Ulick Bourke [Canon]

Life

1829-1887 [Ulick Joseph Bourke; Uileog de Búrca; the Rev. Canon Ulick J. Bourke, MRIA]; b. 29 Dec. Laherdane, Castlebar, Co. Mayo; ed. Errew Monastery, Castlebar; taught by James Hardiman; entered Jesuit Seminary, Tuam, Co. Galway and , 1846, and proceeded to St. Patrick’s, Maynooth, 1849; ord. March 1858; appt. Professor of Humanities at St. Jarlath’s, 1858; also Logic, 1863; he taught and inspired a generation of future cultural nationalists and Fenians incl. Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa [q.v.], John O’Donovan [q.v.,] Mark Ryan, and Michael Larkin;
 
introduced the teaching of Irish and became widely known as a language-revivalist; instrumental in acceptance of Irish as an Intermediate Exam subject, 1878; published College Irish Grammar (1856); contrib. “Easy Lessons or self-instruction in Irish” to The Nation during 1858 (publ. in book-form, 1867 ), being the first accessible gramar of Irish; served as President of St. Jarlath’s, 1865-78; appt. Canon at Cathedral at Tuam, 1872, and acted as private secretary to Archbishop John MacHale; appt. parish priest of Claremorris Co. Mayo, 1878; served on Land League Committee, 1879; appt. to Commission on Knock Apparitions, 1879, and wrote on the Immaculate Conception (1880) and the Intercessory power of the Blessed Virgin (1881); fnd. Tuam News and Western Advertiser, 1870;
 
fnd. Keltic Journal and Educator (1869) and contrib. to An Gaodhal (NY), 1881; served by turn as council member and President of Ossianic Soc., 1853 and 1856; founding member and first chairman of the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, 1876, but left to found, the Gaelic Union [Aontach na Gaedhilge] with David Comyn [q.v.], March 1880; publ. Life and Times of the Most Rev. John MacHale (1882) [q.v.] and edited his works in Irish; ed. James Gallagher’s Sermons in Irish Gaelic with English Translation (1877); wrote The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language (1875) and Pre-Christian Ireland (1887); elected MRIA, 1871 [var. 1866]; contrib. to funeral fund of the Fenian leader Terence Bellow MacManus in defiance of Cardinal Cullen;
 
appt. examiner in Keltic and Irish History, Royal University [RUI/NUI], 1880; d. 22 Nov. 1887, and bur. Claremorris, where an Irish-language school bears his name [Gaelscoil Uileog de Búrca]; there is a commemorative plaque at Linehall St., Castlebar; his Sermons of Bishop O’Gallagher were consulted by Brian Friel (NLI,Friel Papers 1960-2001.)

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Works
Philology (Irish language)
  • The College Irish Grammar: compiled chiefly with a view to aid the students of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth and of the Catholic University of Ireland, in the Study of the national language (Dublin & London: John Daly 1856),  xxvii, [1], 204pp. [see details]].
  • Easy Lessons or Self-Instruction in Irish [2nd. edn.] (Dublin: John Mullany 1860), iv, 390pp.; [rep. from The Nation]; and Do. (NY: Haverty 1873), 390pp.
  • The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1875; 2nd. Edn. 1876) xvii, 512pp. [ see details].
  • Pre-Christian Ireland (Dublin: Browne & Nolan 1887), xii, 235pp. [available at Internet Archive - online].
Theology & Ecclesiastics
  • The Bull ineffabilis Deus (Dublin, 1868) [on the Immaculate Conception in four languages; Latin, Irish, French and English].
  • Sermons in Irish-Gaelic by the Most Rev. James O'Gallagher; with literal idiomatic English translation on opposite pages, and Irish-Gaelic vocabulary, also a Memoir of the Bishop and his Times (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son 1877), lxv, 429pp., 22cm.
  • The Life and Labours of St. Augustin, Bishop of Hippo Regius, with an account of the Canons Regular and of the Augustinian Friars in Ireland (Dublin, 1879).
  • The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dublin, 1880)
  • The Dignity, Sanctity and Intercessory Power of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God (Dublin, 1881).
  • The Life and Times of the Most Rev. Dr. MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam (Dublin: M. H. Gill 1882), viii, 208pp.; Do. [in Irish as Beatha Sheaghain Mhic Heil, Airdeaspoig Thuama] (Dublin, 1882); Do., [3rd Edn.] (NY P. J. Kenedy [1882]), 208pp.
Political pamphlets
  • A Plea for the Evicted Tenants of Mayo (Dublin, 1883) [addressed to W. E. Gladstonem PM.]
Miscellaneous
  • ed., Ard righ deighionac na Teamhrach : sgeul air Eirmn anns an seiseadh aois [The last monarch of Tara : a tale of Ireland in the sixth century], by “Eblana” [i.e., T. J. Rooney, 1840-1911]; rev. and corr. by U. J. Canon Bourke (Dublin: M. H. Gill 1880), 311pp.

