The Linen Hall Review, Vol 5, no. 3, Autum 1988, pp 4-9
Irish Booklore
No temporising with the foe:
by
Sam Burnside

In the somewhat limited canon of northern Irish planter mythology the Siege and Relief of Derry occupies an important place: it is a potent and informing image for the collective mind of that community, for the entangled disparity of planter and planted, of Protestant and dissenter since, within its single action, it combines elements which lie at the roots of generations of ‘settler’ experience.

The Siege lives on in folk memory, carried forward from generation to generation by the vehicles of popular and street culture. Yet, despite its obvious potential as a symbol, the Siege has not formed a starting point for any significant creative exploration of the Protestant experience in the north of Ireland; when it has been taken up by writers it has tended to be used, as the drama, poetry and prose detailed in the following bibliography shows, to little more purpose than to maintain a bridge between a set of religious (moral and spiritual) values and a pragmatic and politically useful definition of identity supportive of community cohesion.

In the earliest literature, that contemporary with the Siege, the writers are content to record the events (the truthful telling of the story in itself a tribute to the defenders) so that, while there is some suggestion that Mitchelburne may have intended his play to stand as a justification for his own part in the events and to support his political and financial ambitions, he does present us with a useful perception of what took place. In particular, Joseph Aiken’s poem is an important historical source, supplementing as it does the rather better known prose accounts of the Siege.

The collection of poems of the following century, published to celebrate the centennial of the Siege, marks the occasion in a particularly solemn and poetically laboured manner. Although written by poets who lived in Ulster the poems neither in language or form display any local influences; indeed quite the opposite for they are heavily ornamented with the trappings of classical reference, Latin tags and fabulous allusion. One poem begins:

Celestial Spirit of the Grecian Bard

Who Sung the battles of the Trojan War

while another starts like this:

Upon a rock, Ierne, sad reclin’d

And gave her locks dishevell’d to the wind. 

One senses that already the Siege and Defence has acquired a social meaning and that clearly the writers feel no need to engage in exploration of the recorded event or in revision of its accepted significance.

Indeed, after reading the literature arising out of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries one comes away with a sense that the Siege as given there is treated as a simple and static metaphor (that is, a one-to-one image) which acts as a vehicle for a social and cultural meaning that is given and fixed.

If the medium of literature offers more immediate scope for exploration of experience then the advantage has not been fully exploited; it is possible that such a stance to the creative power of language and the liberating potential of the imagination may in some way be related to the Protestant perception of history, community and the future. Where history is seen as providing a key to present or future attitudes and (described often in language more obligation to those generations that have gone before, and the fruits of whose legacy the present generation enjoys, it is likely that an enormous pressure will be created to ensure that legacy remains intact and protected for this and succeeding generations. When the nature of that legacy is measured in absolute terms (moral and spiritual), as often happens, then any proposed alteration to the worldly or to the social may be considered to reflect on, or to call into question, the immutable moral realm which has guided past actions. The difficulty attached to accepting or taking such ‘radical’ action is increased when providence is involved, when, as Mrs Armstrong puts it, ‘the arm of God Most High’ is active in support of the principles at stake. The prize-winning poem of 1789 gives equal place to the three elements of God, war and man:

Thy conq’ring sword, in heav’n-

born Freedom’s cause;

In Church, in Battle , wheresoe’er

You trod,

Thus, doubly arm’d, you fought

the cause of God.

Something of this tendency can be seen in the work of many of these writers: while the seventeenth century writers recorded the events for pragmatic reasons, and those of the victory, the nineteenth century poets and novelists offer a greater variety of approaches and forms; nevertheless in no period do the writers stoop to pled a case, but rather they bear assured witness to the enduring significance of the historical event and to the importance of a range of precisely defined individual and community values which are reflections of higher virtues and values.

Many of the novels clearly were written to instruct, and many were used as Sunday School prizes; many of the poems were written by sons and daughters of the Manse; in much of his writing we see the desire of a serious-minded people to proclaim the worth of freedom and liberty (ultimately the liberty to obtain spiritual security – as the servant Margery puts it in Strain’s novel, ‘Twas the thing kept us living, the thought of our immortality’), and to promote knowledge of a social and historical mechanism which presents on the one hand the human qualities necessary for the gaining of freedom (courage, faith, vigilance) and on the other the nature of the actions necessary to gain and maintain (clear aims and perseverance in attaining them).

Hope’s poem captures the spirit:

No fires were quenched, no pillows pressed;

Each waited for the foe’s alarm.

and again,

Of all the ills that entered there,

That never entered – named despair.

