatial factors, the book also includes discussion of the physical geography of the region and its social dynamics (Chapter 1), as well as its history and recent changes in progress with respect to the linguistic status of varieties spoken there (Chapter 5). The book concludes with an annotated bibliography of previous research (Chapter 6) and data samples collected during fieldwork (Chapter 7). Newcastle University accommodated the fieldwork, research and writing-up phase of the volume by providing a sabbatical, the second x

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xi

phase of which was funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council grant (AH/F001878/1) permitting Lynn Clark to cover my post, for which I am much obliged. Fieldwork was further enabled by the support of my parents and immediate family who shared their contacts (and intuitions) with me and therefore made the extensive range of speaker samples that feature here possible. In this regard, I am also grateful to staff of the Student Guidance Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast and especially to Philip Clarke, Senior Careers Advisor there, who advertised for participants and arranged a suitable recording space. John Cunningham, Maura Daly, Séamus Doris, Peter McCloskey and Breege McCusker found speakers for me in other areas where my personal networks did not reach. I therefore owe a particular debt to them, as well as to Stephen Blakely and staff of Enniskillen Public Library for allowing me access to their facilities. Naturally, I am enormously grateful to the informants themselves for sharing not only their voices but also their ‘craic’ with me. Ríoghan Meehan provided technical support during fieldwork and I am much indebted to Will Barras for research assistance with the index as well as first-pass phonetic transcriptions of the interview data (and for introducing me to the Elan software tools for this purpose whose creators also deserve acknowledgement – www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/). I would like to thank the pupils and staff at: St Anne’s Primary School, Belfast (especially Noelle Corrigan and Acting Principal, Helen Elliott) and St. Brigid’s High School, Armagh (particularly Josephine McGuigan and Acting Principal, Eamonn O’Hagan). Their help in assessing the currency of dialectal features in the region was invaluable, as was Angela Coulter’s input as a Specialist Language Therapist for the Southern Health and Social Care Trust. I am likewise obliged to Brian Lambkin, Director of the Centre for Migration Studies and to staff there (especially Patrick Fitzgerald, Joe Mullan and Christine Johnson) who gave me access to their collections and invited me to deliver materials from this book to a general audience during their ‘Literature of Irish Exile’ Autumn School in October 2008. Support for this project has likewise been given by William Rolleston of the Ulster Historical Foundation and Mark Thompson, Chair of Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch/The Ulster-Scots Agency and his staff there (particularly Sarah Lockhart). I am also grateful to Mark for travelling to Dunloy, County Antrim in the bleak mid-winter to photograph the standing stones on the front cover and to Mark Mulholland of ‘Whitenoise Design Ltd’, Belfast for creating the final atmospheric image.

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Anne Smyth, Archive Manager of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum’s Ulster Dialect and Linguistic Diversity Archive, also deserves special mention, as does Philip Robinson. Supported by Kay Muhr of the Northern Ireland Place-Names Project at Queen’s University, Belfast, Alison Sandison and Jennifer Johnston produced the excellent original maps featured here. I am grateful to Matthew Stout for revising the maps originally drawn by F. H. A. Allen and James Killen that feature in item (1) below. Maps from the sources cited in (2)–(7) have also been included by kind permission of their creators/copyright holders: (1) F. H. A. Aalen, K. Whelan and M. Stout (eds.), Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, Cork: Cork University Press and Cork/Toronto: Cork/ Toronto University Press (pp. 11, 208, 212, 214). (2) P. Robinson (2006) ‘The mapping of Ulster Scots’, in A. Smyth, M. Montgomery and P. Robinson (eds.), The Academic Study of Ulster Scots: Essays for and by Robert J. Gregg, Cultra: Ulster Folk and Transport Museum (pp. 3, 6, 7). (3) D. H. Fischer (1989) Albion’s Seed, New York: Oxford University Press Inc. (p. 619). (4) Mark Thompson, who designed a version of Fischer’s map featured at www.hamiltonmontgomery1606.com (5) R. Hickey (2007) Irish English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (p. 442). (6) Martin Melaugh, Director of the Confl ict Archive on the Internet website (CAIN: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/maps) and Mike McCool, the cartographer who created Figure 1.2 in Chapter 1. (7) Wesley Johnston, creator of Figure 1.8 in Chapter 1, from his website: www.wesleyjohnston.com/roads Thanks are also due to Sheena Dodgson, Dan Hambury and Gavin O’Doherty of Coca-Cola Ireland for giving me the rights to reproduce the ‘Coke Side of Belfast’ image which features in Chapter 4. Likewise, I would like to thank Ríonach uí Ógáin, Archivist of the National Folklore Collection, UCD (NFC) and Anna Bale, their Sound Archivist, for permission to use extracts from the Michael J. Murphy Collections featured in the book itself and the related website (www.lel. ed.ac.uk/dialects). The Deputy Keeper of the Records, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), also gave consent for reproducing the extracts from emigrant letters cited in Chapter 3. I am deeply indebted to all my colleagues working on aspects of language and dialect in Ireland who have provided the stimulating research base on which this book draws. Thanks are also due to Juan