Bibliographical details
The College Irish Grammar: compiled chiefly with a view to aid the students of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth and of the Catholic University of Ireland, in the study of the national language (Dublin & London: John Daly 1856),  xxvii, [1], 204pp., 1 pl., 23 cm. [NLI]; Do. [2nd edn.; with a key] (Dublin: John Mullany [1860]) [BL]; Do Third Edn.; third thousand] (s.n. 1865), [4], xiv, 304, xvip ; 18cm.; Do. [reiss. under auspices of Society for the Preservation of Irish Language] (Dublin: M.H. Gill 1879), xiv, 304pp.; Do. [Fifth edition; Fifth thousand] (Dublin: John Mullany, Parliament Street and sold by all booksellers 1868), xiv, 304pp. [+ Critical Notices [i]-xvi; available at HathiTrust - online].

Pre-Christian Ireland (Dublin: Brown & Nolan, 1887), 235pp. [Index, p.[119]ff.; List of 100 best hundred Irish books (pp.213-17; short sect. on Music [4 titles], p.217. The work is written in the form of a catechism - e.g., ‘Q. 1. What are the principal sources from which proofs are drawn, attesting the reality of the Danann tribes as a people who possessed Eire at a very early period?’ (Chap. VIII; p.69.) The work draws of Petrie, Wilde, O’Donovan, O’Curry and many others to demonstrate the existences of a pre-Christian civilisation in Ireland whose origins are more or less faithfully narrated in the Leabhar Gabhala. [BS]

The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language: showing the present and past literary position of Irish Gaelic ... one thousand unpublished Irish manuscripts  (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1875), xvii, 512pp. Full title: The Aryan Origin of the Gaelic Race and Language, Showing the Present and Past Literary Position of Irish Gaelic; Its Phonesis, the Fountain of Classic Pronunciation; Its Laws Accord With Grimm’s Laws; Its Bardic Beauties the Source of Rhyme; the Civilisation of Pagan Ireland; Early Knowledge of Letters; the Art of Illuminating, Ancient Architecture. The Round Towers. The Brehon Law. Truth of the Pentateuch. Knowledge in Pagan Times Retrogressive, Not Progressive; The Inductive Sciences; Philology and Ethnology Confirm the Truth of Irish History; Gaelic Names of Persons and Places Full of Historic Suggestiveness; in the Respect and in Poetic Power Irish Gaelic Superior to Sanskrit. One Thousand Unpublished Irish Manuscripts. By the Very Rev. U. J. Bourke, M.R.I.A. Canon of Tuam Cathedral, and President of St. Jarlath’s College; Author of the “College Irish Grammar” Easy Lessons in Irish, &c. Colophon inverted: T.p. verso: News and Advertiser Machine Printing Office, Tuam. Ded. to The Archbishop of Tuam. [available at Google Books - online; also HathiTrust - online; access 21.06.2024.

Note that Bourke commences a list of epigraphs with the following from Max Müller: ‘The Kelts seem to have been the first of the Aryans to arrive in Europe. the pressure of subsequent migrations, particularly of Teutonic tribes, has driven them towards the western-most parts, and latterly from Ireland, across the Atlantic.’ (Müller, Science of Language - Lect. V; [Bourke, n.p.]; prefixed to Contents.)

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Criticism
Helena Concannon, ‘Canon Ulick J. Bourke (1829-87) (“Father of the Gaelic revival”), in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Ser. 5, Vol. 73 (May 1950), pp.405-17; Shane Faherty, ‘“A Few Good Canons?”: Canon Ulick Bourke and Clerical Reactions to the Outbreak of the Land War’, in Defying the Law of the Land: Agrarian Radicals in Irish History, ed. Brian Casey (Dublin: The History Press 2013), q.pp.

