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Eleanor McEvoy - Yola

ELEANOR McEVOY

Yola

I Got You To See Me Through - Isn't It A Little Late - Did I Hurt You? - Seasoned Love - The Rain Falls - Dreaming Of Leaving - Easy In Love - Last Seen October 9th - Leaves Me Wondering - I Hear You Breathing In - Something So Wonderful


About the YOLA dialect

It was in the South East of Ireland, at Baginbun, on the 1st May 1169, that a small Company of mercenaries led by a group of Anglo-Norman knights landed. They sailed from Wales at the invitation of Dermot McMurrough, the Irish King of Leinster*.

These were soldiers not of the King of England but of the Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, and were only in pursuit of wealth and land.Strongbow married Dermot's daughter and intermarriage between the invaders and the indigenous Irish became common, as did the exchange and interchange of languages, laws and customs, until they became "more Irish than the Irish".

Hence the Yola People with their own unique language and customs. Numerous attempts were made by successive kings of England to prohibit this, and in Kilkenny in 1366, the Irish parliament legislated against the invaders wearing the Irish dress, hairstyle, language and laws - but their efforts proved unsuccessful.The Yola People have roots of French, Flemish, Danish, English and Welsh origin, mixed with indigenous Irish and have names such as:

Barry Devereux Keating Scurlock (Scherlock)
Boggan Doyle Kinsella Siggins
Bolger Druhan Lambert Sinnott
Browne Duff Larkin Stafford
Bryan Fitzgerald Meyler Sutton
Busher Fleming Neville Talbot
Chivers French O'Brain (Breen) Wadding
Cloney Furlong Parle Walsh
Codd Godkin Power Whitty
Colfer Grace Prendergast
Condon Harpur Roche
Connick Hay Rochford
Cullen Hore Rossiter
Cusack Kavanagh Scallan
The last known Yola speaker Jack Devereux died in 1998. Local man Paddy Berry still sings Yola songs dating back to 17th century. Eleanor first spotted the language of Yola on the front of Ballytrent House, Co Wexford. Dublin born Eleanor now lives in Co Wexford.

* Leinster (in the East) is one of the four provinces of Ireland, the rest being Ulster (North), Munster (South) and Connaught (West). Co. Wexford is part of Leinster.


Yola: Reviews

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Eleanor McEvoy Biography