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Rethinking the Irish Diaspora pp 133–156Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Bringing It All Back Home: The Fluctuating Reputation of James Orr (1770–1816), Ulster-Scots Poet and Irish Patriot

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Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

Abstract

Taking as its subject the radical poet and United Irishman James Orr of Ballycarry, County Antrim, Baraniuk offers a much-needed, nuanced discussion of Ulster-Scots literary tradition, arguing that it represents a significant and unjustly neglected northern Dissenting school of Irish literature. Baraniuk challenges contemporary portrayals of Ulster-Scots identity which caricature it as no more than an artificial construct deployed in the service of an aggressive form of Ulster loyalism. The chapter argues that Orr’s verse is global and timeless in its range, and that his unequivocal, pluralist assertion of his belief in tolerance and diversity both within and beyond his native land demonstrates true Irish patriotism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See, for example, Liam McIlvanney, Burns the Radical (2002), particularly the chapter entitled, Burns and the Ulster-Scots Radical Poets, which discusses Orr and Thomson. There are also two significant volumes of essays—Cultural Traditions in Northern Ireland: Varieties of Scottishness (Erskine and Lucy 1997), and Ulster-Scots Writing: An Anthology (Ferguson 2008)—and more recently the special issue of Etudes Irlandaises, vol. 38, no. 2 (2013): Ulster-Scots in Northern Ireland Today: Language, Culture, Community. The author has also taught a modular course entitled, The Ulster-Scots Literary Tradition: 1750–2000, at Ulster University during 2013–14.

  2. 2.

    For a detailed account of Orr’s life and work see Baraniuk (2014).

  3. 3.

    Attempts at “planting” or settling parts of Ulster with colonists from England and Scotland included the Essex plantation in County Antrim in the 1570s; Hamilton and Montgomery’s plantation in Counties Antrim and Down in the early 1600s; James I’s Plantation of Ulster, inaugurated in1609.

  4. 4.

    See Jennifer Orr (2012) for Thomson’s correspondence and Jennifer Orr (2015) for the significance of his writers’ circle.

  5. 5.

    The Northern Star, 12 January 1792.

  6. 6.

    The Northern Star, 4 April 1792.

  7. 7.

    Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 1 July 1805; poem dated 26 June 1805. See, James Orr (1936: 316–17).

  8. 8.

    Both texts have been digitised and are available on the Ulster-Scots Poetry Project website, at http://arts.ulster.ac.uk/ulsterscotspoetry/ (accessed 20 January 2016).

  9. 9.

    See, for example, Gray (1993: 249–75).

  10. 10.

    A detailed analysis of this poetic sequence and a full assessment of its significance may be found in (Baraniuk 2014: 123–42).

  11. 11.

    For digitised texts from these and a further wide range of Ulster-Scots writers, see the Ulster-Scots Poetry Project, at: http://arts.ulster.ac.uk/ulsterscotspoetry/ (accessed 12 February 2016).

  12. 12.

    See also Orr (1936: 291–2 and 225–7) for these texts.

  13. 13.

    The present writer is grateful to members of the Ballycarry community for the report of this incident.

  14. 14.

    A discussion of Ulster-Scots culture as a means of allowing Ulster Protestants to be “Irish on their own terms” may be found in Baraniuk (2012).

  15. 15.

    Both Yeats and Douglas Hyde, first president of the Gaelic League, came from the Protestant (Anglican) tradition.

  16. 16.

    See, for example, O’Donoghue (1895: 20–22).

  17. 17.

    See Ballycarry—Co. Antrim—Home of Poet James Orr, at: http://www.weavers-trail.co.uk/a-modern-legacy (accessed 10 February 2016).

  18. 18.

    See the Ulster-Scots Poetry Project, at: http://arts.ulster.ac.uk/ulsterscotspoetry/ (accessed 12 February 2016).

  19. 19.

    See Agreement at St Andrews, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/136651/st_andrews_agreement-2.pdf (accessed 12 February 2016).

  20. 20.

    Weaving Words, BBC Radio Ulster, available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00y47c2 (accessed 12 February 2016).

  21. 21.

    TG4, 2006.

  22. 22.

    BBC Northern Ireland, 2015.

  23. 23.

    Email to the author from Robert O’Driscoll, Private Secretary to Charles Flanagan T.D., Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, 28 November 2014. The quoted lines mean: “The hedge haunting blackbird, standing (keeping) from time to time on one foot would love to heat the other in its storm ruffled feathers (wing).”

  24. 24.

    A detailed discussion of the absence of Ulster-Scots poetry from the Northern Ireland school curriculum is to be found in Baraniuk (2013: 55–73).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Carol Baraniuk

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  1. Carol Baraniuk
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences, Ulster University, Belfast, United Kingdom

    Johanne Devlin Trew

  2. School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom

    Michael Pierse

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Baraniuk, C. (2018). Bringing It All Back Home: The Fluctuating Reputation of James Orr (1770–1816), Ulster-Scots Poet and Irish Patriot. In: Devlin Trew, J., Pierse, M. (eds) Rethinking the Irish Diaspora. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40784-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40784-5_6

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