To the present-day reader one interpretation of such a view of the past and future, when it is tied to the precise situation in Ireland and to the identification with and subsequent defence of values and actions that have real consequences, is that that view itself may be thought of as reflecting a habit of mind that can come to form a mental and cultural prison: the image of the Siege becomes indeed a reality, self-imposed and self-imposing. As literature, only rarely do any of these rise above the level of parabolic discourse: the Protestant imagination has not, or has not been allowed to, divert itself from playing about the horns and tail of the ever present enemy. It is interesting that no Protestant writer has used the Siege in the way that John Montague, for example, has, as a means towards an exploration and fuller understanding of an historically created situation and the subsequent form of consciousness.

The Literature does however reflect some, even if only a limited, variety of perceptions and positions. The novels of Griffiths and Pickering are unashamed adventure stories, their writers basking in the warmth of Empire, of whose history the Siege they clearly see as part. By contrast, Graham and Alexander are, in Ulster Protestant terms, by far the most culturally grounded – each, though in different ways, a stern upholder of a tradition whose established protocol of value and and attitude has been shaped but not altered by the Irish experience. Graham is more vehemently, perhaps, of his place, but his descriptive poems present what is a fairly pacific defence of Bible-based Protestantism: in this pursuit the Siege is something he repeatedly returns to in his writing, although it is as a scholar and historian that he is most happy. His discursive style tends to lead him into verbal extravangances – in one place three poems lead to the production of one hundred and one pages of notes. Mrs Alexander is drawn towards the pastoral, while Henderson , calling in his preface for greater tolerance between the various groupings in Ireland , uses the Siege to produce a piece distinguished only by its romantic inclinations.
Despite the variety of voice and intention there is, nonetheless, a general air of defiance which runs through almost all of the writing. While Thomas Young in his preface states that in his poem he has ‘purposely refrained from entering into that hot, anti-Popery spirit which characterised the exciting times of the English revolution, [feeling] loath to be needlessly the instrument of raking up, or perpetrating, the bitter animosities which, too long, have been rife in the Emerald Isle,’ he is unambiguous in declaring where his sympathy lies. Viewed as a cultural text, Young’s long poem is the most complex of those written in the nineteenth century and throws most light on the complexities of Protestant perceptions of history, community and value. Young immediately establishes his position by placing a quote from Byron at the head of his poem:

For freedom’s battle once begun

Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son

Though battled oft is ever won.

Despite the stated desire to refrain from raking up bitter animosities Young presents the battle as one between a distinct community of people and an equally distinct ‘enemy’ variously described as ‘the savage crew’ and the ‘Popish horde’, and who are likened to ‘vultures waiting for their prey.’

As a writer Young wants to create a dramatic conflict between opposing forces and this leads him to use heightened and potentially offensive language; yet one feels that the tension between his stated aim and his use of such language reflects the tension within wider Protestantism between the often articulated desire to build good relations with individual Catholics, and the impulse to renounce what is referred to by writers from each of these three centuries as ‘Popery’.

This tension appears to be ever present; describing the celebrations held during August 1789 the poet Robert Young, writing seventy years after the event, tells how ‘the Mayor and members of the Corporation, the Protestant clergymen, the officers of the Army and Navy, the Roman Catholic clergymen of the City, gentlemen from the country, the Volunteers, citizens, scholars and apprentices, dined together in the townhall. Orange was the predominant colour on the occasion, and as such was worn by the Roman Catholic Bishop, Clergy and People, the latter manifesting equal enthusiasm and pleasure in the commemoration of the event with their fellow Protestant citizen’ (note to his poem).
Yet, despite the mutual celebratory zeal, and the attempts (conscious or not) to distance the siege story by much classical reference, the existence and nature of the Popish plots and threats; it is as if, even in times of surface social harmony, it is necessary to stress the potency of, and heighten the threat from, the enemy, in order to sharpen the definition of and sustain the vigour of the Protestant community. The distinct identity created in this process is accompanied by a set of articulated qualities and values and sets of behaviour which are claimed for that community.

The central message for each new generation is contained within the structure of the drama of the siege story and is not necessarily transmitted by the language employed by the writer. This means that the writers do not have to employ crude techniques of propaganda or to use extreme or violent language, even if they may wish to provoke a response in their readers. While there does occur occasionally an overtly anti-Irish statement, and sometimes an overtly anti-Catholic statement, for example in the anonymous play ‘The Royal Voyage’ or, most explicitly, in Charlotte Elizabeth’s novel where, in the preface to the sixth edition (1839), her use of language does become intemperate and includes obviously offensive phrases such as ‘lazy monks of Rome’ and ‘Romish despot’, and where the Defenders are praised for ‘restraining [the enemy] from accomplishing the will of their wily and remorseless instigators, the men who, themselves wrapped in mysterious retirement, work the vast machinery of Popish aggression and aggrandisement throughout the world’.

