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| The kilt of course is completely ahistorical |
Fergus Mór mac Eirc (Scottish Gaelic: Fergus Mòr Mac Earca; English: Fergus the Great) was a legendary king of Dál Riata. He was the son of Erc. While his historicity may be debatable, his posthumous importance as the founder of Scotland in the national myth of Medieval and Renaissance Scotland is not in doubt. Rulers of Scotland from Cináed mac Ailpín until the present time claim descent from Fergus Mór. The historical record, such as it is, consists of an entry in the Annals of Tigernach, for the year 501, which states: Feargus Mor mac Earca cum gente Dal Riada partem Britaniae tenuit, et ibi mortuus est. (Fergus Mór mac Eirc, with the people of Dál Riata, held part of Britain, and he died there.) However, the forms of Fergus, Erc and Dál Riata are later ones, written down long after the 6th century. Fergus is also found in the king lists of Dál Riata, and later of Scotland, of which the Senchus Fer n-Alban and the Duan Albanach can be taken as examples. The Senchus states that Fergus Mór was also known as Mac Nisse Mór. These sources probably date from the 10th and 11th centuries respectively, between 30 and 40 generations after Fergus may have lived. While it was suggested some believe Fergus claimed lineage to Arthur, the historian John Morris has suggested, instead, that Fergus was allowed to settle in Scotland as a federate of Arthur, as a bulwark against the Picts.
Here's what wikipedia says about Carrickfergus:
Carrickfergus (from Irish: Carraig Fhearghais, meaning "rock of Fergus"), known locally and colloquially as "Carrick", is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is located on the north shore of Belfast Lough, 11 miles (18 km) from Belfast. The town had a population of 27,201 at the2001 Census and takes its name from Fergus Mór mac Eirc, the 6th century king of Dál Riata. It is County Antrim's oldest town and one of the oldest settlements in Northern Ireland as a whole.
41 comments:
Adrian,
Hope this gets to you.
Can you email me at maxim.jakubowski@gmail.com?
Want to reprint a story of yours and can't seem to locate your email address...
Cheers,
maxim
Maxim,
I'll bet if I was Jimmy Ellroy you wouldnt have lost my email would you, eh?
But seriously, I'm happy to cooperate , I shall get in touch pronto.
Adrian,
Do you know the ancient McKinty family history, and what the surname means?
Long ago on NPR, I heard a Loyalist call himself "a Celt, but not a Gael". I still wonder what he meant.
What an interesting story, and raises more questions about the history than it answers. What exactly is the difference, in blood i.e. heredity, between the Scots and the Irish and what influence did the Vikings have on the Celts, and Gaels. I need a good book. :) Or id I just not get the point?
Kate
Some loyalists believe that the Ulaidh or Cruithin (the rulers of Ulster in the period before the Normans came) were a separate race of Celtic peoples who spoke not Gaelic but a different Celtic language that may have been Pictish or even Welsh.
This theory was started by Professor Ian Adamson in various books. I think the agenda here is to prove that the original inhabitants of Ulster and SW Scotland have more claim on Northern Ireland that Gaelic speaking invaders...
I'm not an expert on this period but it sounds like total bullshit to me. There's zero evidence that the Ulaidh were speaking anything but Irish. Certainly the Scots of Dalriada and the Kings of Scotland until King Malcolm were speaking Irish.
Here's a brief history of the McKinty surname from the Irish surname database:
This interesting name is of Medieval Irish origin and is also recorded as MacEntee... The derivation is from the Gaelic 'Mac an tSaoi' translating as 'the son of the scholar', the Irish word saoi is used to denote a scholar or simply a cultured person. The MacEntees were always located in Oriel, the variants Macety, MacIntie, and MacAtee, and were recorded in the Chancery Rolls, Fiants, Hearth, Money and other 16th and 17th Centuries records especially in Counties Monaghan and Armagh. MacGinty, and MacEntee have been confused, as the former is a Donegal surname and does not appear in the 1659 'census' or in the Elizabethan Fiants. McKinty is also recorded in Aberdeen, Scotland. One Edward McKinty married Margaret Hall on March 20th 1846 at Island Magee, Antrim. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Patrick McKinty, which was dated January 1794, Carnmoney, Antrim, during the reign of King George 111,
Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/McKinty#ixzz1yBUSIr6s
Lil
No, you're right, its a really interesting history.
