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‘My rude, rustic muse’: The Poetry of ‘Rhyming Weaver’ John Dickey of Rockfield, County Antrim: An Overlooked Source for Family History – An Epilogue Murray Barkley (Guild member 30,086)

In her inspired lecture on the ‘Rhyming Weavers of Ulster’, untapped source for family history in Northern Ireland; and in delivered at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in the modest hope that some readers might be able to add to my June 2015, Laura Spence perceptively noted that the lists of sparse knowledge of my second great-grandfather’s early years subscribers of the Ulster-Scot weaver poets are an often as a ‘rhyming weaver’ in Antrim. Donald Alexander shared my overlooked source for family history. 1 And John Dickey, alone material with his good friend Billy Gawn who had written the among the rhyming weavers,2 enterprisingly arranged his list history of Second Donegore Presbyterian Church7 and who of subscribers not only alphabetically, but poetically, including possesses an in-depth knowledge of the local history of the area. in addition to their names and their hometowns, frequently their Mr Gawn put together a convincing argument for the exact professions or livelihoods, and occasionally personal details,3 location of Rockfield, employing impressive historical detective a unique and valuable source for genealogical research and work, based on comprehensive documentation from John family history. Dickey’s own poetry, his knowledge of local geography and history, his remembrance of its earlier appearance, deductive Dickey’s ‘Subscribers Names Poetically and Alphabetically reasoning, and common sense. Arranged’ does indeed contain a wealth of information for the local historian or family genealogist of the valley of the Six First of all, there are several manifestations of ‘Donegore’ in Mile Water of two centuries ago. The noted historian Donald the area. Donegore Hill is the most prominent, but ‘Donegore’ Alexander, author of the superb study, Parkgate Presbyterians: is also a townland and a small cluster of residences on its People and Kirk over Four Centuries: The First Donegore southern slope. The civil parish of Donegore in the historic Story,4 wrote to me that he wished he had known about the John barony of Antrim Upper, however, lies slightly to the north and Dickey subscribers when he was writing his history. ‘Many of extending to the east of Donegore Hill, and includes the the names are familiar to me and include some of my ancestors, townlands of Ballyclaverty and Ballywoodock. Nineteenth- e.g. Fergusons and McConnells’, he noted, adding, ‘I have to century Ordnance Survey maps shows a small settlement on a apologize retrospectively that none of the Alexanders laneway just to the east of Browndodd Road in Ballyclaverty, subscribed although they were certainly around at the time and and slightly to the north of the present-day Hollybank Road. some of those mentioned were their neighbours.’ And he Billy Gawn examined the list of the seven individuals that John concluded insightfully, ‘It seems to me that the subscriber list Dickey identified as living in ‘Rockfield’ and singled out the adds an important dimension to the period not otherwise Barkleys and McNeillys from his early memory as living close available from other records.’5 together on that lane once lined with a row of old cottages. The area fits the description of Rockfield given by John Dickey. It The most surprising mystery, however, considering all the is to the eastern side of Donegore parish. The dwellings down modern references to John Dickey and his poetry by John the laneway are near the brow of the hill on Browndodd Road. Hewitt, Jennifer Orr, Carol Baraniuk,6 and others, is how little The houses were in the shade of the hill and sheltered from the comes to light about his life in Antrim, outside of his poetry, west and north.8 Rockfield was thus in Ballyclaverty where his from traditional genealogical sources. Indeed, nothing is to be brothers were also identified as residing. A map of the area from found in the local estate papers or parish records on John the late 1700s showed most land in a natural unclaimed state, Dickey himself, and precious little on his brothers Arthur and suggesting the name ‘rocky field’ would be appropriate. Thomas. But it is in the lines of his poetry – and between the lines – that John Dickey’s story begins to take shape and come As well, in his subscribers list, Billy Gawn noted that John to life through furtive hints and passing clues. He gives his Dickey wrote: address, for example, right on the title page as ‘Rockfield, Donegore’. Rockfield is not identified on the Ordnance Survey As musing I pass’d Ballywoodock in thought, maps and even today most local historians are unfamiliar with The fancy of young Andrew Snody I caught, its location. Among his subscribers, however, seven are When near Ballycleverty passing I pause, identified as being from Rockfield (as distinct from a further And find Andrew Service a friend to my cause …9 seven identified as from Donegore). I surmised that it was a rural hamlet now defunct or with its name changed. He wrote The use of the word ‘musing’ would suggest that this was an to Samuel Thomson ‘from Donegore’s green eastern side’ (page area where he walked and composed his poetry. He would have 66); ‘from Rockfield’s shades’ (page 67); and to James Orr walked past Ballywoodock lane and turned right down the ‘Frae the auld hill o’ DONEGORE/ On whase brow stands the following laneway on his way home towards where Billy Gawn mansion/ In which I dwell …’ (page 83). Donald Alexander had deduced he lived in Ballyclaverty.10 He would hardly have kindly drove me around Donegore Hill in September, 2018, but strolled in this neighbourhood if he had not lived nearby. Thus, no location there suggested itself. the co-ordinates 54°45’ 13.30’ North Latitude by 6°06’ 40.00’ West Longitude come down on the old Rockfield laneway just My intentions in submitting the original article of this title to the about the centre of what was once Rockfield11 where the former 2018 edition of the Directory of Irish Family History Research homes of the Barkleys and McNeillys were located in the early were to make better known the writings of the Ulster-Scot nineteenth century. Today they are located on the remnants of weaver poet John Dickey; to share his subscribers’ list as an that laneway just on the north side of Hollybank Farm.