The language and underlying attitudes indicate an extreme form of evangelical Protestantism at work, and soon she turns her attention to King William himself who is described as ‘only a political Protestant: of the life-giving influence that alone produces spiritual Protestantism he appears to have been destitute.’

While it is fair to say that the significance of the siege remains constant there is a discernible development in the treatment given to it by writers. While Mitchelburne stresses the courage of the defenders, and the importance of the defence for the ‘Protestant cause’, he is also very concerned with discussions of the importance of provisions and ammunition, and finds room for humour. Later writers move more and more towards extrapolating those necessary qualities displayed by the defender. ( Hamilton lists some of them as ‘valour, fortitude, clemency, patience, perseverance and patriotism’); these become, by implication, part of the definition of what is to be Protestant. Henderson advances this process by searching what Graham refers to as ‘History’s bright rolls’ for the roots of many of the attributes he believes to be the hallmark of his people. These include: the spirit of the Covenanters; the spirit of English chivalry; the old Cromwellian virtue; the experience of the Colonists (who have their antecedence in the Scotch refugees, who were ‘hunted like partridges on the mountains’ and in the ‘sturdy’ Puritans and Ironsides as well as a few betrayed Cavaliers). It is the union of all these qualities together, Hamilton argues, that contributes to and explains the unique spirit displayed during the siege and still to be hoped for among his fellows.

As it is presented in the literature the definition of ‘the enemy’ is not arrived at by criteria arising out of nation, sect or race. Strain’s novel illustrates this most thoroughly with its delineation of the relationships, arguments and differences between the Puritan, Episcopalian and the Nonconformist characters. The book’s title is taken from a biblical quotation, ‘A man’s foes, shall they be of his own household’, and as the Puritan minister Hewson puts it, the Defenders shall not win ‘until the armies of the Lord by purged of them that are none of His men.’

Being from within the community is not enough; and entry into it can be made from outside, as indeed is illustrated in Charlotte ‘s novel where an Irish Catholic girl enters into the fold and becomes part of the family.

These writers return repeatedly to the task of teasing out and presenting these twin definitions of ‘us’ and ‘the foe’. In Thomas Young’s poem we are shown a community perceiving itself to be besieged and knowing that it can hold out only by achieving solidarity of purpose, by holding to the text ‘no temporizing with the enemy’ (a slogan the poet gives weight to by the use of repetition) and by demonstrating individual and group qualities of fortitude, courage and faith coupled with wise (principled) action in the face of the always-expected attack.

Up to this point Thomas Young differs little from many other writers. He does however go further than most in his analysis of the complex nature of the Protestant community, and in isolating and presenting potential internal dangers which, while located within the siege context nevertheless, one feels, may have a wider significance for the Protestant people as a whole.

He identifies three threats: firstly, that posed by a wrong-headed leadership whose counsel of despair the people wisely refuse to accept; secondly, the danger to their defence presented by the traitorous Lundy; and finally, and perhaps most interestingly, he picks up the Ulster/Scots thread of Presbyterianism and Republicanism and a Dissenting belief in democracy which has appeared intermittently throughout Ulster Planter history, when he points to the need to resist the notion of the divine right of kings to rule. Nathaniel Wiseman too deals with this Protestant inclination towards self determination and action when he has one of the characters in his novel (a clergyman), speaking at a public meeting of the Defenders, warn that ‘They who resist a king fight against God…tis laid down in the Bible that-‘

‘Well put, my Lord, good sermon that; but we can’t attend to it now!’ shouted a voice from the crowd. ‘No Preaching! No Red Shanks! No Popery! The Protestant city of Londonderry for ever!’ Interestingly, this aspect of the Protestant, or Presbyterian, attitude to the relationship between individual and authority is taken up by John Hewitt in his historical play ‘The Bloody Brae’, where its centrality for the culture’s concept of individual self responsibility is presented and explored.

It has been argued above that the Siege as it has been made use of in the literature comprising this bibliography cannot be admitted into the realm of symbol where significance radiates from a fixed point and where possibilities of meaning might emerge in such a way as to encourage perceptions to develop or change. The irony of such a position is that another siege is thereby created, this time one that is laid about the realm of imagination, vision and creativity; this wall (defence turned prison) is built of language – used concretely and literally.

This points to a paradox worthy of examination; the tendency to deny certain forms of social and human progress, and especially, it would seem, the denial of the reality of change or development which seems inherent in this stance, would appear to be at odds with the received wisdom that the Protestant/Planter culture is one that breeds individuals of independent mind, (that, as Dr Michael Dewar put it in an interview in the Belfast Telegraph on September 17, 1986, ‘basically the Ulsterman is a radical’).

A tendency to shelter within group conformity is much more likely to be the outcome if community interpretations of history are fixed and if individual desires to create and then to test the validity of one’s truth are consistently suppressed in pursuit of the perceived and repeatedly expressed need for a defensive communal and cultural solidarity which is built upon agreed meanings.

