41-704: MacShane or McShane is an Irish surname. It derives from the Gaelic Mac Seáin or Mac Seagháin and evolved from the given name Shane , a derivative of John . Historically, the MacShanes from Ulster are a branch of the O'Neills , while in County Kerry , the surname was adopted by the Fitzmaurices . This surname was also the name given to the group of sons of Shane "An Diomas O'Neill", Prince of Ulster, Lord O'Neill, and Chief of all
82-535: A dialect continuum stretching from Ireland through the Isle of Man to Scotland . There are three modern Goidelic languages: Irish ( Gaeilge ), Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig ), and Manx ( Gaelg ). Manx died out as a first language in the 20th century but has since been revived to some degree. Gaelic , by itself, is sometimes used to refer to Scottish Gaelic, especially in Scotland, and therefore
123-488: Is ambiguous. Irish and Manx are sometimes referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (as they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages), but the use of the word "Gaelic" is unnecessary because the terms Irish and Manx, when used to denote languages, always refer to those languages. This is in contrast to Scottish Gaelic , for which "Gaelic" distinguishes the language from the Germanic language known as Scots . In English, it
164-643: Is common to have distinct pronunciations of the word, with Scottish Gaelic pronounced / ˈ ɡ æ l ɪ k / compared to Irish and Manx Gaelic pronounced / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / . The endonyms ( Gaeilge , Gaelic and Gaolainn in Irish, Gaelg in Manx and Gàidhlig in Scottish Gaelic) are derived from Old Irish Goídelc , which in turn is derived from Old Welsh Guoidel meaning "wild men, savages". The medieval mythology of
205-563: Is likely based on the Tower of Hercules , which was built at Corunna by the Romans . An anecdote in the Lebor Gabála tells how Gaidel Glas, son of Nel (or Niul), was cured of a snakebite when Moses made fervent prayer and placed his staff on Gaidel's wound. An inserted verse in an earlier passage says of Gaidel: "green were his arms and his vesture". Michael O'Clery 's redaction of
246-689: Is the creator of the Goidelic languages and eponymous ancestor of the Gaels . The tradition can be traced to the 11th-century Lebor Gabála Érenn . A Scottish variant is recorded by John of Fordun (d. 1384). The narrative in the Lebor Gabála Érenn is a legendary account of the origin of the Gaels as the descendants of the Scythian prince Fénius Farsaid , one of seventy-two chieftains who built
287-646: The Lebor Gabála Érenn places its origin in an eponymous ancestor of the Gaels and the inventor of the language, Goídel Glas . The family tree of the Goidelic languages, within the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, is as follows During the historical era, Goidelic was restricted to Ireland and, possibly, the west coast of Scotland . Medieval Gaelic literature tells us that
328-695: The Canadian Gaelic dialect in Nova Scotia . Its historical range was much larger. For example, it was the everyday language of most of the rest of the Scottish Highlands until little more than a century ago. Galloway was once also a Gaelic-speaking region, but the Galwegian dialect has been extinct there for approximately three centuries. It is believed to have been home to dialects that were transitional between Scottish Gaelic and
369-672: The European Union . Ireland's national language was the twenty-third to be given such recognition by the EU and previously had the status of a treaty language. Some people in the north and west of mainland Scotland and most people in the Hebrides still speak Scottish Gaelic, but the language has been in decline. There are now believed to be approximately 60,000 native speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Scotland , plus around 1,000 speakers of
410-662: The Iberian Peninsula they settle in the land's northwest corner, at a place called Brigancia (the city of A Coruña , that the Romans knew as Brigantium ). Gaythelos was considered the founder of the Portuguese city of Porto by some old authors. According to them, he landed in the Iberian Peninsula in a harbor that he named "Portus Gaythelos" (later named by the Romans Portus Cale after
451-432: The Lebor Gabála adds that the snakebite left a green ring on Gaidel from which he earned his nickname 'Glas' ("the green"). Geoffrey Keating repeats this tale, although he prefaces it with another derivation of the nickname from the word for 'lock' ( Irish : glas ). Modern scholars believe that the tale is mostly an invention of medieval Irish Christian writers, who sought to link the Irish to people and events from
SECTION 10
#1732783884476492-632: The Old Testament . The names Goidel Glas, Scota and Fenius come from the names of the Gaels themselves, not the other way round. The earliest surviving version of the story is found in the 9th century Historia Brittonum . It describes an unnamed Scythian nobleman, driven from his kingdom and living with a great household in Egypt at the time of the Crossing of the Red Sea . He did not pursue
533-521: The Tower of Babel . In the tale, Goídel Glas is the son of Nel (son of Fénius) and Scota (daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt). Goídel Glas is credited with creating the Goidelic language from the original seventy-two languages that arose at the time of the confusion of tongues . His descendants, the Goidels or Gaels, undergo a series of trials and tribulations resembling those of the Israelites in
574-639: The Viking invasions and from the previous British inhabitants. The oldest written Goidelic language is Primitive Irish , which is attested in Ogham inscriptions from about the 4th century. The forms of this speech are very close, and often identical, to the forms of Gaulish recorded before and during the time of the Roman Empire . The next stage, Old Irish , is found in glosses (i.e. annotations) to Latin manuscripts —mainly religious and grammatical—from