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DIRECTORY OF IRISH FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH One final reflection by Billy Gawn, extrapolated from John poet James Orr, a prominent United Irishman who had to flee Dickey’s poetry, that might explain why Dickey left Parkgate for a while to America.21 It is unlikely that ‘driven by fate’ and eventually left Donegore to emigrate to Upper Canada. In would have referred simply to his family’s ‘low straw-roof’d the 1798 Rebellion, one of the largest brigades of United cot’ having burnt down by accident. These hints seem to have Irishmen had congregated on Donegore Hill. One of their been furtively planted, whether intentionally or not, in his leaders, James Dickey, an Ulster Presbyterian barrister and poems. Concerning this speculation, Donald Alexander replied member of the society of United Irishmen, was captured by the to say that authorities and hung on June 26, 1798 at the Corn Market, Belfast,12 his head being placed on a spike outside the market I found your analysis of John Dickey and his family house. His brother, John Dickey of Crumlin was also implicated background entirely plausible. Such analysis helps in our in the rebellion. He was informed on by neighbours who had understanding of what happened in and around the time of noticed that he was making pikes and attending secret meetings ‘the 98’. By all accounts the Dickeys were certainly activists of the United Irishmen late at night.13 Arrested and court and some of them paid the price. I also have the feeling that local families suppressed any discussion of their involvement martialled, he refused the terms granted by the government to in the events at that time. I guess they decided pragmatically the ‘State Prisoners’ in Dublin. He was transported to the West to ‘move on’. There was no advantage in getting into the Indies for penal servitude, but managed to escape and made his martyr business. Those at greatest risk took off for way to America.14 A Samuel Martin Dickie [sic] was arrested in somewhere safe.22 April, 1799, ‘taken in arms near Doagh’.15 At present, the relationship of the above three Dickeys to the weaver poet John There would seem to have been a possible connection between Dickey is not known,16 but this may not have mattered to the 1798 and the Dickey family, and this was perhaps the reason authorities during those turbulent times. It was impossible to why he was so circumspect in his references to his family and remain neutral and there was great hatred between the factions.17 indeed to the location of his home in his poetry – in its lines and between the lines. Billy Gawn has noted that John Dickey’s ‘Address to Parkgate’ is particularly revealing. He had been born in Parkgate ‘In a low Thus through weaver poet John Dickey’s verse, and the clues to straw-roof’d cottage’, ‘Though driven by fate from thee in early his life and insights into his identity embedded there, I was able years’.18 A possible clue as to why is found three pages later, to bridge the generations and the years and came to know him when he notes that ‘The trees I climbed, now only shew the better. In this pursuit I was certainly fortunate to have received spot/ Where stood my dear, my much-loved native cot.’19 It is the kind and learned assistance of Donald Alexander and Billy possible, Billy Gawn adds, that the cottage where he was born Gawn, two very fine scholars and gentlemen. As a result I feel was ‘burnt down and totally destroyed because of his father’s a direct connection with my ancestor that would not be there stance politically at the time and the family fled to the nearby had he been reduced to dates and references. And I can almost hills to avoid further trouble …’.20 The Yeomanry were notorious hear him say (as he wrote to his mentor Samuel Thomson), for their ‘reign of terror’ following the 1798 Rebellion, and such acts of barbarism were hardly untypical of them. He mentions So farewell my friend, at a crisis so tricky, his mother and brothers in his poetry, but never his father. He In true love and friendship, I’m yours, Johnny Dickey.23 talks of Donegore Hill in his poem written to his fellow weaver