Yet, this, also, is too simple an analysis: the Protestant community contains within itself many divisions: many of these writers take account of the conflicts and often heated debates and arguments which took place among those who were besieged. It is significant that the fundamental issue on which conformity of opinion appears to the writers to have been essential is that of a clear identification and definition of ‘the enemy’; it is as if it is from this that all other things flow.

Within the imaginative accounts of the Siege the criteria for this definition, and of the ensuing and equally important definition of who is within and of the community, is clearly moral and spiritual, and has strong links with the Old Testament notion of a chosen people. It is at this point that one notices the influence of a Calvinistic fatalism. We find an expression of this in Hope’s poem:

Except the Lord the city keep

The watchman waketh but in vain,

An eighteenth century portrait of the Defender David Cairns shows him dressed in military uniform and standing on the battlements of Derry Cathedral; he is seen pointing away from the city and out to sea. The poets of the same century looked away from Ireland and sought to locate their battle in a wider historical and social context. (John Hewitt in his poem about the Ulster settler community, ‘The Colony’, used a similar technique). There is an implication in these writings, and an explicit assertion in that of R.S. Hamilton, that the Siege and Relief, that the historic mission of the Protestant people, is part of a universal struggle, that it is not just about holding a small piece of territory, or about one battle: this lifts the community’s struggle out of the merely local and places it centre-stage in a world (and cosmic) battle between good and evil. It also transforms the act of holding that small piece of territory into something of extreme significance.

Hamilton, in his introduction to ‘The Battle of Ulster’, maps out the historical ground on which the battle for freedom and liberty has been fought and sketches in the virtues and qualities necessary for ‘success in this world’; it is within such a large context that he locates ‘The Battle of Ulster’ and the men who fought there, claiming that ‘the great principles they inaugurated are being adopted by every country where unfledged liberty is taking wing.’ He places the events which took place in Derry on a parallel with the Battle of Marathon insofar as both have had, he argues, equal importance in the history of the growth of liberty and civilisation.

The literature appears to suggest that for these writers, history is a text from which lessons must be gleaned: but for the Protestant community as it is presented here history appears to be both immediate and fixed, and is something to be reached only through the community fathers and through the generations who went before. They are not conceived of as saints or martyrs, but rather as ancestors to whom a moral and emotional debt is owed. Hamilton refers to ‘the ancestors’, and in an introduction to his poem goes to great lengths to recall just who they were and where and how the ‘Irish Protestant’ relates to a wider historical world where freedom and liberty was hard won. Thomas Young makes explicit and extremely interesting use of this Ulster Protestant inclination by introducing into his poem the father figure of an old man who has had direct personal experience of the attacks on Culmore and Derry in 1608 and of the general conflict of 1641/42.

I was but an artless, white-haired boy

With a heart brimful of glee,

When I learned to curse that treacherous chief,

Sir Cahir O’Dougherty.

The old man has lost his wife and children in the second battle and memory of the danger of extermination at the hands of a devious and cunning foe is thus carried directly from one generation to the next. The old man’s intervention inspires an emotional response and a coherence of direction amongst the besieged, and up till then disarrayed, listeners:

And rising rage the silence broke,

And thus, with one consent, they spoke:-

Graham, in his version of Aickin’s poem, also gives an instance of one generation passing wisdom to the next:

Son, said the Sire, this Bible in my hand

Must give due sanction to my last command;

Swear now, I charge you, that in town or field

To James’ power you will never yield.

Apart from the difference in language (resulting from Graham’s attempt to ‘improve’ upon the ‘crudity’ of the original which runs ‘By this sacred book I you conjure/Never to yield to Popish power’) both poets are concerned to point to the importance of generational relationships and to the legacies which become contracts.

If a consistency runs through the work of these writers it is to be found in the underlying but repeated affirmation of the strength held by a distinct people who from one generation to the next must keep alive the principle of freedom and who do so in the face of an ever present enemy; the idea of battle, never won but often fought; the idea of a place to be guarded; the notion that constant vigilance against a strong and never to be trusted external enemy and against internal weakness is a trait of mind essential for survival; the idea of the need for the individual to protest against strong kings and weak leaders; a hatred of compromise; the high worth placed on courage and action – these are the elements which are to be found in varying degrees throughout the literature but which come together most coherently in Young’s poem making it a document useful in reaching an understanding of the Protestant mind.

The other side of this affirmation and of this kind of approach to an understanding of the past is the implication contained within it about the future and about how a community which employs such a method can make formulations on or arguments about how to effect the future; there appears to be no new analysis of what constitutes ‘the enemy’, nor any assessment of how to move outside the ‘city walls’, nor of new ways in which to secure the city, if that is to be the object. The enemy, by definition, is ever present, since any new social or political definition or proposal may well be regarded as a compromise of the basic moral values which gave purpose to the struggle in the first place; and an additional sanction may be the emotional guilt engendered by the charge of selling out the community ancestors, and squandering the inheritance of freedom and liberty they fought to gain and leave.

