Snapshot or Signpost? The Role of English in Tadhg Ó Neachtain’s Early Eighteenth-Century Manuscripts

Seán Ó Neachtain (c. 1640–1729) and his son Tadhg (c. 1671–c. 1752) were at the centre of an extensive circle of Gaelic scholars in the city of Dublin in the early part of the eighteenth century. Seán Ó Neachtain composed a broad range of creative literature. Although primarily written in Irish, his works include examples of Irish/English code-mixing as well as pieces composed entirely in English. His son, Tadhg Ó Neachtain, is credited with having written over 25 surviving manuscripts. He makes considerable use of English sources and of English itself in a number of these manuscripts, which are either pedagogical in nature, devoted to geography and history, or are characterised by frequent commonplace entries referring to contemporary events. This paper examines the interaction of the two languages in these manuscripts, exploring (1) the use of English language sources (textbooks and Dublin newspapers), (2) the content of the English portions of the manuscripts in question, and (3) the relationship of the English material to the Irish in the immediate compositional context. The paper seeks to assess whether the permeating bilingualism of these manuscripts is merely indicative of the contemporary socio-linguistic milieu in which the Ó Neachtains functioned, or can be regarded as harbinger of the subsequent community language change from Irish to English.