Redshank circa 1570s

Dave Swift is in the photograph above dressed in authentic attire based off of the illustration by Dutch artist Lucas de Heere circa 1577.  Photo courtesy of the lovely and very talented Irish photographer Niamh O Rourke.  The helmet is a German made morion comb type which was very typical to Gaelic warriors of the era.  The sword in the photo is a two handed Claoímh Mór, which was the preferred weapon of the Redshanks.

(above) A copy of the original de Heere drawing from the 1570s.  The original was lost in a fire in the 1700s.  The illustration interesting for several reasons, the use of short trews being one.  There has been speculation that the bottom helm line of the short trews on the copy of the original illustration was added in Victorian times for modesty sake and that the original illustration was of the Redshank naked from the waste down.  However, a close examination of the copy does show material and shading of the the short trews.  The illustration is what it appears to be, a type of short pants, or trews, that were in fashion among Gaels at this time.

Redshank Ethnicity

A watershed moment has taken place in the field of early Western European history. It is a paradigm shift that has totally changed forever how early European history will be taught. It is the concept that Celtic languages and the people that spoke them originated in the Atlantic Zone during the Bronze Age. Dr Barry Cunliffe and Dr John Koch have co-edited Cetlic From the West which has an excellent presentation of exactly where the the field of Celtic studies stands in the first part of the 21st Century.

The Celtic from the West theory is a major departure from the long-established, but increasingly problematic paradigm from late Victorian times in which the story of the Ancient Celtic languages and people were linked to the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures of Iron Age west-central Europe.

Celtic From the West also brings to an English-language readership some of the rapidly unfolding and too often neglected evidence of the pre-Roman peoples and languages of the western Iberian Peninsula.

Celtic from the West is a multidisciplinary project and multi-year research initiative undertaken by the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. It represents the current state of Celtic studies and the thoughts of the leading researchers. Contributors are: (Archaeology) Barry Cunliffe; Raimund Karl; Amilcar Guerra; (Genetics) Brian McEvoy & Daniel Bradley; Stephen Oppenheimer; Ellen Rrvik; (Language) Graham Isaac; David Parsons; John T. Koch; Philip Freeman; Dagmar S. Wodtko.

Celtic From the West is available from the Ulster Heritage Amazon Associate Book Shop under the 'Ancient History' section: Link... Ulster Heritage Book Shop and from McCain's Book Shop.

The Laggan Redshanks

Upcoming will be posts on the research on the Redshank settlements along the Foyle River. These were located along the west bank of the Foyle in present day Taughboyne parish and to a lessor extent on the east bank in northwest Tyrone.

The largest influx of Redshank came with Fionnuala Ní Dhónaill, or as she is often called in popular history, Iníon Dubh. She was the formidable wife of Aodh Mac Manus Ó Dónaill; she was also the cousin of Giolla Easpuig Caimbeul, who was the 5th Earl of Argyll. It was he that orchestrated Iníon Dubh's marriage to the Ó Dónaill and also supplied the Redshanks that settled around St Johnston.

Most of these men were recruited from the Earl's lands in mid Argyll, in what was then the heart of the Scottish Gaeltacht. These Redshanks all had Clann Chaimbeul associations and most were drawn from families that had Man Rent contracts with Clann Caimbeul. Many of the surnames of these families are well known even today in Donegal; surnames such as Crawford, MacAllen, Campbell, McKean, McClay, etc. These Redshanks moved to east Donegal beginning in the late summer of 1569, but during Iníon Dubh's tenure as de facto leader of Clann Úí Dhónaill she made many trips to both the 5th and 6th Earls of Argyll to procure additional warriors from the Caimbeul lands in Argyll.

Many of the descendants of this group of Redshanks are participants in the Ulster Heritage DNA Project. Their DNA results often reveal their actual point of origin in mid Argyll. The DNA results reveal also that most of them have the typical Atlantic Zone Celtic haplogroup, though as expected some also carry Norse paternal ancestry.

Ferguson

Duart Castle on the Island of Mull

Ferguson is the anglicised form of Mac Fearghusa; from the root name Fearghus meaning super-choice. Like most Gaelic surnames there are more than one origin for the name and there are separate and non related Mac Fearghusa families in both Scotland and Ireland. In Ulster there is one Mac Fearghusa family that originated on the island of Mull in the Hebrides and some of these settled initially in the Laggan district of Donegal circa 1570s through the early 1600s. Other anglicised forms of Mac Fearghusa include, Farguson, Fergus, and Vargus.

Belted Plaid and Trews from the 1630s

Here is another illustration of Redshank dress, this one from Blaeu's map of 'Scotia Antiqua' from the year 1634. The two forms of dress here are the belted plaid, or filleadh mór on the left and the tartan trews and short jacket on the right. Both styles were common in Redshank communities from the mid 1500s onward and by that time were replacing the leine and short jacket common to both Irish and Scottish Gaels.

Gallóglaigh, Ulster 1500s

Three Gallóglaigh (said Gall-og-glee) from the 1500s. The photo above courtesy of the Claíomh group that provide Museum-quality Medieval & Early Modern Gaelic-Irish and Scots Military Interpretations. Their link: Claíomh

Grier

above, RR McIan's 19th Century print of a Mac Grioghair

Grier is an anglicised for of the Gaelic surname Mac Grioghair, which itself is a variant form of the more common Mac Greagair; both forms means son of Gregory. Grier, also spelled Greer, is a phonetic rendering of how one says Grioghair in Gaelic. The second G in the surname is not said as it is softened by the adding of the H. The softening is called a seimhiú (said Shay-voo).

In Ireland, Grier families arrived in east Donegal with the Redshanks that settled in the Portlough precinct, in what is today, Taughboyne Parish. Many are found living on the lands of Ludovic Stewart who was the Duke of Lennox in the early 1600s around the St Johnston area. The Griers were Highland Gaels, yet many found a home within the Ulster Scots Planters in east Donegal.