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Manuel Hernández-Campoy, Raymond Hickey, John Kirk and Sali Tagliamonte for access to their published and unpublished materials which have similarly informed this work. The volume has also been shaped by perceptive and encouraging comments from two anonymous referees as well as others from the Dialects of English series editors (particularly Joan Beal) and members of its advisory board. Sarah Edwards and Esmé Watson have been very patient and accommodating editors and thanks in various ways are also due to Ismeta Brdar, Jane Jamieson, Vicki Jowett, Melanie McAinsh and Máiréad McElligott. Frank Phelan may be last in this list of acknowledgements but he is by no means least.

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1 Geography, demography and cultural factors

1.1 Geography and linguistic ecology

The subject matter of this book is restricted to varieties of Irish English and Ulster Scots spoken within the territory of Northern Ireland (henceforth, NIE/US). The region is highlighted in Figure 1.1 and was created as a result of the partition of Ireland. This followed the enactment of the Government of Ireland Act in 1920, creating the state of Northern Ireland (NI), which stayed within the territory of Great Britain, and the Republic of Ireland (ROI), which eventually became independent (see Dudley Edwards with Hourican 2005: 1–4; www.cain. ulst.ac.uk/issues/politics/docs/goi231220.htm). Its geographical extent is confined to six of the historical nine counties of what was once the province of Ulster (Figure 1.2). The Ulster dialects spoken in the remaining counties, Donegal (in the extreme west), Monaghan (south of Tyrone and Armagh), Cavan (south of both Fermanagh and Monaghan) and Leitrim (south of Fermanagh) are examined in Kallen’s companion volume in this series. Figure 1.1 also demonstrates the proximity between NI and its neighbours on the island of Britain, which is relevant to issues of language contact to be explored in Chapter 5. Of particular interest is the short distance between the north-east coast of NI and the west coast of Scotland. Just 35 km separate the Ards Peninsula from Galloway and the 22 km separating Fair Head from Kintyre mean that permanent and seasonal migration between these places in both directions has always been common (Herity and Eogan 1996: 16–17; Holman 2007: 37–40; Kelly and Young 2004, §6.7;1 Montgomery and Gregg 1997: 569, §6.9; Otway-Ruthven 1968: 224–5; Russell 1995: 9–10). NI can be divided into a number of distinct geographic and socioeconomic areas, an understanding of which is important to any interpretation of the ‘linguistic ecology’ of the region. This term is used here in a similar way to the approach taken by Mufwene (2001, 2008), whose 1

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Figure 1.1 Boundary map of the British Isles

work will be referred to again in Chapter 5. In essence, ‘ecology’ in this context is taken to mean factors such as demography, geography and socio-economic status that potentially impact upon a language’s evolution. For instance, it is well known that varieties spoken by ‘tight knit’ groups concentrated in remote areas survive more readily than those with low status used by a small number of ‘loose-networked’ individuals in a metropolis that already has a prestigious standard (Fishman 2000). Thus, while §1.2 describes the geography of NI in general terms, it also highlights particular geological and topographical features that serve to differentiate the dialect zones of NI, described more fully in

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Figure 1.2 The Counties of Northern Ireland Source: Reproduced by permission of Martin Melaugh, Director of the Conflict Archive, from a version created by cartographer, Mike McCool, at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/images/maps

§1.3. Cultural, demographic and socio-political factors, which are also relevant to the ecology of language in NI, are discussed in subsequent sections. 1.2 Topography, communications and settlement in Northern Ireland 1.2.1 Geology and relief