The Scots were Irish from the kingdom of Dalriada who gradually merged with and Christianised the ancient Pictish kingdoms.
The Vikings effectively took over vast areas of Scotland including the Western Islands, Orkney and Shetland and the Scots didnt get them back from Norway until very late (the fifteenth century I think) by which time they were already involved in endemic and fatal wars with the English to the South.
Adrian,
Thanks very much for the info.
Your surname suits you!
Kate
This lady is my namesake but she uses the Irish form of McKinty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1ire_Mhac_an_tSaoi
Adrian,
That's really neat; both you and Ms. Mhac an tSaoi are scholars and writers.
Her late husband sounded interesting. Would you recommend the writings of Conor Cruise O'Brien?
Kate
The late CCOB was one of Ireland's foremost intellectuals. I liked his biography of Edmund Burke if you can find it. The Great Melody I believe its called.
I actually kind of want to see this film.
So when did kilts really come into fashion? 1964?
Seana
No one wore a kilt prior to 1600. No one wore a walking kilt (the kilt we know of today) before 1720 and it was Walter Scott who invented the idea of the tartan clan kilt in the ninenteenth century.
Scottish national identity (like all national identities) was a concept largely invented in the Victorian era.
I was driving a guy who was from Ireland (forget where) but was visiting Montreal. I took him with me to Boston.
On our way through New Hampshire he noticed the sign that announced that the towns Derry and Londonderry were coming up. He thought the signs were for one town, but giving a nod to both the Protestants and Catholics...of New Hampshire, like in Ireland.
Sheiler
I used to live pretty close to Derry and L'Derry NH. Used to go there sometimes and it always cracked me up that even 3000 miles from Ireland they couldnt settle on a name.
Robert Frost lived in one of them I cant remember which.
Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I thought you may not know that Audible.com's Best of 2012(so far)Editor's Picks leads off w/ The Cold Cold Ground.
http://www.audible.com/mt/Best2012_SoFar
Congratulations!
Speedskater
Wow thats great!
If we dont get an Audie Award nomination this year I'll be disappointed now. And I have to say that performed version of Dracula looks pretty cool doesnt it?
Adrian, yes that Dracula does look v. interesting. It's got several of the best narrators available, like John Lee, Simon Vance and Tim Curry.
Speedskater
Its like the Royal Shakespeare Company of narrators that one.
I'm listening to Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels at the moment and its very well narrated too.
The Killer Angles looks like a good one.
Did you notice that (on Audible) it's blurbed by Gen'l Norman Schwarzkopf?!
Speedskater
Its very much a Generals' eye view of the war. I somehow dont see Schwarzkopf endorsing The Thin Red Line, for example.
I'm looking forward to seeing this film. I do wonder about some of what's in the previews, though. Many years ago, I knew someone from Newcastle who, on seeing a photograph of a yak, said, "Ah! The proud Scotsman in his native garb." Do you know if this attitude is at all common?
Congratulations to you and all the usual suspects on that Audible news, Adrian.
Thank you for sharing the link for the Surname database.
I enjoyed Killer Angels, and I really enjoy Jeff Shaara's audio books as well. I think my favorite was Last Man Standing about WWI.
I also enjoyed the audio version of The Cold Cold Ground, very thought provoking, and the narration is excellent.
Charlotte
There's an intense but I think largely friendly rivalry between Newcastle and Scotland, i.e. between the Geordies and the Jocks.
Seana
Its nice. Hopefully more people will find the book at least...