[Sundry reviews and other printed comments connected with Ulick Bourke’s publications are listed under “Sources” in the National Library of Ireland Catalogue - including:

Seamus Ó Casaide [ed.,], ‘Post bag: Letter re the Keltic Journal printed in Manchester about 1869. Did Rev. Ulick J. Bourke, of Tuam, edit it?’ See long article in reply by T. B. Costello, pp.147-49, April [1913] - in response to article in The Irish Book Lover, IV (Feb. 1913), pp. 125-26.
See NLI Cat - search [accessed 21.06.2024.]

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Quotations

The College Irish Grammar [Fifth edition; Fifth thousand] (Dublin: John Mullany, Parliament Street and sold by all booksellers 1868) - incls. rep. of Preface to 2nd edn. [1863]:
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Since this edition has been put to press, one of the greatest Irish Scholars of the present or any former century has passed away—the learned and the lamented John O’Donovan, LL.D. A cycle of years will not repay to tho cause of Celtic literature the loss it has sustained in his death. May his memory be ever dear to every lover of ancient lore and real learning.
 His was the master-hand which first moulded into philological and philosophical form and fullness the chaotic mass into which persecution for ages past, and consequent inability of Irishmen at home to attend to its preservation, much less to its literary cultivation, had reduced their mother-tongue; a tongue which has been pronounced by a linguistic lover to be as clear as Latin, flexible and harmonious as Greek, stately as Spanish, soft as Italian, fluent as French, and expressive as German. Dr. O’Donovan’s work infused into the written speech of the Gael spirit and life, which length of time alone can extinguish.
 Although he did much, yet—no wonder—he left much undone; and though he laboured for the cause of the people’s language, the many had not been enabled to profit by his labours.
 The College Grammar was written and published for the sake of the many, and to improve, as best one could, the literary character of the vernacular speech. On its first appearance the work was favourably noticed by the learned. Being now entirely re-cast, the present edition - embracing the [ii] results of observations made during the last six years through the provinces on the spoken dialects, and in works published and unpublished on the written speech - cannot fail to be of much additional service to the student and the savant.
  To lament, like hireling mourners, the loss of the language of the past, and at the same time, to neglect or decry the living, spoken language of the present, bespeaks insincerity at heart, and proves such flippant eulogists of the Gaelic to be actuated for its preservation or advancement only by that kind of regard for which step-mothers are proverbial. Good wishes without practice are like like flowers without fruit.

St. Jarlath‘s College,
Feast of St. Philip and James, 1863

—College Grammar (Dublin 1868), p.[i]) - available at HathiTrust - online].

See also Bourke’s quotation from Matthew Ireland on the felt lack of affinity of the Engish with the Irish in The Aryan origins of the Irish (1875) - under Arnold - as supra.]

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Reference
Sources: Wikipedia makes reference to an earlier version of this notice in RICORSO; the present revised entry owes much to the Wikipedia notice and more to Helen Andrews’ article on Bourke in the Dictionary of irish Biography (RIA 2009) - online.

National Library of Ireland [NLI] contains Material on Irish proverbs collected by William Smith O’Brien, [being] Transcriptions of proverbs in Ulick Bourke’s Irish Grammar [1856; 1868 &c.]; also Vernacular Sayings of the Peasantry of Co. Clare (Dept. of MSS, 1 folder (1 vol. and 12 sheets). Presumably matter for the second edition (1863).

Dictionary of Irish Biography cites [inter al.]: J. G[lynn?], ‘Miniature memoirs’, Dublin Journal, i, no. 6 (1 May 1887), p.94; A[rthur] G[riffith], ‘Irish revivalists: Canon Ulick Bourke’, Evening Telegraph, 15 Nov. 1913; T. B. Costello, ‘The Keltic Journal and Educator’, Irish Book Lover, IV, No. 9 (1913), 147–9; Helena Concannon, ‘Canon Ulick J. Bourke (1829–87), “Father of the Gaelic Revival”’, Irish Eccles. Record, lxxiii (1950), 405–17; T. W. Moody, Davitt and Irish revolution 1846–82 (1981); D. E. Jordan, Land and Popular Politics in Ireland (1994); Marie-Louise Legg, Newspapers and nationalism: the Irish provincial press, 1850–1892 (1999); John Cunningham, St Jarlath’s College Tuam 1800–2000 (1999). See Helen Andrews, "Canon Ulick Joseph Bourke", in Dict. of Irish Biography, RIA 2009 - online; accessed 20.06.2024.)

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