The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #10313   Message #738149
Posted By: Fiolar
27-Jun-02 - 10:31 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Clun Malla (Cluain Meala, field of honey)
Subject: RE: ADD LYR: Clûn Malla
Regarding "Tories": The following is an extract from "The Oxford Companion to Irish History."
"The word 'tory' from the Irish 'toraidhe'(raider) has been traced back to 1646.....The original tories of the Restoration period were perceived as dispossessed Catholics waging a war of revenge against the new social order created by the land confiscations of the 1640 and 1650s. Yet it remains unclear how far all toryism, even in the Restoration period, was of this character, and how far some at least of what was so described should be seen as representing banditry of the kind found in remote and underpoliced regions throughout early modern Europe.
The use of 'Tory' in English politics goes back to the exclusion crisis of 1679-81. The Whigs who sought to exclude the future James II, as a Catholic, from the throne, applied the term derisively to James' supporters. After the revolution of 1688 'Tory' re-emerged as the generally accepted name for one of the two sides in an increasingly bitter party conflict."
As a kid growing up in Ireland, pine cones were called "tory tops." Don't know where the term arose and can only surmise that it meant the dried heads of executed individuals in early times and over the years the meaning was lost. Canon O'Leary in his autobiography "Mo Sgeal Fein" describes what he thought were three black balls over Macroom castle. Later he learned that they were three skulls on spikes. He was born in 1839 and if he was in his teens when he saw them, the habit must have continued well into the 19th century.
Regarding "Whiteboys", and again referring to the Oxford Companion, it states that there were two outbreaks of agrarian protest. One began in Co. Tipperary in 1761 and spread to counties Limerick, Waterford, Cork and Kilkenny and continued until 1765. A second wave in 1769 to 1775 affected Kilkenny, Tipperary, Queen's County (Laois),Carlow and Wexford. The term arose from the practise of wearing white shirts over everyday clothing.