1 Laura Spence, ‘Rhyming Weavers of Ulster’, an address delivered 12 Robert M. Young, Ulster in ‘98: Episodes and Anecdotes (Belfast: at Ulster Scots Connections: People, Place and Practice Series of Marcus Ward & Co., Ltd., 1893), pp 32–8. Talks, PRONI, 17 June 2015. 13 PRONI, T2125/3/6: Deposition of Hugh Reid [In Regard to John 2 John Hewitt (ed.), Rhyming Weavers & Other Country Poets of Dickey of Crumlin], 1798. Antrim and Down (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1974), pp 15–16; 14 William Roulston and Trevor Parkhill, ‘Directory of Ulster Exiles’, Frank Ferguson, ‘Ulster-Scots Literature’, in The Oxford History of in Peter Gilmore, Trevor Parkhill, and William Roulston, Exiles of the Irish Book, Vol. IV: The Irish Book in English, 1800–1891, edited ’98: Ulster Presbyterians and the United States (Belfast: Ulster by James H. Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. Historical Foundation, 2018), p. 161. 425. 15 Alexander, Parkgate Presbyterians, pp 63–4. 3 John Dickey, ‘Subscribers Names, Poetically and Alphabetically 16 There was no shortage of Dickeys in Antrim in the seventeenth and Arranged’, in Poems on Various Subjects (Belfast: George Berwick, early eighteenth centuries, and their genealogy for those years has 1818), pp 1–6. been carefully documented. The Dickey family was concentrated 4 Donald Alexander, Parkgate Presbyterians: People and Kirk over around Ballymena, with smaller groups in Antrim town, Four Centuries: The First Donegore Story (Parkgate: The First Muckamore, Crumlin, Ballymoney, Lisburn, and Belfast. See Donegore Press, 2011). ‘Descendants of Robert Dickey (1463–1538)’, 5 Donald Alexander, email to Murray Barkley, 4 December 2018. www.clandickey.com/history.php, pp 1–14. 6 Carol Baraniuk, James Orr: Poet and Irish Radical (Abington, UK: 17 Guy Beiner, ‘Severed heads and floggings: the undermining of Pickering and Chatto, 2014), passim. oblivion in Ulster in the aftermath of 1798’, in The Body in Pain in 7 William A. Gawn, A History of Second Donegore Presbyterian Irish Literature and Culture, edited by Fionnuala Dillane, Naomi Church to Celebrate the Centenary of Our Building dedicated 14 McAreavey and Emilie Pine (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), June 1908 (Dunamuggy, Parkgate: Second Donegore Presbyterian pp 77–97. Church, 2008). 18 John Dickey, ‘The Retrospect’, in Poems on Various Subjects, p. 59, 8 Billy Gawn, email to Donald Alexander, forwarded to Murray and ‘Address to Parkgate’, in same, p. 12. Barkley, 15 February 2019. 19 John Dickey, ‘Address to Parkgate’, in Poems on Various Subjects, 9 John Dickey, ‘Subscribers Names, Poetically and Alphabetically p. 15. Arranged’, in Poems on Various Subjects, p. 6. 20 Billy Gawn, email to Murray Barkley, 20 February 2019. 10 Billy Gawn, email to Donald Alexander, forwarded to Murray 21 John Dickey, ‘On the Death of James Orr, of Ballycarry, who died Barkley, 15 February 2019. on the 24th April, 1816’, in Poems on Various Subjects, pp. 90-92; 11 The original location of Rockfield, according to Billy Gawn’s Baraniuk, James Orr, pp. 2, 79–80. calculations, is clearly shown on the Griffith’s Valuation map of 22 Donald Alexander, email to Murray Barkley, 2 March 2019. 1864 of Ballyclaverty in the parish of Donegore at the co-ordinates 23 John Dickey, ‘Epistle to S. Thomson, of Carngranny, A Brother Poet’, cited. It fits John Dickey’s description precisely. [Part 3, February 20, 1815], in Poems on Various Subjects, p. 79.

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DIRECTORY OF IRISH FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

The location of Rockfield (as deduced by Billy Gawn)

McNeilly lived in house to right within my memory Barklie lived in house to left and owned farm land around it There was a row of old cottages in my memory at this location

Ballywoodock Lane

Highest point on the Browndodd Road

The area within the oval line on this nineteenth-century Ballyclaverty in Halftown there is still an area which still Ordnance Survey map in many ways fits the description remains unclaimed and the name rocky field would be given by John Dickey of Rockfield. It is to the eastern side appropriate. Also in his poem of subscribers he says, ‘As of Donegore parish. The dwellings down the laneway are musing I passed Ballywoodock in thought – The fancy of near to the brow of a hill on Browndodd Road. Where the young Andrew Snoddy I caught – When near Ballyclaverty houses are built, they are in the shade of the hill and sheltered passing I pause – And find Andrew Service a friend to my from the west and north. In his poem of subscribers he lists cause.’ The use of the word musing would suggest that this his brothers as living in Rockfield, later they are living in was an area where he walked and composed his poetry. He Ballyclaverty. But if I am correct Rockfield was part of would have gone past Ballywoodock lane and turned right Ballyclaverty so they did not move house. An old map of down the laneway towards where I believe he lived in this area in the late 1700s showed most of it in its natural Ballyclaverty. state with few fields marked out. Just over the ditch from

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