By comparison to the geology of the ROI, which is predominantly carboniferous limestone, NI – despite its considerably smaller size (just 14,160 sq. km as opposed to 70,282 sq. km) – has a more mixed geology. This includes the only chalk and volcanic rocks in the whole of the island, as well as granite, limestone, dalradian, ordovician, new red sandstone, silurian and tertiary clays (Aalen 1997: 8; Herity and Eogan

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Figure 1.3 Physical regions of Ireland Source: Reproduced by permission of the publishers and editors: F. H. A. Aalen, K. Whelan and M. Stout (eds.), Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, Cork: Cork University Press and Cork/Toronto: Cork/Toronto University Press (p. 11).

1996: 1–2). On the basis that the rate at which rocks erode will depend on their resistance, this has led to discernible differences in areas of relief across the region as Figure 1.3 demonstrates. The mountain masses in NI, which reflect these divergent geologies,

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5

are therefore: (i) the Glens of Antrim and Plateau, commonly referred to as ‘The Giant’s Causeway’, consisting as it does of thousands of polygonal pillars of black basalt; (ii) the south-eastern borderlands between NI and the ROI around Carlingford – this area contains two of the most mountainous regions in NI, namely, the Mournes, to the east of Carlingford in Down, and Slieve Gullion, to the west in southern Armagh; Slieve Donard (850 m) in the Mourne range, situated near Newcastle in Down, is, in fact, the highest peak in NI; and (iii) The Sperrins, which are the dominant feature of high relief in the north-west of NI, which begin their ascent from the western shoreline of Lough Neagh in Tyrone, to the southern reaches of Derry2 (Aalen 1997: 13–15; Stout and Stout 1997; www.ni-environment.gov.uk/landscape.htm). The last Ice Age, which retreated in this region some 12,000 years ago, played a key role in raising sea levels, which severed the land links between the British Isles and the continent (Aalen 1997: 7). It was also crucial in differentiating other aspects of NI’s topography. The region experienced repeated Ice Ages during the Pleistocene period producing significant debris, particularly in lowland areas like north Armagh where glaciers deposited drift sheets, which eventually became productive soils. In certain parts of NI, such as Armagh, Down and Fermanagh, this drift has been shaped into so-called ‘drumlins’ to form what is termed ‘The Drumlin Belt’. The word derives from a borrowing of Irish droimín (meaning ‘low ridge’), which is now used to describe the same feature as it occurs globally (Aalen 1997: 7–8; www.ni-environment.gov.uk/landscape/country_landscape/70/70geo.htm). 1.2.2 Waterways and communication networks

The prevalent westerlies originating in the Atlantic sustain NI’s oceanic climate characterised by high rainfall and minor ranges in temperature, guaranteeing that the environment maintains its ‘all-encompassing wetness’ (Aalen 1997: 16). This manifests itself in moist soils, poor drainage and extensive waterways, both natural (Figure 1.4) and man-made (Figure 1.5). As regards the former, NI has three main rivers, the Foyle, the Upper Bann and the Lower Bann. The Foyle in Co. Derry forms part of the north-western boundary between NI and the ROI and flows into Lough Foyle at (London)Derry. The Upper Bann rises in the Mourne Mountains of the south-east and empties into Lough Neagh, while the Lower Bann flows out of it to the North Channel. There are also a number

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Figure 1.4 Natural water resources in Northern Ireland

of other lesser rivers, such as the Lagan, which forms the border between Antrim and Down in the east and flows into Belfast Lough. The Blackwater has its source in Tyrone and also runs through Armagh, where it enters Lough Neagh. The two freshwater loughs in Fermanagh (visible in Figure 1.4) are also fed by rivers, principally the River Erne, which rises from Lough Gowna in the ROI and flows through Fermanagh, entering the sea at Ballyshannon in Donegal (also in the ROI). The only other secondary river of any import is the Bush, which has its source in the Glens of Antrim from where it flows north-westwards through the village of Bushmills (famous for

