Robert Shipboy MacAdam (1808-1895) was an Irish antiquary, folklorist and linguist and was the most active figure among the Belfast Presbyterians prominent in the early Irish-language revival. He was a secretary of Cuideacht Gaoidhilge Uladh (the Ulster Gaelic Society), president of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society, and the founding editor of the Ulster Journal of Archaeology. Together with the 20th century Gaelic scholar Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, since 1991 his memory has been honoured in the name of Belfast's Irish-language cultural centre Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich (An Chultúrlann).
Life and work
Family and business
MacAdam was born to Jane Shipboy (1774–1827) and her husband James MacAdam (1755–1821), who lived next to their hardware shop in High Street, Belfast. Before being apprenticed to his father, he was educated at the new Belfast Academical Institution, a school founded on progressive principles by the former United Irishman William Drennan, and other veterans of the radical politics of the 1790s. His first Irish language influence may have been his uncle, Robert MacAdam, who collected Gaelic songs and was a member of the Belfast Harp Society. At the school it would have been further stimulated by the Presbyterian minister, Hebrew and classical scholar, the Rev. William Neilson, author of An Introduction to the Irish Language (1808).
MacAdam, who in time was said to be fluent in a dozen languages, perfected his command of Irish in course of his extensive travels across Ireland on behalf of the family business.
With his older brother, James MacAdam, in 1846 he established the Soho Foundry in Townsend Street At its height, before the death in 1861 of his brother (a naturalist and geologist who in the interim had become the first librarian of Queen's College, Belfast), the firm had a workforce of 250 and an international reputation for the production of turbine engines (horizontal water wheels developed in France by Benoît Fourneyron).
MacAdam was a member of the Non-Subscribing First Presbyterian Church in Rosemary Street.
The Ulster Gaelic Society
MacAdam followed Samuel Neilson into Cuideacht Gaoidhilge Uladh (the Ulster Gaelic Society) when it was formed in 1828 under the chairmanship of Dr James MacDonnell and with the patronage of the Arthur Hill, Marquess of Downshire. While the members were interested in the contemporary Irish vernacular, rather than in the classical language of manuscripts, they abjured the evangelism that persuaded other Protestant laymen and clerics to study the spoken language. MacAdam, who became the society's joint secretary, protested that efforts to "beguile the poor Catholics from their faith" had done "more harm to the language than foreign persecution for 300 years". At the same time, he faulted the Catholic clergy. They had neglected to teach the Catechism, and to preach, in Irish, "even though that tongue had been the shield and protector of their faith".
MacAdam does not appear to have been in sympathy with the Catholic-majority moverment for national self-government. This was led by Daniel O'Connell, who though a Gaeilgeoir, declared himself "sufficiently utilitarian not to regret" the gradual abandonment of the language of his ancestors.
When Queen Victoria visited Belfast in 1849, MacAdam composed a series of publicly displayed "mottos" in Irish. These extended to "Ireland's Queen" a "thousand welcomes" from her "loving and loyal" subjects.
MacAdam committed to the task of collecting Irish folklore and manuscripts, promoting the study of Irish, and publishing books in the language. Among the books produced by the society were Tomás Ó Fiannachta's translations into Irish of Maria Edgeworth’s moral stories, Forgive and Forget and Rosanna, and An introduction to the Irish language intended for the use of Irish classes in the Royal Belfast Academical Institution – a grammar on which MacAdam and Ó Fiannachta collaborated.
Ulster Journal of Archaeology and later projects
After the Ulster Gaelic Society ceased to operate in 1843, MacAdam employed the poet Aodh Mac Domhnaill (Hugh McDonnell, who worked with MacAdam in the Soho foundry) as a full-time scribe and collector of songs, folklore, and Irish-language manuscripts. MacAdam himself collected extensively on business trips throughout Ulster and north Leinster. He also found ready material among Irish-speaking immigrants to Belfast. He was to discover, for example, that Charlement Street (now buried under the Castle Court shopping centre) was inhabited exclusively by Irish-speaking basket-makers from Omeath.