Please note there are three separate news stories here, each adding a different dimension. Nelson's View - The Minister's Pen Nelson McCausland MLA - Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure - Northern Ireland (Democratic Unionist Party). A personal blog hopefully giving an insight into my time as Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure. Wednesday, 3 March 2010 1641 Massacre _http://theministershttp://theminhttp://thhttp://theministhttp://thehttp://t heministht&utm_medium=twitter_ (http://theministerspen.blogspot.com/2010/03/1641-massacre.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) Academics from the University of Aberdeen have been given a £334,000 grant to examine the depositions of English and Scottish settlers about the masscre of Protestants in Ulster in 1641. The 4,000 depositions are held in Trinity College Dublin and describe the events of that terrible time. The historians will use cutting-edge software to examine and cross-reference names, places, words and phrases in an effort to establish just how many people were murdered. The most recent estimates put the figure at between 4,000 and 12,000. There can be no doubt that the Irish rebels had a sectarian motivation. Writing on 7 December 1641 Father Hugh Bourke, at that time commisary of the Irish Friars Minor in Germany and Belgium, admitted that the war was ‘ begun solely in the interest of the Catholic and Roman religion’. [Jesuit Plots p 163; Report on Franciscan Manuscripts, Command Paper 2867, HMSO 1906] Indeed the fact that this was a Roman Catholic rebellion against Protestantism was acknowledged by the Jesuit writer Oliver P Rafferty in his history of Roman Catholicism in Ulster: 'The bloody Ulster uprising of 1641 ... represented ... a spontaneous outpouring of hatred against Protestantism and all it stood for.' [Catholicism in Ulster 1603-1983 p 1] But what was the extent of the massacre? In the past there were grossly exaggerated figures but even if it were only 4,000 or 12,000 people it was still a dreadful massacre and left a dreadful legacy of hatred and fear. Even the lower figure of 4,000 is greater than the number of people killed in the recent Troubles in Northern Ireland and yet the killing happened at a time when the Protestant population of Ulster was much smaller, around 100,000. Furthermore it happened in a much shorter period and in addition to those who were murdered, many others died as a result of ill treatment and deprivation. The respected Ulster historian Dr A T Q Stewart once said that ’The 1641 rebellion is perhaps the most important episode in the history of Ulster since the plantation, yet it is one of the least discussed.’ Perhaps this new research will help to focus attention on that 'important episode'. The massacre certainly had an important place in the history of the Ulster-Scots and not just because of its impact on the relationship between the Scottish settlers and the native Irish, who were Roman Catholics. It also led to the arrival of a Scottish army in Ulster in April 1642 to protect the Scottish settlers and on 10 June the chaplains of the Scottish army formed their own presbytery. This was the start of organised Presbyterianism in Ulster and it became the General Synod of Ulster. ------------- Experts explore 1641 Irish slayings of Protestants _http://www.google.http://www.googhttp://www.http://wwhttp://www.googlhttp:/ /www.googlht_ (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jp_CUCsImf_nVQcGu1VWZqH_Ag3gD9E6K4K00) By SHAWN POGATCHNIK (AP) – 1 day ago DUBLIN — One of the most divisive and hotly disputed events in Irish history — the 1641 killings of thousands of Protestant settlers by Catholic natives — is to be examined in forensic detail for the first time, researchers said Tuesday. The scale of the bloodshed left communal scars for centuries. Protestants cited it as their basis for fearing and oppressing the natives, while Catholics insisted the historical record was grossly exaggerated to justify subsequent British repression in Ireland. Now, scholars from Aberdeen University in Scotland and Trinity College Dublin will analyze and seek patterns in 20,000 pages of statements from 4,000 witnesses. The 1642-1655 documents, stored in Trinity's historical archives since the 1740s, have been converted over the past two years into digital form. Researchers now plan to dissect the language used and references to assailants, with the goal of separating truth from fiction and facts from artistic license. The lead researcher, Aberdeen language and linguistics expert Barbara Farrell, said the scale of the 1641 slaughter was cited as justification for when the English army of Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland in the 1650s and killed natives without mercy. English parliamentary documents of the time claimed more than 200,000 Protestants had been killed but Farrell said the most reliable estimate today is that at least 4,000 died. Farrell said the research would determine whether survivor accounts written down by Cromwell's fact-finders were accurate, exaggerated or outright lies. She expressed confidence in finding evidence of the "manipulation" of some figures and events. The 1641 rebellion presaged the English Civil War and the rise of Cromwell. Catholics broadly loyal to the Catholic-sympathetiThe 1641 rebellion presaged the English Civil War and the rise of Cromwell. Catholics broadly loyal to the Catholic-sympatheti<WBR>c king of England, Charles I, seized power in Ireland — Protestants in modern-day Northern Ireland continue to cite the legacy of the 1641 massacre as a foundation for their resistance to Irish Catholic rule. Modern parade banners of the Orange Order, the major Protestant brotherhood, depict the 1641 violence as the attempted genocide of Ireland's Protestants. --------------- 1641 massacre accounts examined _http://news.http://newhttp://news.<Whttp://news.<WBRhtt_ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8545972.stm) Woodcutting of massacre Up to 12,000 Protestants are thought to have been killed in the massacres A group of academics has been tasked to reinvestigate a centuries-old massacre of Protestants in Ireland. University language experts have been given a grant of £334,000 to pore over thousands of witness accounts of massacres following the 1641 rebellion. The Protestant death toll was most recently put at between 4,000 and 12,000, mainly in Ulster. However, there have been allegations that accounts of the killings were exaggerated for propaganda purposes. Four thousand depositions corresponding to about 20,000 pages which have been locked away in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) since 1741, have been transcribed into digital format over the past two years. The research team will use IBM technology, known as "dirty text" analysis software, to examine and cross-reference names, places, words and phrases. This will give us an insight into who allegedly did what to who, and then it will allow us to investigate the reliability of the evidence Dr Barbara Fennell Dr Barbara Fennell, senior language and linguistics lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, who will lead the project, said they expect to prove within a year whether witness statements were genuine or overstated by commissioners working for Oliver Cromwell. "It is important to remember that these depositions are mediated by the commissioner who wrote them down so there is inevitably manipulation of the descriptions,"It is import "That's what we are investigating, and given that it was such a sensitive time, and given what Cromwell did later in exaggerating it all, I think we have a really interesting tool here to see if there has been that kind of manipulation." Dr Fennell said the next stage of the project would allow them to profile persons alleged to have carried out certain atrocities and map where they were supposed to have happened. The academics will then use "forensic linguistics" to test the reliability of the reports, based on the wording, phrases and the veracity of the commissioners who took it down. "This will give us an insight into who allegedly did what to who, and then it will allow us to investigate the reliability of the evidence," Dr Fennell said. __._,_.___