Despite the tensions and painful paradoxes which inhabit the generic term Protestant, it is doubtful if a contemporary Protestant writer could successfully explore the potential richness of the Siege in a way that would enable new understandings of that culture’s attitudes to community and history to emerge; contemporary events would indicate that the Protestant mind in the late 1980s no less than in the 1690s is quickened by the belief that it exists in a place under siege and that an enemy is waiting at the gate. Such an awareness can only force the historically orientated Protestant consciousness, as it is presented here, back to the texts of the seventeenth century.

While such a perception is so immediately to hand, and while collective and community action of the Perception is so immediately to hand, and while collective and community action of the Protestant people is informed by moral and spiritual considerations which take precedence over (or at the very least colour) political judgements (the political art of compromise has no place here), a reading of this literature would suggest that for them the nature and importance of the Siege had changed little. For these voices of a community, as they speak out of the last three centuries, one senses that the place is not the important issue – yet, one senses also that what Churchill characterised as the ‘dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone’ represent the whole world and that the ‘city’ is no less important than the universe of Mucker townland and Inniskeen Parish was to Patrick Kavanagh.

The literature indicates that for these people the ‘integrity of their quarrel’ is not open to question, and that from their perspective each perceived assault can only strengthen and support the belief in that quarrel’s cosmic significance. Meanwhile, definitions are fixed; interpretations remain unalterable; the call is still ‘no temporizing with the foe.’ The Siege and the Defence live on.

Bibliography

Novels

Andrews, Marion . Cousin Isabel: A Tale of the Siege of Londonderry . London : Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., 1894
Edwards, R.W.K. Unchronicled Heroes .
Londonderry : Gailey, 1888
(With Preface, Introduction and Historical Notes) 
(Edwards was born and lived in England: he worked as a teacher at Foyle College, Londonderry, during the year 1884.)

Elizabeth, Charlotte . Derry : A Tale of the Revolution of 1688 . London, James Nisbet & Co., 1839
(This was originally published as The Siege of Derry, A Tale of the Revolution, by C.E. ( London , Nisbet, nd.). Charlotte Elizabeth was born in England in 1790, daughter of the Rev. M. Browne. Twice married, she spent some time in Kilkenny. She is ultra-Protestant in her views.)

Ellis, J.J. Bridget. O’Mara’s Secret; a Tale of the Siege of Derry . London , nd.

Finlay, T.A., S.J., M.A. (A. Whitelock) The Chances of War . Dublin : H.M. Gill & Son, 1877; new ed 1908, and Fallow, 1911
(One of the few novels to be written from a Catholic perspective, this contains a description of the first relief of Derry .)

Griffith, George. The Knights of the White Rose , illustrated by Hal Hurst. London : F.V. White & Co., 1897
(Griffith was a prolific novelist. This, like Pickering ‘s novel below, is essentially a story for boys.)

Keightley, Sir Samuel, R. The Crimson Sign . London : Hutchinson , 1894
(Sir Samuel Robert Keightley, LL.D. was born in Belfast (1859) and educated at Queen’s College in that city. He published a collection of poems, A King’s Daughter, in 1878. Keightley stood as a liberal in South Derry in 1910.)

Martin, W.Stanley. The Brave Boys of Derry ; or, No Surrender . London : Morgan and Scott, 1901. McDonnell, Randall, William. My Sword for Sarsfield . Dublin : H.M. Gill & Son, 1907 (McDonnell was born in 1870 in Dublin and was educated at Armagh Royal School . He worked as an engineer with the Great Southern and Western Railway. He published three volumes of poetry and a number of novels. For a time he was an assistant librarian in Marsh’s Library.)

Pickering, Edgar T. Ture? to the Wtchword . 8 ill. London : Frederick Warne & Co., 1902

Strain, E.H. A Man’s Foes . 3 vols. Illustrated by A.Forestier. London : Ward, Lock & Co., 1839
(E.H. Strain was an Ayrshire authoress. Like Elizabeth , she often expresses anti-Catholic sentiments.)

Wiseman, Nathaniel. The Prentice Boys who Saved an Empire: a Tale of the Siege of Londonderry . London : Thynne, 1905

Poetry

Aickin, Joseph. Londerias: or a Narrative of the Siege of Londonderry : written in verse . Dublin : J.B. and S.P., 1699
(This is one of the most interesting and , for the historian, useful Siege poems; published ten years after the event it chronicles in some detail the actors and actions. The author may well have been present during the Siege. W.R. Young in his Fighters of Derry ( London , 1932) describes the poem as ‘a valuable contribution to Ulster history’, p.25, and certainly the text has been much used by historians of the Siege.