615-662: The parliament ( Oireachtas ), its upper house ( Seanad ) and lower house ( Dáil ), and the prime minister ( Taoiseach ) have official names in this language, and some are only officially referred to by their Irish names even in English. At present, the Gaeltachtaí are primarily found in Counties Cork , Donegal , Mayo , Galway , Kerry , and, to a lesser extent, in Waterford and Meath . In
656-474: The 1580-1600 timeframe. His known sons are: Gaelic language The Goidelic ( / ɡ ɔɪ ˈ d ɛ l ɪ k / goy- DEL -ik ) or Gaelic languages ( Irish : teangacha Gaelacha ; Scottish Gaelic : cànanan Goidhealach ; Manx : çhengaghyn Gaelgagh ) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages , the other being the Brittonic languages . Goidelic languages historically formed
697-507: The 15th century, Scottis in Scottish English (or Scots Inglis ) was used to refer only to Gaelic, and the speakers of this language who were identified as Scots . As the ruling elite became Scots Inglis/English-speaking, Scottis was gradually associated with the land rather than the people, and the word Erse ('Irish') was gradually used more and more as an act of culturo-political disassociation, with an overt implication that
738-480: The 19th and early 20th centuries. The Scottish Parliament has afforded the language a secure statutory status and "equal respect" (but not full equality in legal status under Scots law ) with English, sparking hopes that Scottish Gaelic can be saved from extinction and perhaps even revitalised. Long the everyday language of most of the Isle of Man , Manx began to decline sharply in the 19th century. The last monolingual Manx speakers are believed to have died around
779-409: The 20th century, recording their speech and learning from them. In the 2011 United Kingdom census , there were 1,823 Manx speakers on the island, representing 2.27% of the population of 80,398, and a steady increase in the number of speakers. Today Manx is the sole medium for teaching at five of the island's pre-schools by a company named Mooinjer veggey ("little people"), which also operates
820-461: The 6th to the 10th century, as well as in archaic texts copied or recorded in Middle Irish texts. Middle Irish, the immediate predecessor of the modern Goidelic languages, is the term for the language as recorded from the 10th to the 12th century; a great deal of literature survives in it, including the early Irish law texts. Classical Gaelic , otherwise known as Early Modern Irish , covers
861-557: The Gaelic nobility), Irish was spoken by the majority of the population until the later 18th century, with a huge impact from the Great Famine of the 1840s. Disproportionately affecting the classes among whom Irish was the primary spoken language, famine and emigration precipitated a steep decline in native speakers, which only recently has begun to reverse. The Irish language has been recognised as an official and working language of
SECTION 20
#1732783884476902-772: The O'Neill clans from 1558-1567. When he died, his ten or more sons were spread out among family within Ulster and Scotland. In the early 1580s they regrouped and for nearly a decade battled with their O'Neill cousins for dominance of Ulster and their father and grandfather's estate, the Earldom of Tír Eoghain . he English officials used the term "the Mac Shanes" (the sons of Shane) as an all encompassing term to describe many sons that made up this army in Ireland. Two specific families in Ireland, both descendants of Shane O'Neill , kept
943-600: The Old Testament. They flourish in Egypt at the time of Moses and leave during the Exodus; they wander the world for 440 years before eventually settling in the Iberian Peninsula . There, Goídel's descendant Breogán founds a city called Brigantia, and builds a tower from the top of which his son Íth glimpses Ireland. Brigantia likely refers to Corunna in Galicia (then known as Brigantium ), whilst Breogán's tower
984-670: The Pharaoh, marrying Pharaoh's daughter Scota. Various accounts of how Gaythelos came to be expelled from Egypt—by a revolt following the death of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea , pursuing Moses , or in terror from the Plagues of Egypt , or after an invasion by Ethiopians—are given, but the upshot is that Gaythelos and Scota are exiled together with Greek and Egyptian nobles, and they settle in Hispania after wandering for many years. In
1025-537: The Republic of Ireland 1,774,437 (41.4% of the population aged three years and over) regard themselves as able to speak Irish to some degree. Of these, 77,185 (1.8%) speak Irish on a daily basis outside school. Irish is also undergoing a revival in Northern Ireland and has been accorded some legal status there under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement but its official usage remains divisive to certain parts of
1066-463: The fleeing Israelites , and the Egyptians, fearful of his power now that so many of their troops had been killed, banished him. He travelled with his household across North Africa, then sailed to Iberia. They settled and lived there for around two thousand years, multiplying into a great nation, before travelling to Ireland, then Dál Riata . A Scottish version of the tale of Goídel Glas and Scota
1107-534: The kingdom of Dál Riata emerged in western Scotland during the 6th century. The mainstream view is that Dál Riata was founded by Irish migrants, but this is not universally accepted. Archaeologist Ewan Campbell says there is no archaeological evidence for a migration or invasion, and suggests strong sea links helped maintain a pre-existing Gaelic culture on both sides of the North Channel . Dál Riata grew in size and influence, and Gaelic language and culture
