Life
1944- ; ed. Bangor Grammar Sch. and QUB; registrar in pediatrics, Royal
Belfast Hospital and Ulster Hospital, Dundonald ; fnd. Chairman of Somme
Assoc., 1989; mbr. Ulster Scots Language Society, 1994; Farest Youth and
Community Development, Ltd., 1982; founding member of Culturral Traditions
Group (CRC); member of Ultach Trust; rector, Ulster-Scots Academy, 1994;
Counciller Belfast City Council, 1989; Lord Mayor of Belfast, 1996; author
of The Cruithin (1974), laying claims to Ulster descent from a
pre-Gaelic people in Ireland; characterised as ‘an ancestral myth
of origin’ by Seamus Deane (1984); also The Identity of Ulster (1982), and other works dealing with the ethnology of a group of pre-Celtic
settlers in Ulster whose mentality is said to pervade the modern province.
WWNI
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Works
The Cruithin: The Ancient Kindred (Newtownards: Nosmada 1974); Bangor: Light of the World (Bangor: Fairview Press 1979); The
Battle of Moira (Newtownards: Nosmada 1980); [ed.,] Sir Samuel Ferguson, Congal ([q. pub.] 1980); The Identity of Ulster: The Land, the
Language and the People (Belfast: Pretani 1982, 2nd edn. 1987); The
Ulster People: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (Bangor: Pretani Press
1991). Also, 1690: William and the Boyne (1995).
See David Hume, David McDowell, eds., Cuchulain: The Lost Legend (Belfast 1994).
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Criticism
W. A. Hanna, Fortnight, 324 (Jan. 1994), pp.34-35, takes issue
with H. J. Morgan’s attempt to dismiss theories of the Cruthin.
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Quotations
‘[T]he most ancient inhabitants of Britain and Ireland to whom a definite
name can be given ... were the Cruthin of Ulster ... It is my purpose
to trace these people to the present time and give them back the history
which has been denied them for so long, for they are the Ancient Kindred
of Ireland as well as Britain’ (q. source.)
‘[W] hen the Plantation of Ulster got underway, in the 17th century, those Scots who came over from the lowlands were in fact members of the Cruitin race returning to the land of their birthright.’ (Cuchulain: The Lost Legend, 1994, cited in Tony Canavan reviewing works by A. T. Q. Stewart, in Fortnight, July-Aug. 1997, p.32.)
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