Confusion about the authorship of the poem was caused when, following the discovery of a mutlated copy in a house in Armagh in 1790, Graham attached to it the title ‘The Armagh Manuscript’. It appears in Douglas ‘s Derriana, 1794. It was from this that Hempton reprinted the poem; Aickin is identified as the author by Hempton following the discovery in Coleraine of a perfect copy of the 1699 edition. About Aickin little is known. Graham in his Derriana, 1823 refers to the author as an ‘illiterate but amusing poet’. While Graham’s comments can be explained by reference to the classical models which influenced the taste of his period and not from any aesthetic considerations his attitude is reflected by Witherow who in Derry and Enniskillen in the Year 1689 (Belfast, 1913) asserts that Aickin ‘has little claim to be a true poet.’ Who Aickin was is not clear. Young draws on internal evidence to suggest that he was a Doctor of Medicine active in that profession during the Siege. The poem does refer to ‘the mighty skill of Dr. Aicken’ but that this is the same Aicken as the author is by no means certain. In addition, the title page of the poem states that the book is ‘sold by the author at his school near Essex-Bridge’ indicating a different profession.)

Alexander, C.F. Mrs. ‘The Siege of Derry ‘. In Poems, pp. 149-157. London : Macmillan and Company Ltd., 1896
(Born 1818 Cecilia Francis Humphreys, daughter of Major John Humphreys, a landowner in Wicklow and Tyrone and a large land-agent in the north of Ireland , she married Rev. W.Alexander in 1850. The couple lived and worked in the Strabane and Londonderry areas. Dr Alexander became Archbishop of Armagh . Mrs Alexander wrote many well-known hymns.

Alley, George. The Siege of Derry . Dublin : Moore , 1792
(George Alley was a minister of religion. This poem is prefixed by an epistle addressed to the Right Rev.W.Bennett, D.D., Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross.)

Anonymous. ‘Undaunted London-Derry – or- The Victorious Protestants’ constant success against the proud French and Irish Forces. To the tune of Lile Borlero. Licensed according to Order’. Broadside, nd. ( British Museum )

Anonymous. ‘William’s March and the Battle of the Boyne ‘. Broadside, nd. ( Magee College Library)

Anonymous. ‘The Little Maiden’s Song’. In Young, T., The Siege of Derry , pp. 82-83. Dublin : Moffat and Co., 1868

The Deputy Keeper’s Reports describe acessions received by PRONI over a given period from both official private sources, and are indexed under personal names, places and subjects. They are an invaluable guide to researchers wishing to identify potential source material in PRONI. The Reports for 1966-72, 1981, 1983 and 1984 will be available from early autumn.

Settlement and Survival on an Ulster Estate:

The Brownlow Leasebook 1667-1711

Edited and introduced by R.Gillespie

This publication, based on a leasebook for Sir Arthur Brownlow’s north Armagh estate, presents ‘a unique insight into rural life in what was a crucial area for the development of the whole province in the late seventeenth century. It sheds light not only on landlord-tenant relations but also on … agricultural production, housing conditions and urban growth’. The production will be available from October 1988.

Available from:

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

OF NORTHERN IRELAND

66 BALMORAL AVENUE , BELFAST BT9 6NY

or any good Bookseller

Anonymous. ‘The Relief of London-Derry – or – the Happy Arrival of the Timely Succours landed at London-Derry by the Prudent Care and Conduct of Major-General Kirk’. To the unspeakable joy of the Besieged. To the tune of The Glory of London-Derry. (Licensed according to Order.) Broadside, nd. ( British Museum )

Anonymous. (J.C.) ‘The Siege of Derry ‘. Broadside, nd. ( Magee College Library)

Armagh Manuscript. See Aickin, Joseph.

Armstrong, William (‘Arthur’). ‘The Siege of Derry .’ In Siege and History of Derry , edited by John Hempton, pp. 91-92. Londonderry : Hempton, 1861
(This song was sung in the Town Hall at the Siege Festival of 1788.)

Crawford, David, Mrs. ‘The Breaking of the Boom – 1689′ (an Epic of the Siege of Londonderry, by a Derry Lady). Broadside, n.d.

(This poem enjoyed widespread popularity, being printed in various forms including broadside and illustrated two page pamphlet form; sometimes these carry the author’s name, sometimes the initials ‘A.J.C.’ and sometimes are published anonymously.)