Verver
I find that the narrator is very very important and the Killer Angels has a terrific narrator whose name alas escapes me at the moment.
Another audiobook that I really enjoyed was Deafening, by Frances Atani (also well narrated).
I agree that the narrator is very important. I have trouble listening/focusing on the content when the narration is monotone.
I enjoy hearing narrators who sound like they are from the geographic setting of the book. It transports my imagination to a certain extent.
I'm glad you and yours survived that earthquake, though your description of the family reaction reminds me a lot of the time were finishing up closing this little restaurant we worked in and an earthquake started--at first we just stood there staring at each other, but then we decided to run outside. We were pretty pleased with ourselves till we realized that we had placed ourselves directly in front of an old chimney.
It's generally good to have some kind of plan worked outin advance, because you don't necessarily think straight in the moment, I've found.
Verver
The geographic setting is v important in a narrator's voice. Either that or get a really good actor.
Seana
Well the whole city is talking about the Earthquake today, the biggest in Victoria in 100 years. I've been in bigger in S.F. when I really thought we were in trouble but everyone just laughed and said it was tiny.
Well, sang froid is all well and good, but even tiny ones can kill someone.
I've been through a few, but the one in '89 here made me finally respect the power of the earth. I finally got that the roll can really just go on and on and on.
It's not that it's made me more earthquake prepared or anything. I just know now that I am not in anything like control of the situation.
If it was the recent version of The Killer Angels I think it was Stephen Hoye. He also did some of Ellroy's stuff on audiobook.
Speaking of kings, did you see Letterman ask Boris Johnson how long he'd been his own barber?
Thanks for the tip on the surname database. McFetridge: This is an anglicized form of the Scots Gaelic name Mac Pheadruis. The Gaelic prefix 'm(a)c' means 'son of', plus the personal name Peadar, the Gaelic form of Peter from the Greek 'Petros' meaning 'rock'.
I may start using McRock.
And congrats on the audiobooks. The guy who reads mine seems to be based in Maine and has a French-sounding surname, Dufris, but he doesn't pronounce it the way I would ;). He does a great job reading the books but I don't think we've sold a single copy yet.
Hey Seana, Were you in Santa Cruz in '89? That was not a tiny quake, and most of us were pretty shook up, (pardon). Tiny is a 3. How big was the quake in Victoria? Hope all is well.
Matt
I wished he'd asked him about his days trashing the restaurants of little people and taunting the peasants when he was in the Bullingdon Club.
John
That sounds like a good name. I'll bet you there are a lot of McFetridges in Kentucky.
You managed to write about a king possibly connected to Arthur and sprinkle some Latin in your post? You are truly a man of letters.
Brian O
John, McRock would be a good nom de plume if you want to try something completely different.
Lil, yep, I was in the bookstore when it all happened. In the basement. A couple of people died on the other side of the wall that day, though we didn't know it at the time. I sometimes think that people who worked there at the time either got out then, or became wedded to the place. For better or for worse, as they say.
My old pal from those days, Mark Zepezauer, wrote a pretty nice piece on it last year, which you can find here.
Seana, you were a hero. We had a branch of Ford's department store, but the main store never recovered. I'm so sorry about the people that died, or lost their livelihood. Half Moon Bay didn't do badly. I donated all kinds of camping gear, stuff for families. I my house was ok. Just lost some china. You know earthquakes still scare me, but I get over it. Looks like Victoria didn't too badly.
I think a lot of what happens in those moments is that you do what you know to do. It's kind of reflexive. We had been trained that when the lights went out, we should go downstairs and make sure everybody got out. So that's what I did. I also got the hell out as soon as I could.
I think losing Ford's and Leask's downtown after that made the whole downtown scene more boutiquelike and less practicality oriented than it would have been otherwise. It might have happened eventually anyway, but it still makes the downtown less dynamic than it should be.
Earthquakes are definitely to be respected, however minor any individual experience is.
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