       |
Life
1944- ; ed. Bangor Grammar Sch. and QUB; registrar in pediatrics, Royal Belfast Hospital and Ulster Hospital, Dundonald ; fnd. Chairman of Somme Assoc., 1989; mbr. Ulster Scots Language Society, 1994; Farest Youth and Community Development, Ltd., 1982; founding member of Culturral Traditions Group (CRC); member of Ultach Trust; rector, Ulster-Scots Academy, 1994; Counciller Belfast City Council, 1989; Lord Mayor of Belfast, 1996; author of The Cruithin (1974), laying claims to Ulster descent from a pre-Gaelic people in Ireland; characterised as ‘an ancestral myth of origin’ by Seamus Deane (1984); also The Identity of Ulster (1982), and other works dealing with the ethnology of a group of pre-Celtic settlers in Ulster whose mentality is said to pervade the modern province. WWNI
[ top ]
Works
The Cruithin: The Ancient Kindred (Newtownards: Nosmada 1974); Bangor: Light of the World (Bangor: Fairview Press 1979); The Battle of Moira (Newtownards: Nosmada 1980); [ed.,] Sir Samuel Ferguson, Congal ([q. pub.] 1980); The Identity of Ulster: The Land, the Language and the People (Belfast: Pretani 1982, 2nd edn. 1987); The Ulster People: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (Bangor: Pretani Press 1991).
Also, 1690: William and the Boyne (1995). Contrib. to. David Hume, David McDowell, eds., Cuchulain: The Lost Legend (Belfast 1994).
[ top ]
Criticism
W. A. Hanna, Fortnight, 324 (Jan. 1994), pp.34-35, takes issue with H. J. Morgan’s attempt to dismiss theories of the Cruthin.
[ top ]
Quotations
‘[T]he most ancient inhabitants of Britain and Ireland to whom a definite name can be given ... were the Cru[i]thin of Ulster ... It is my purpose to trace these people to the present time and give them back the history which has been denied them for so long, for they are the Ancient Kindred of Ireland as well as Britain’ (q. source.)
‘[W]hen the Plantation of Ulster got underway, in the 17th century, those Scots who came over from the lowlands were in fact members of the Cruitin race returning to the land of their birthright.’ (Cuchulain: The Lost Legend, 1994, quoted in Tony Canavan reviewing works by A. T. Q. Stewart, in Fortnight, July-Aug. 1997, p.32.)
[ top ]