UP THE YELLOWBELLIES!

When I do a post for this Blog there is usually a direct or at least some kind of a tenuous link to our St Patrick's School and Parish Family. Today, the link is  so tenuous that it might even hinge on some of us! 😮

I think I am right in assuming that we all know The Yellowbelly Brewery and Public House. Ah, but do we know the wonderful part of our history from whence its colourful name derives?

There is no cowardice attached to the term "Yellowbelly".  We who have a drop of Wexford blood trickling through our Newfoundland veins can still proudly carry the nickname of "Yellowbelly".  Now for it's origin.

In Ireland, way back in the 1700s, a Hurling match took place between a Cornish team and a team from Wexford.  To distinguish themselves from the opposing players, the Wexford team wore yellow sashes around their waists.  The Wexford team was victorious.  The jubilant Wexford supporters cheered their team with cries of "Up the Yellowbellies".  

Between 1750 and 1830, thousands of Irish labourers came to Newfoundland to work in the very lucrative cod fishery. They came from all over Ireland but the vast majority came from the ports of Waterford and Wexford. Naturally, they brought their language, their music and culture.  They also brought their strong regional rivalries!  Fiercely loyal to their home counties, they formed themselves into factions. They engaged in brutal Hurling matches (wearing their yellow sashes, of course) and frequent violent street brawls. Some of their opponents were: The Wheybellies from Waterford, The Dadyeens from Cork, The Clear Airs from Tipperary and The Doones from Kilkenny.

THE WAY IT WAS

The west end of Water Street was largely populated by Wexford shopkeepers and the intersection of Water St and George St became known as "Yellowbelly Corner".  Yellowbelly Corner became the battleground for the famous "Faction Fights" that took place in St John's at that time. 

What of today?  Well, at that infamous corner stands a beautiful stone and brick building.  It was built around 1840 and, luckily, it survived the Great Fire of 1892.  Happily for a lot of people, the historic site is now home to the wonderful and popular establishment, Yellowbelly Brewery and Public House.  

THE WAY IT IS

So, my friends, those of us with Wexford ancestry who attended our  beloved St Patrick's Convent Schools, we are that tenuous link.  Fortunately, by the time we arrived, that was all just history and we were all friends.  Not  a Faction Fight in sight!  

I hope no one minds though if I give one last cheer, just for history's sake.

"Up the Yellowbellies!"

☘☘☘☘☘☘

P S

It would be interesting, as well as great fun, to hear from our school friends and classmates with any comments on this post.

THE LADY WITH THE LANTERN

Honora Nagle (known as Nano) was born in 1718 in Ballygriffin, near Mallow, County Cork. She was descended from a Norman Baron who founded an Irish Augustinian priory. Her father, Garret, was a wealthy landowner. Her mother, Ann, was from a prominent Tipperary family and a relative of the famous parliamentarian, Edmund Burke. In Ireland at that time, Penal Laws, designed to keep Catholics poor, uneducated, and oppressed, made it unlawful to open a Catholic School or to travel abroad for an education. Despite the Penal Laws, the Nagles had managed to keep most of their wealth and, through family connections, were able to send, discretely, Nano and her sister Ann to Paris. Here they received a thorough Catholic education. They also enjoyed the gaiety of life in Parisian Society! Early one morning Nano and Ann were in a cab, returning from a Ball in that great city. They came upon a group of poor people huddled outside a church door, waiting to attend early Mass before going to their work. Nano compared her own privileged lifestyle to these poor people. The scene so disturbed her that she decided to do something to help the poor.

In 1746, Garret Nagle died and Nano and Ann returned to Ireland to live with their mother in Dublin, where there was widespread poverty. One day Nano was looking for a piece of valuable Parisian silk, which Ann told her she had sold and given the money to the poor. Nano was profoundly touched by this and years later, said that it was this that had decided her vocation. She returned to Paris with the intention of consecrating her life to God in a cloistered order where she could pray for the poor. However, her very perceptive Jesuit Confessor advised her to return to Ireland and work for the poor and deprived in her homeland.

She went back to Cork and lived with her brother, Joseph. In Cork, she rented a mud cabin in Cove Lane and, in secret, set up her first school for the poor. Her aim was to provide these poorest of the poor with a sound religious education as well as an all round education that would help them to make their way in life. Nano had received a substantial inheritance from her Uncle Joseph and she used this to finance her charitable work. When her money ran out, she became a beggar for her beloved poor. Her charitable work did not stop at providing schools for the poor. She went out to them in the hovels and alleyways of Cork bringing them as much help and succour as she could. After her long days in the schoolroom, night would often overtake her as, with her lantern, she made her way home through the dark.

To give her schools more permanency, Nano brought some Irish Ursulines from France to teach in Cork. For various reasons, this was not a success and, though Nano never lost her love for the Ursulines and continued to help them financially, she began to think of setting up her own congregation of religious sisters. This congregation came into being on 24th December 1775. Nano’s preferred title was ‘The Sisters of Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus’. After Nano’s death, and with Papal approval, the name was changed to the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (P B V M), by which they are still known today. Although Nano and her little group received the religious habit on 24th June 1776, it was not until 1800 that the Sisters first wore religious dress in public. Nano, the congregation’s first superior, chose the name of Sister Saint John of God but, under prevailing Penal Laws, she was known officially as Miss Nagle.

The Latin words on the Nagle Coat of Arms roughly translated as ‘Deeds Not Words’ and Nano certainly lived by this motto! As well as long hours in prayer, Nano engaged in every work that would alleviate the misery of the poor. However, regarding the work, she told her Sisters “We must prefer the schools to all others”. So it was that Nano Nagle blazed the trail and inspired great educators such as Edmund Ignatius Rice and Catherine McAuley who followed in her footsteps. In 1782, a Relief Bill allowed Catholics, for the first time since 1695, to open their own schools. Of course, this had conditions but it did go some way to realizing Nano’s dream when her secret schools could at last operate openly.

In 1769, Nano had written to a friend, “If I could be of any service in saving souls in any part of the globe, I would willingly do all in my power”. True to her missionary vision, the Presentation Sisters, beginning in 1833, spread to every continent. Nano Nagle died, aged 65, on 26th April 1784. Today, all over the world, her spiritual daughters, the Presentation Sisters, continue the work of their holy foundress. Nor is she forgotten in her native Ireland! In 2005, an Irish newspaper poll voted Nano Nagle the greatest Irish woman of all time. In 2002, in a similar poll, she had been voted greatest Irish person of all time.

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