Douglas, George. Derriana . Londonderry: Douglas , 1794

Douglas, George. See ‘The Poliorciad’

Elizabeth, Charlotte . ‘The Maiden City .’ In Hempton, James, Siege and History of Derry , edited by James Hempton, pp. 95-96. Londonderry : Hempton, 1861

Faussett, Henry (Mrs). ‘The Relief of Derry .’ In Rung In and Other Poems , pp. 69-70. Belfast : McCaw, Stevenson and Orr, 1880
(Sometimes this author wrote under her maiden name of Alessie Bond. She was born in County Down in 1841, daughter of Rev. W. Bond, and married Rev. Henry Faussett in 1875. They lived near Omagh.)

Ferryer, Thomas. The Beautiful Queen of Judea ; a Tragedy . Londonderry : William McCorkell, 1823

Ferryer, Thomas. The Beautiful Queen of Judea ; a Tragedy . Londonderry : William McCorkell, 1825

Godfrey, Henry (Mrs). ‘The Besieged City.’ In Darkness and Light : the Fallen Empire and other poems , p.10. Dublin : Ponsonby, 1871

Graham, John. Historical Poems with Biographical Notes. Londonderry , 1823

Graham, John. Poems ,Chiefly Historical . Belfast : Stuart, 1829

Graham, John. Ireland Preserved; or The Siege of Londonderry and the Battle of Aughrim, with Lyrical Poetry and Biographical Notes . Dublin : Hardy and Walker, 1841

Graham, John. Derriana . Londonderry : William McCorkell, 1823

Graham, John. Poem, untitled, (‘Thrice-honoured shade of Walker , wise’, first line). In George Walker and the Siege of Derry , Rev.A.Dawson. Belfast :1887
(said by D.J. O’Donoghue in his The Poets of Ireland ( Dublin , 1912), to be the best of the Orange poets, Graham wrote extensively on Siege matters and has a number of poems and songs celebrating the Siege and Relief.

He attempted to’improve’ on the literary form and content of previous authors, most notably Aickin and Michelburne, but with questionable success. He was born in 1774 in Longford, educated at Trinity College , Dublin , became Rector of Tamlaght-Ard, Co. Derry and died at Magilligan Glebe in 1844.)

Hamilton, Robert Scott. ‘The Battle of Ulster , or The Siege of Derry’ ; an Historical Ballad of Ireland in Three Parts, Belfast : James Johnston, 1862

Hempton, John, Ed. The Siege and History of Londonderry . Londonderry : Hempton, 1861 Henderson, James. ‘The Siege of Derry , a Historial Poem in Four Parts.’ In The Wandere’s Dream , pp.25=37. Belfast : W. and G. Baird, 1912 (Born near Donegal in about 1850 Henderson was a merchant and jeweller and became a J.P. The poem states clearly that the author believes the Siege was the means of gaining religious freedom; however, in the introduction he articulates a pre-parition sense of, and pride in, his Irishness.)

Hope, J. ‘A short history of the Siege of Derry’. Belfast : Belfast Newsletter , 1894 (This takes the form of a long poem.)

Kane, Francis. ‘A Poem on the Siege of Derry ‘. Londonderry : G. Douglas, 1788 (see The Poliorciad)

Keir, R. Poem, untitled, (‘ Londonderry is Surrendering’, first line). Handwritten manuscript copy signed ‘R. Keir, Edinburgh ‘, with another typewritten copy, undated. ( Magee College Library)

‘Leonidas.’ ‘The Siege of Derry .’ (see The Poliorciad)

Marshall, Thomas. ‘The Siege of Derry .’ (see The Poliorciad)

Montague, John. A New Siege . Dublin : Dolmen Press, 1970

(Set in Derry , this is an attempt to explore the concept of ‘siege’ in a Northern Irish context, and to do so with the consciousness that the weight of history bears down on language and custom .)

Young, Robert. The Poetical Works of Robert Young of Londonderry . Londonderry : John and James Hempton, and Dublon: Hodges, Smith and Co,. 1863 ( Robert Young was born in Co. Tyrone in 1800. He was a nailor by trade. Young was a prolific and popular poet with overtly anti-Catholic attitudes. He was known as ‘The Fermanagh True Blue’; he may have acted as a spy.)

Young, Thomas. The Siege of Derry: a Prize Poem in four Cantos . Dublin : Moffat and Co,. and London : Hamilton, Adams and Co,. 1868 ( Thomas Young was educated at Magee College , Londonderry . He became a Presbyterian Minister in Scotland .)

