Sam Hanna Bell Samuel Beckett John Hewitt Bernard (Barney) Hughes James Joseph Magennis VC Frances Elizabeth Clarke Stewart Parker William Carleton Rosamond Praegar

Rose Maud Young (1865 - 1947):
Collector of Irish songs


Rose Young was born in Galgorm House, Ballymena, County Antrim, daughter of the Hon John Young, a liberal and supporter of tenant rights, and Grace Charlotte Savage. She was educated at home by a governess and then trained as a teacher in Cambridge. Although she came from a unionist family who were linen merchants, she was committed to learning the Irish language, and kept diaries charting her progress. One figure who encouraged her interest in the language was the antiquarian William Reeves, Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore (Church of Ireland) and President of the Royal Irish Academy. Some friends who were fellow enthusiasts included Margaret Hurton, Ada McNeill and Margaret Dobbs. While in England she visited the Bodleian Library to see their collection of Gaelic manuscripts. She attended Irish classes run by the Gaelic League in London, and on her return to Ireland in the early 1900s, went regularly to Shan O'Cahan's Irish College in Belfast. During a spell living in Dublin she made the acquaintance of Douglas Hyde, the prominent Gaelic scholar and first President of Ireland under the 1937 Constitution. Hyde would provide introductions to some of her collections of Irish songs. She remained a close friend of Margaret Dobbs (they latterly shared a domicile), and supported the Glens of Antrim Feis. She published three collections of Irish songs, providing her own translations for the third volume, and observed the keening tradition that was on the decline. Rose Young later took an interest in Rathlin Island and made a study of the Gaelic spoken there.

She died at home in Cushendun, north County Antrim.



Born: 1865
Died: 1947
Kate Newmann
Acknowledgements:

Additional research: Richard Froggatt