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its whiskey distillery) before reaching the sea slightly further north at Portballintrae. The most dominant inland waterway of the NI landscape by far is, however, Lough Neagh, situated roughly in the middle of the region and fed by the major river courses mentioned above. It is approximately 388 sq. km and, as such, is the largest lough (in terms of its surface area) in the whole of the British Isles. Upper and Lower Lough Erne are the other major freshwater loughs in this region, with the latter being the more dramatic of the two. All of these support commercial fishing to a greater or lesser extent, with Lough Neagh dominating in this respect, particularly with regard to its eel industry. Both Lough Neagh and Upper Lough Erne are specially protected wetlands designated as ‘Ramsar’ sites and are highly valued from the tourist industry’s perspective as lakeland scenery of outstanding quality (see Kennedy 2000: 92–119; www.ramsar.org/ram/ram_rpt_10e.htm; www.jncc.gov.uk/page-1393; www.ni-environment.gov.uk/landscape/ country_landscape). Coastal areas of NI have a number of major seawater loughs, which have been historically and strategically important as fisheries and for the mobility of people and goods in and out of the region. Lough Foyle, mentioned earlier, is a shallow coastal bay at the mouth of the River Foyle in the north-west of NI. As a major fishery and the access point for seaborne traffic to the Derry Urban Area (DUA), it is strategically important, which is why its territory was the subject of much dispute following partition (see Kennedy 2000: 28–42). Four significant seawater loughs, Larne, Belfast, Strangford and Carlingford, dominate the east coast. Both Larne and Belfast are important ports (particularly with respect to passenger ferry traffic from Scotland, though the rise of cheap air travel in the last decade has had an impact here). Belfast is, however, the major port for the whole of NI and is a strategic centre of industry and commerce, handling about 75 per cent of NI’s seaborne trade. Strangford Lough in Down, with over 241 km of its own coastline, is not only the most expansive of NI’s sea loughs but is, in fact, larger than any other in the whole of the British Isles. Its waters support considerable commercial fishing as well as conservation, scientific and leisure interests. Carlingford Lough was mentioned earlier as being in the Mourne district of southeast NI. It lies within an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and also qualifies as a Ramsar site. As such, there is a vibrant leisure industry here. By comparison to Belfast and Strangford, however, other industrial activity is more minimal, though Greenore and Warrenpoint are commercial freight ports of some significance. Traditional commercial fisheries in Strangford collapsed

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in the nineteenth century, but the recent cultivation of mussels and pacific oysters has created a new growth industry (see www.afbini.gov. uk/index/services/services-specialist-advice/coastal-science/coastalmonitoring/monitored-sites). In addition to these natural waterway systems in NI, there are a number of artificial ones in the form of canals, most of which were created in the eighteenth century to improve access to commodities within the region and for their export through the seawater loughs just described (Figure 1.5). The Newry, Coalisland and Lagan canals linked areas around the Lough Neagh basin with the seawater loughs in the east and south-east. The Ulster Canal was designed to connect the inland waterway nucleus of the north, namely, Lough Neagh, with the River Shannon, the hub of the ROI via Lough Erne. The Strabane canal, which was the only one of real importance outside this Lough Neagh system, was built to connect the important textile centre of Strabane to Lough Foyle. Most of these canals were closed with the coming of the railways, though the shipping section of the Newry canal remains open and sections of others have been or have recently been earmarked for restoration to support tourism and leisure interests (see Killen 1997: 218–19; www.waterwaysireland.org/index.cfm/section/ article/page/WaterwaysIreland). As such, while they were a significant system of internal and external communications historically, that aspect of their role has been usurped by the modern road and rail networks, which now service the major air and seaports (Killen 1997: 211–13, 216; McCutcheon 1965). Though the railways themselves suffered from the wider availability of motorised road transport after the Second World War (the track between Armagh and Portadown, for example, closing in 1957), there remains a key rail network on the east coast of NI (Figure 1.6). The Lagan corridor (Portadown–Belfast) is especially well served, as is Antrim (north from Belfast to Portrush) (Killen 1997: 214–15). There is a branch of the network linking Antrim and Derry, though there is no service anywhere else in the north-west or south-west, so that neither Tyrone nor Fermanagh has any railways and both rely entirely on transportation by road (Killen 1997: 206). The Portadown–Belfast route is linked via Newry at the head of Carlingford to the rail networks of the ROI. Unfortunately, during the sectarian conflict described more fully in §1.4.3, it became a target for paramilitaries and gave rise to the ‘peace train’ – first run in 1989 as a protest against the disruption of this major mode of travel between NI and the ROI (Carson-Williams, §6.6.2; www.hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1991/jul/19/peacetrain-northern-ireland).

