Remember Orr…

Co. Antrim journalist and historian Dr. David Hume takes a fascinating look at weaver poet James Orr, Bard of Ballycarry – one of the leaders in historic Ulster-Scots Literature.

“WHEN lost amang nettles, ye’ll find if ye search, my stane o’ remembrance is marked wi’ an arch” is the inscription to be found on the memorial to James Orr, Ulster-Scots weaver bard of Ballycarry, Co. Antrim.

It is a fittingly ironic reference!

For although they do not grow nettles that big in Ballycarry – Orr’s monument is about 15 feet high – the metaphoric search is a difficult one.

Yet James Orr should be to Ballycarry and Ulster what Alloway is to Scotland. Alloway has Burns’ cottage and the nearby Tam O’Shanter Centre celebrates one of the Bard’s famous poems.

Ballycarry has nothing so grand, yet it is here that Ulster’s answer to Burns was born. Don’t expect to see tourists in coachloads in the tiny hilltop village, for few will know the name of James Orr and fewer will be able to tell you much about him.

Orr was, however, an impressive poet, and produced some material that was better than Burns, according to that other great Ulster poet, John Hewitt. There are still poets in Ballycarry and for the past two years a Bard of Ballycarry competition has taken place, with entrants seeking to emulate the native poet. But surely Orr’s heritage is too precious to be kept in a cosy corner of Antrim? For his was an extraordinary life.

Although he never spent a day at school in his life, he emerged as the finest of Ulster’s weaver poets of the 18th and 19th centuries. Orr’s parents were very strict and conservative Presbyterians, who distrusted liberal trends within the church and community so much that they refused to send their son to school. Instead, his father, also James, educated the young boy at home.

But in his early manhood James could not be closeted from events and thoughts around him, and he joined the United Irish Society in the 1790s and became a follower of the great enlightenment ideas of the era, which preached that all men were created equal. It was this involvement that led to his participation in the ill fate 1798 Rising, at the age of 28 years.

Orr has left us a valuable account of the events of that period, when the Presbyterians led the revolt against the authorities in the North, seeking to emulate their cousins in America who had played no small part in winning the Revolutionary War there.

In his poem ‘Donegore Hill’ (taking its name from the rendezvous point for the Antrim insurgents) he outlines events before and after the Rising.

On that morning of June 7 when the ‘Turn Oot’ occurred in Antrim, many Ballycarry men shouldered pikes and marched in the ranks of the Broadisland Corps.

Orr tells us that the night before the rebels;

“…rais’d the hoards
O’ pikes, pike-shafts, forks, fielocks,
Some melted lead – some saw’d deal boards…”

all in preparation for the attempt to capture Antrim town.

Not all were so keen on the planning, however, for the poet tells us that “Some hade like hens in byre neuks,” hoping to escape the involvement which the morning would bring. Orr records that women “baked bonnocks for their men wi’ tears instead o’ water”.

The 14 verses of Donegore Hill tell a story of conflict and courage, of flight and panic, and epitomise the feelings within the Antrim Presbyterian communities in the aftermath of the failed Rising.

Perhaps among the most telling lines must be those relating to the Donegore farmers whom Orr and his companions, having walked from the East Coast to do battle, found working in the fields making hay.

His comment rings down through the centuries;

“In tryin’ times maist folk you’ll fin’
Will act like Donegore men
On onie day”

James Orr paid a price for his involvement, but it was not as heavy as that paid by Henry Joey McCracken and other Presbyterian leaders. The Bard escaped to America and stayed there for less than a year before an amnesty allowed him to return. He lived the remainder of his days in rather quieter circumstances.

He wrote many poems and songs while engaged in the dreary task of working at the loom, and two volumes of these were published, one posthumously.

His biographer in the latter poetry collection printed in 1817 said that Orr, who was unmarried had ‘often fled the cheerless habitation of the bachelor, and was obliged to seek the pleasures of society at an inn’. It seems to be an indication that he became ‘fond of the drink’ as they might say still in the countryside of Ballycarry.

McDowell, his biographer, was quick to point out, however, the generosity, honesty, and integrity which characterised the poet despite any faults which he may have had.

Orr died on April 24, 1816 ‘esteemed and regretted by those who know him’, and was buried with his parents in the Templecorran Cemetery. For over a decade nothing marked the graver, but in 1831 a movement started by fellow poets from the local area saw a large Masonic monument erected in his honour (Orr had been one of the founders of the local Masonic lodge).

A significant poet in his own right, he was well aware of the threats faced by an important aspect of his culture – the language – in his own day.

His finest poem is entitled ‘The Irish Cottier’s Death and Burial’ and tells of the wake of the cottier, and how, when the clergyman comes to call, all those present attempt to ‘quat braid Scotch, a task tat foils their art’.

Orr wrote in standard English and in Ulster-Scots, but it is a sad reflection of how effective modern society has been in eradicating the native dialect of the area that attempting to understand Orr’s dialectic works almost ‘foils the art’ of locals in his native village today.

It should be very different, of course. The story of James Orr should be better told, not just in Ballycarry but also in the wider Ulster-Scots community.

The dialect which Orr spoke should be taught in at least some measure in the local primary schools. And the Orr monument, now dilapidated and in urgent need of repair, should be upgraded and treated as the major piece of Ulster-Scots cultural heritage that it is…

Is it too much to ask that we remember Orr?