_Irish Language in the West Indies._--The atrocities which Oliver Cromwell
committed in Ireland are fresh in the memory of the poorest Irishman, and
his memory held in the deepest execration: every ruined fortress that we
pass is ascribed to the great castle-killer, and the peasant's bitterest
malediction is, "_Mallachd Crumwell ort_" (The curse of Cromwell on you).
The particular atrocity of Oliver's that we have to do with at present is
thus stated by Dodd, vol. iii. p. 58.:
"At Drogheda all were put to the sword together with the inhabitants,
women and children, only about thirty persons escaping, who, with
several hundreds of the Irish nation, were shipped off to serve as
slaves in the island of Barbadoes, as I have frequently heard the
account from Captain Edw. Molyneux, one of that number, who died at St.
Germains, whither he followed the unfortunate King James II."
The following note occurs in a paper on the Irish language, read by Mr.
Scurry before the Royal Irish Academy, Oct. 1826:
"It is now ascertained that the Irish language is spoken in the
interior of many of the West India islands, in some of which it may be
said to be almost vernacular. This curious fact is satisfactorily
explained by documents in the possession of my respected friend James
Hardiman, Esq., author of the _History of Galway_. After the reduction
of Ireland by Cromwell and his {538} myrmidons, the thousands who were
'shipped to the Caribbees,' so these islands were then called, 'and
sold as slaves,' carried with them their language. _That_ they
preserved, and there it remains to this day."
Will some of your correspondents acquainted with the West Indies inform me
if the Irish language be still spoken there, or if it be degenerated and
merged into the _talkee-talkee_, or negro jargon?