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Figure 1.5 The development of the canal network in Ireland Source: Reproduced by permission of the publishers and editors: F. H. A. Aalen, K. Whelan and M. Stout (eds.), Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, Cork: Cork University Press and Cork/Toronto: Cork/Toronto University Press (Fig. 12, p. 212).

Rural roads in NI have also been neglected in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in favour of investments in air travel, major roads (including motorways and bypasses) and a telecommunications system which provides links between communities within NI

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Figure 1.6 The development of the rail network in Ireland, 1860–1983 Source: Reproduced by permission of the publishers and editors: Killen, James ‘Communications’, in F. H. A. Aalen, K. Whelan and M. Stout (eds.), Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, Cork: Cork University Press and Cork/ Toronto: Cork/Toronto University Press (Fig. 18, p. 214).

and outside of it that would not have been thought possible when the canal system was built (Killen 1997: 206). Before 1805, NI already had a system of turnpike roads (where users paid a toll), as illustrated in Figure 1.7. These linked Dublin with much of the east coast of NI as well as Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital, though Dublin was ‘the dominant node on the Irish road network while Belfast had a regional role only’ (Killen 1997: 209). In more recent times, plans were announced in 1946, 1956, 1964, 1969, 1975 and 2005 for expansion and upgrading (not all of which were realised, partly due to the sectarian confl ict as the thirty-year gap between twentieth- and twenty-firstcentury plans indicates). As Figure 1.8 demonstrates, these now took Belfast to be the central apex and placed the road network in a horseshoe shape around its western fringes so that it could be linked to all points north, west and south via motorways and dual carriageways. As with the other systems of communication, however, those upgrades and road-building plans that have materialised have not so far been extended into much of Tyrone, Derry and Fermanagh so that the routes between principal urban centres like Armagh City (population 14,517) and Enniskillen (13,560), or Enniskillen and Omagh (19,836), for example, remain single carriageway (Killen 1997: 217–18; www. wesleyjohnston.com/roads/index.html; www.ukmotorwayarchive.org; NISRA 2005: 11/13). The intricate network of minor roads in NI has also been rather neglected, as noted above. Indeed, these too suffered from the worsening security situation of the latter half of the twentieth century which entailed the closure of and failure to repair cross-

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Figure 1.7 Turnpike roads before 1805 Source: Reproduced by permission of the publishers and editors: Killen, James ‘Communications’, in F. H. A. Aalen, K. Whelan and M. Stout (eds.), Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, Cork: Cork University Press and Cork/ Toronto: Cork/Toronto University Press (Fig. 6, p. 206).

border roads in particular, many of which were already designated as ‘unapproved’ following partition (Kennedy 2000: 74; www.hansard. millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1974/apr/10/cross-borderroads#S5CV0872P0-05331; www.news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/ stories/october/13/newsid_2532000/2532449.stm).

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Figure 1.8 The major road networks of Northern Ireland Source: Reproduced by permission of Wesley Johnston, from his website at www.wesleyjohnston.com/roads.

1.2.3 Settlement patterns

The development of large urban centres is not a native settlement pattern in NI (Whelan 1997: 180–1, Graham 1993: 29, 2000; OtwayRuthven 1968: 125). Their cultural, educational, political and socioeconomic functions in early Christian times would have been performed by monastic communities. The establishment of urban centres, from the late medieval period onwards is, therefore, strongly linked to aspects of colonization which are explored in more detail in Chapter 5. For the moment, it is sufficient to note that three particular phases can be discerned, namely, during the Norman invasion of the Middle Ages, the plantations of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the landlord improvements typical of the Age of Enlightenment. The contemporary situation as regards the interplay between settlement and demography in NI is also interesting one and will be explored once the basic facts of urban versus rural community life and internal migration have been introduced. These data derive from the

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GEOGR APHY AND CULTUR AL FACTORS

Table 1.1 NISRA classification of settlements in the 2001 NI Census of Population Label

Name

Population Size

Total Number

Band A

Belfast Metropolitan Urban Area (BMUA) Derry Urban Area (DUA) Large town Medium town Small town Intermediate settlement Village Small village, hamlet and open countryside

c. 580,000

N/A

c. 90,000 >18,000 and 10,000 and 4,500 and 2,250 and 1,000 and