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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
Both Wallace (c. 1270-1305) and Bruce (1274-1329)
are credited with having been fluent Gaelic speakers. In
Ayrshire and Galloway, as Professor Mackinnon notes,
Gaelic was spoken for centuries after Wallace's time, and
Wallace himself was also in the habit of wearing Gaelic
dress. In 1434 an Englishman of the name of Hendry
visited the lowlands of Moray and Aberdeen and found
the Irish language still commonly spoken there. About
1505 Dunbar wrote his Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie.
Walter Kennedy was the third son of the first Lord Ken-
nedy, heritable bailie of Carrick. He was well acquainted
with Irish, then common in Carrick, on which account
Dunbar abuses him as an "Irische bryour baird" and an
"Ersch katherane with thy polk breik and rilling," from
which it may be inferred Kennedy wore Irish dress. To
Dunbar's abuse of the Irish language, Kennedy replies
with dignity and good sense :
"Bot it suld be all trew Scottis mennis lede (i. e., speech) ;
It was the gud langage of this land,
And Scota it causit to multiply and sprede." 1
Between the years 1563 and 1566 an English official
drew up a military report on the districts of Cunning-
ham, Kyle, and Carrick, with reference to the possibility
of their occupation by an invading English army. He
described Carrick as follows: "Inhabited by
therle of
Cassils and his frendes, a barrant cuntree but for bestiall;
the people for the moste part speketht erishe."2 In another
description of Carrick and other parts
1577 it was remarked that "the people's speech
gled with the English and Irish,
of Scotland in
is min-
not far from Carrick-
fergus." 3 The same writer noted that the people of the
iDunbar's Poems, ii, 11-29.
2 Archaeological and Historical Collections of Ayr and Wigton, IV, 17.
s Calendar of Scottish Papers, V. 257.
316