1148-518: The language was not really Scottish, and therefore foreign. This was something of a propaganda label, as Gaelic has been in Scotland for at least as long as English, if not longer. In the early 16th century the dialects of northern Middle English , also known as Early Scots , which had developed in Lothian and had come to be spoken elsewhere in the Kingdom of Scotland , themselves later appropriated
1189-495: The middle of the 19th century; in 1874 around 30% of the population were estimated to speak Manx, decreasing to 9.1% in 1901 and 1.1% in 1921. The last native speaker of Manx, Ned Maddrell , died in 1974. At the end of the 19th century a revival of Manx began, headed by the Manx Language Society ( Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh ). Both linguists and language enthusiasts searched out the last native speakers during
1230-616: The name Scots . By the 17th century Gaelic speakers were restricted largely to the Highlands and the Hebrides. Furthermore, the culturally repressive measures taken against the rebellious Highland communities by The Crown following the second Jacobite Rebellion of 1746 caused still further decline in the language's use – to a large extent by enforced emigration (e.g. the Highland Clearances ). Even more decline followed in
1271-409: The nickname as a surname; the MacShanes in modern southern County Londonderry, and the MacShanes of Mayo. Shane had at least ten sons by his various wives. All of these ten are considered legitimate, but there may be others of a base origin. Many of them were later fostered in various O'Neill clans after their father's death, and eventually became the rival force to Hugh O'Neill in his climb to power in
MacShane - Misplaced Pages Continue
1312-562: The period from the 13th to the 18th century, during which time it was used as a literary standard in Ireland and Scotland. This is often called Classical Irish , while Ethnologue gives the name " Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic " to this standardised written language. As long as this written language was the norm, Ireland was considered the Gaelic homeland to the Scottish literati . Later orthographic divergence has resulted in standardised pluricentristic orthographies. Manx orthography, which
1353-468: The population. The 2001 census in Northern Ireland showed that 167,487 (10.4%) people "had some knowledge of Irish". Combined, this means that around one in three people ( c. 1.85 million ) on the island of Ireland can understand Irish at some level. Despite the ascent in Ireland of the English and Anglicised ruling classes following the 1607 Flight of the Earls (and the disappearance of much of
1394-522: The separate languages of Irish , Manx , and Scottish Gaelic . Irish is one of the Republic of Ireland 's two official languages along with English . Historically the predominant language of the island, it is now mostly spoken in parts of the south, west, and northwest. The legally defined Irish-speaking areas are called the Gaeltacht ; all government institutions of the Republic, in particular
1435-591: The sole Manx-medium primary school, the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh . Manx is taught as a second language at all of the island's primary and secondary schools and also at the University College Isle of Man and Centre for Manx Studies . Comparison of Goidelic numbers, including Old Irish. Welsh numbers have been included for a comparison between Goidelic and Brythonic branches. * un and daa are no longer used in counting. Instead
1476-411: The suppletive forms nane and jees are normally used for counting but for comparative purposes, the historic forms are listed in the table above There are several languages that show Goidelic influence, although they are not Goidelic languages themselves: Go%C3%ADdel Glas In medieval Irish and Scottish legend , Goídel Glas (Old Irish: [ˈɡoːi̯ðʲel ɡlas] ; Latinised as Gaithelus )
1517-645: The two other Goidelic languages. While Gaelic was spoken across the Scottish Borders and Lothian during the early High Middle Ages it does not seem to have been spoken by the majority and was likely the language of the ruling elite, land-owners and religious clerics. Some other parts of the Scottish Lowlands spoke Cumbric , and others Scots Inglis , the only exceptions being the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland where Norse
1558-417: Was eventually adopted by the neighbouring Picts (a group of peoples who may have spoken a Brittonic language ) who lived throughout Scotland . Manx, the language of the Isle of Man , is closely akin to the Gaelic spoken in the Hebrides , the Irish spoken in northeast and eastern Ireland, and the now-extinct Galwegian Gaelic of Galloway (in southwest Scotland), with some influence from Old Norse through
1599-403: Was introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, was based loosely on English and Welsh orthography, and so never formed part of this literary standard. Proto-Goidelic, or Proto-Gaelic, is the proposed proto-language for all branches of Goidelic. It is proposed as the predecessor of Goidelic, which then began to separate into different dialects before splitting during the Middle Irish period into
1640-504: Was recorded by John of Fordun . This is apparently not based on the main Irish Lebor Gabála account. Fordun refers to multiple sources, and his version is taken to be an attempt to synthesise these multiple accounts into a single history. In Fordun's version, Gaythelos, as he calls Goídel Glas, is the son of "a certain king of the countries of Greece, Neolus, or Heolaus, by name", who was exiled to Egypt and took service with
1681-531: Was spoken. Scottish Gaelic was introduced across North America with Gaelic settlers. Their numbers necessitated North American Gaelic publications and print media from Cape Breton Island to California. Scotland takes its name from the Latin word for 'Gael', Scotus , plural Scoti (of uncertain etymology). Scotland originally meant Land of the Gaels in a cultural and social sense. (In early Old English texts, Scotland referred to Ireland.) Until late in