Wilson , I. ‘ Derry ‘s Heritage’, and a second poem ‘The Unconquered City’, Broadside. 18th December, 1966 ( Magee College Library)

Wilson I. ‘The Unconquered City.’ In Wilson , I. , Poems for Pastime . Dungiven: Wilson , 1967

The Poliorciad , or Poems on the Siege of Derry . Londonderry , 1789 (As part of the 1788 commemoration of the Siege of Derry George Douglas offered to present a silver medal ‘ornamented with suitable Devices and Inscriptions, to the Author of the best Poem, either Historical or Metrical, on the subject of ‘The Siege of Derry”. The notice was issued on October, 27th and the stated intention was to keep all the compositions ‘in a box till Monday the 8th of December, when the whole shall be examined, and the prize adjudged agreeable to merit.’ Despite the very short period given for publicity, communication and creation, fifteen poems were submitted; of these one was from Belfast, one from Hillsborough, one from Dromore, one from Ballymoney, one from Maze, one from Coagh, one from Strabane, and eight from Derry. Of these the poem ‘The Siege of Derry’ by Leonidas was named winner and this, along with six other entries, and poems was published.

It is likely that the editor and publisher was George Douglas who was a printer with premises in The Diamond in Derry . Douglas worked as a printer between 1772 and 1795; for a period he printed The Londonderry Journal and General Advertiser . The medal which he offered is described as bearing on the front the City Arms and Motto, the date (7th December 1688) and the names William the Third, Walker, Murray &c, while on the reverse ‘Coelo Musa Beat – Presented by G. Douglas to Leonidas, for his poetic composition, 7th Dec. 1788′ followed by the legend ‘Magnus ab integro Seclorum nafictur Ordo’. All entries were accompanied by ‘fictitious signatures’, and it is not clear who Leonidas was.
In a reference to the poem E.R. Dix in his Irish Bibliography ( Dundalk , 1911) cities the author as Francis Kane, T.C.D., while Hempton in The Siege and History of Londonderry , 1861, gives the author as the Rev. Thos. Marshall.)

Drama

Anonymous. The Royal Voyage, or the Irish Expedition, a Tragi-Comedy . London : 1690 (Anti-Irish in sentiment, the play’s action follows William’s Irish campaign.)

Anonymous. The Siege of Derry . A Tragi-Comedy . London :1692

Anonymous. Piety and Valuor; or, Derry Defended. A Tragi-Comedy. London : 1692 (Montage Summers in his A Bibliography of the Restoration Drama , London: 1935, suggests that the two foregoing plays may be the same and that the latter title derives from a bookseller’s new title page.)

Mitchelburne, John. Ireland Preserved, or the Troubles of the North; being a preparatory to the Siege of Derry; a Tragi-Comedy . London : 1705

Mitchelburne, John. Ireland Preserved, or the Siege of Derry . London : 1705

Mitchelburne, John. ‘ Ireland Preserved’. London . British Museum . Stowe MS 977
(Colonel John Mitchelburne played a prominent part in the Siege of Derry , and in the life of the City until his death in 1721. On the death of Baker he was made military Governor and acted as such until the relief when he was confirmed as sole Governor and made Colonel: as such he served at the Boyne and Sligo . During the Siege he lost his wife and seven children. He spent some time in the Fleet prison for debts incurred during the Siege and engaged in various acts of litigation in attempts to recover the money. The plays may have been written partly in an effort to present his own version of events and as a justification for his demands for better treatment.

Milligan in his History of the Siege of Londonderry , (Belfast: Carter, 1951, p. 386), recognises the literary quality of the play and drawing on circumstantial evidence suggest that George Farquar may have been involved in its composition. Again, in his Colonel John Mitchelburne, Defender of Londonderry , (Londonderry: Emery and Co., 1954, pp. 21-22) he elaborates on this theory, but offers little evidence in its support.

Between 1705 and 1718 three editions of the play were made available in London ; it is possible that a much earlier version incorporating other of Mitchelburne’s experiences in Ireland may have been written. Of the two plays published in 1705 the first deals with events leading up to the Siege; this throws some light on military and political concerns of the period. The second play deals with events in Derry during the Siege: the action moves between the two camps. Mitchelburne, unlike the author of ‘The Royal Voyage’, does not use the play to bombast his opponents and indeed displays some admiration for them. 
A manuscript copy of a version close to the second 1705 play is held in the British Museum . It is unlikely that this is in Mitchelburne’s own hand. A dedicatory letter, in a different hand and signed by Colonel Mitchelburne and apparently addressed to the Lord Leiutenant of Ireland , is attached. In Ireland during the eighteenth century well over twenty editions of part two of the play were published in Cork , Dublin , Belfast and Strabane. In addition, the play was popular with country printers who produced cheap versions for local use; these were often bound together with another popular play, ‘The Battle of Aughrim’. William Carleton records in his autobiography that during his childhood in Tyrone ‘the plays of ‘The Siege of Londonderry’ and ‘The Battle of Aughrim’ were acted in barns and waste houses night after night, and were attended by multitudes, both Catholic and Protestant.’ He adds that ‘in their printed shape (the plays) were school books at the time.’ (O’Donoghue, K.J., The Life of William Carleton , ( London : Downey and Co., 1986, vol. 1, p. 26.)