Dialects are not corruptions of English, as so many people seem to think they are the roots of something that has taken centuries to grow and conic to power, and even that's not saying enough. They are the museum . . . of the most useful language in the world." The author of these words was a Presbyterian Minister, W. F. Marshal born in Tyrone, thinking always of Tyrone, and noted in his day for several publications, among which was Ulster Speaks. Taken from a series of radio talks he gave something like half a century ago. In this he traced the various remnants of Elizabethan English and, of course, Irish, and the BBC broadcasts his version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in Ulster dialect, though what that generalisation covered, from the Scottish flavour of, say, some Antrim folk like those of Islandmagee, to whatever his own concept of Tyronespeak represented, there are probably few people alive to tell us. Maybe the BBC has the recording still. Over a decade ago Blackstaff published his collected ballads and verse Livin' in Drumlister. They are warm and sentimental and simple. Coming Back has these lines:
Oh, there's a burn in old
Tyrone
That sings in
Ballintrain;
Before I die, its lullaby
I want to hear again.
The Study of linguistics and history has moved on since the Thirties, but Bill Marshall's work was recognised by the Royal Irish Academy, when he was elected to its membership in 1942 - his most valued literary distinction as J. A. Todd noted in his Foreward to this volume. He loved fishing. A visitor to a church where Marshall gave the sermon said "Mr Marshall, if you can fish as you can preach, God help the fish."
His health declined in the Fifties and he signed one poem `Tandragee'. Asked why, he replied that "Tandragee means Backside to the Wind - the way an animal stands when it is not well - that's just how I feel." He died in 1959.
The blurb on the back says: "Few poets have been so loved by the ordinary people as W. F. Marshall . . . His verses about his native county . . . are known and cherished by the older generation A slim volume: £4.95.