The moving ceremony televised from Oslo on Thursday stressed, as a necessary quality to real peace and harmony, a respect for the traditions and stance of the main elements in the North - and elsewhere in Ireland, too. By coincidence, a happy one, or perhaps by careful planning, there was launched formally a book from the excellent Institute of Irish Studies at Queen's University, Belfast a book which to some will seem marginal to some in the quest for peace, yet it depicts aspects of the intellectual life of Belfast and the North in the 19th century which will be news to some in this State and to some in Belfast. The book, a fair-sized paperback, is entitled Robert Shipboy MacAdam, His Life and Gaelic Proverb Collection. It is the work of A.J. Hughes and, apart from the fascination of the Gaelic proverb collection by MacAdam, gives a striking picture of the intellectual life of Belfast during MacAdam's lifetime (1808-1895).
In 1875, for example, Samuel Ferguson, the great poet who wrote so much on Irish themes and whose Lays of the Western Gael (1865) and other works including the epic Conal must have inspired if not pre-empted the later Revival, could complain that he was being thwarted in his efforts to have a Chair of Celtic restored at Queen's, having lain empty since O'Donovan's time some 15 years earlier: "We have done our endeavour to found such a chair here but all things Celtic are regarded by our educated classes of questionable ton and an idea exists that it is inexpedient to encourage anything tending to foster Irish sentiment." MacAdam with his brother were establishing a successful foundry business, while Ferguson, apart from his poetic contribution, was also a successful lawyer and later President of the Royal Irish Academy. Breandan O Buachalla, to whom credit is given for reviving the life story of MacAdam wrote: "It was MacAdam who first had the idea of collecting folklore from the mouths of the common folk, although it is an honour still to be accorded to him; it was he who first had the idea of `reviving the language' although he has yet to receive credit for this... he was a hero and a giant of a man - but a hero and giant who has been forgotten and lost in oblivion."
MacAdam's Six Hundred Gaelic Proverbs Collected in Ulster, simultaneously makes of him an early example of "a good European". writes Hughes, for he also includes French, Italian and Spanish proverbs, not forgetting Latin and Greek." Oslo and Belfast spoke on Thursday on the same note: regard for the other's traditions and beliefs. Y