The eye witness accounts of one of the bloodiest episodes in Ireland’s history have been brought to life through a major research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), employing new technology and advanced techniques in forensic linguistics.

Researchers from the University of Aberdeen have spent the last 12 months investigating the 1641 Depositions - witness testimonies, mainly by Protestants but also by some Catholics, describing their experience of the 1641 Rebellion — one of the most violent chapters of Irish history.

They will reveal their findings at a major conference in Aberdeen today (Friday February 18) and tomorrow   (Saturday February 19) which will bring together experts in language and linguistics, history, computer science, computational linguistics, geographic information systems, politics and religion.

The team used IBM’s LanguageWare© technology and a program called Wordsmith to develop a unique suite of software solutions to analyse the Depositions and to cross-correlate an array of features of the text — a process which would be too complicated and potentially take a lifetime for a scholar to undertake manually.

Their painstaking work has provided new insights into the accounts and has led to the creation of a new research environment for linguists and other scholars and lay people wishing to work on the Depositions.

The detailed examination of the testimonies facilitated by new technology has enabled researchers to question the nature of the Depositions as evidence, pinpointing hearsay as a basis for testimony and demonstrating that many of the most atrocious incidents were reported second or even third-hand more often than in the first person.

Dr Nicci MacLeod, a forensic linguist who is one of the four research fellows on the project, said: “The atrocious acts committed against women and children are a central image of the Rebellion as it was reported in London newspapers and other propaganda texts of the period.

“We wanted to be able to support our observations with hard quantitative evidence and were able to do this using Wordsmith software which enables us to enter a search term such as ‘wife’ or ‘woman’ and see what contexts it occurs in, how it relates to other words and in what position, which combined together give us a particular impression of who did what to whom according to the testimony.”

 Dr MacLeod said they also examined the occurrence of verbs such as ‘believeth’ and ‘thinketh’ and the phrase ‘hath credibly heard’ and found that they occurred more frequently in relation to the most serious acts of violence, rather than ‘eye-witness’ words such as ‘saw’ or ‘witnessed’.

She added: “We have been able to show that there are significant differences between the use of words and phrases meaning ‘heard’ as opposed to ‘saw’ when it comes the worst atrocities reported within the Depositions, such as an act of cannibalism and many of the more infamous events. These appear to be reported more frequently through hearsay than the more moderate events.”

Analysis of the Depositions – an unparalleled resource in Europe held by Trinity College Dublin and running to some 19,000 manuscript pages or about 2.7 million words – has also provided insight into the everyday lives of those who gave their accounts of the rebellion with the language used revealing the social, economic, cultural and political situation in 17th century Ireland.

This weekend’s conference is entitled Collaborative Research on the 1641 Depositions: Process and Impact. It provides a first opportunity for the researchers on the project to present the results of their work and the novel methodologies that have made these results possible. The conference, to be held at King’s College, Aberdeen, will also see the launch of the 1641 Collaborative Linguistic Research and Learning Environment, a groundbreaking web-based portal that opens up the Depositions for linguistic analysis, and that provides an online showcase for the on-going work being carried out on the Depositions. The conference will reflect the energy and innovation of this research, with presentations from researchers from Trinity College Dublin, Lancaster University, the University of Uppsala, King’s College, London and IBM.

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AHRC Media Contact Jake Gilmore j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk  Tel: 01793 41 6021

Notes to Editors
About the depositions: In 1741 the 1641 Depositions were gifted by Bishop John Sterne to the Library of Trinity College Dublin. In all about 5,000 depositions or witness statements, examinations and associated materials, amounting to 19,010 pages and bound in 31 volumes, are extant in the Manuscripts and Archives Research Library of Trinity College Dublin.  They are difficult to read (some are virtually illegible), the spelling is inconsistent and erratic, as is the use of grammar and punctuation and there is a wide variety of handwriting.  Eleven volumes contain depositions relating to Leinster, ten to Munster (seven of these cover County Cork), two to Connacht and eight to Ulster

Why are the Depositions important?

The depositions relating to Ulster, where the rebellion first began, are of particular importance and form a key element of our historical heritage.  During the early decades of the 17th century English and Scottish protestant planters (who increasingly identified themselves as ‘British’) colonised the province, often dispossessing the Irish-speaking native Catholic population.  The depositions vividly document these colonial and ‘civilizing’ processes, which included the spread of Protestantism and the introduction of lowland agricultural and commercial practices to a primarily pastoral area, together with the native responses to them. 
 
For more information on the 1641 depositions visit http://1641.tcd.ie (opens in new window)

Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC): Each year the AHRC provides approximately £112 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,300 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.