NEWRYABBEY YEW TREES

Most links found on this web site connect to first edition historical manuscripts & publication's showing precise statement's as written & or proof photo's of the place or point that is reefered to in regard to the real historically recorded annals' of Newryabbey in Co Down N. Ireland. All of these book's, map's, leaflets, guides, history book's, religious writing, & almost 200 year's of Newry & Mourne's memoirs & town guides along with associated English edited Newry town guides, leaflets & booklets & abbey supplements are the author's (Oliver Curran's) own Library. Important references from medieval Cistercian's records along with period English State papers are included in order to show nothing but the truth in all eventualities. The author was born within the immediate Newryabbey enclosure & spent part his youth attending the abbey school & know's at first hand the in's and outs of the whole Abbey area like the back of his hand. In short he climed the walls of the abbey & went places where he wasnt supposed to & discovered some boy hood scary revealing truth's. He see's the recent errecting of an alleged lost English Castle as the preverbial English Cukoo. He sees the English Lottery funding for this unrecorded entity as an ongoing attemt to maintain an English heritage for the planter culture that has prevailed here for 450 years, of which he admits his members of his ancient family were part of . In short he see's this distortion of Newryabbey's historically recorded history, as an affront to his ancient Irish culture, & to those other culture's that were nursed with in this foundation of St Patrick.

Ireland is an old country, built on the earliest bones of time, the whole country is a vast archaeological site with millions of recorded & unrecorded features that could be anything from an interesting stone discovered on a hill, to a forgotten ringfort on a hill opposite.. Resonant with local attachment and deep continuities, it has the worlds most ancient historic landscapes that gives our uniqueIrish identity. Newry played a very important role in the ancient times and is recorded by the bards as doing so through out the ages. Newry is a very special place but during the past 50 years,an intensive wrecking and bulldozing of our ancient towns embankments & medieval building that are irreplaceable & the land marks used by our ancestors are all but extinct & while you may be under the illusion that Newry began only 850 years ago you are in for a big supprise. The Newryabbey was once called the college of Newry, the last time this term was used was in 1456 when Infact the Abbey went under a serious rebuilding scheme & like many others In Ireland at this period was refurbished, many of the building survived after the reformation and indeed some still survive today. Newry & Mourne say's theres none?? The worst period of destruction for the Abbey was during the Corrys dynasty, when it is believed that this once very famous Abbey was brought to the edge of extinction,they simply got the Newry Abbey's plural mixed up. This shows you cant all ways believe what you read, especially when much of Newrys past Is now under question , much was written to decieve to suit a new English way of life here. The continuity Is rife still In regard to this same Abbey when you look at the story invented by Belfast expert's to butter over the fabricated horiffic story surrounding the 33 mutilated body's found.

The early Irish regarded the Yew tree amongst the most ancient beings on earth. Here In Newry
especially, because they named the town after the trees=Abbey Of The Iubhar Cinn Tragha. The dates dont figure here to me as you can see here where the writter reffers to 1157 when the aspiring high king who was not as they say a Mc Loughlin but a Curran, supposedly restores the abbey again, if this cutting is true reading then they reffer to the fire as being earlier than 1162 as is seen in this cutting read here. I have it all worked out but Id be calling all sorts tale tellers. During Bagenals time the Yews were still In Newry & a bit of my working out is at this stage of the history of Newry the town had actually two heads of the strand, the earlier one starting to be forgotten, and the Cistercian abbey took up the new head of the strand position. Long story, here though, the cloister of Newryabbey which was In the gate way In Castle street, part of which is still there had this if ? you believe all you read which I dont especially when it concerns Newry. The French had a special meaning for the yews as you can read in this cutting. Theres a lengthy piece here about its height and age. Here is a poem about the yew.

The Yew is the last on a list of oldest things in a passage from the fourteenth century Book of Lismore:

The trunk is erect, usually much divided, with thin red-brown bark. The leaves and seeds of yew are very poisonous to stock. An important anti-cancer drug is produced from yew hedge clippings. Yew is a resilient tree which will tolerate a lot of shade and withstand smoke and salty winds. Yew wood is amongst the densest of all conifers and is elastic so was once used for making long bows, spears and dagger handles.

Synopsis
The gnarled, immutable yew tree is one of the most evocative sights in the Irish landscape, an ever green impression of immortality that for centuries has marked holy places for travellers.

The yew's reputation for long life is due to the unique way in which the tree grows. Its branches grow down into the ground to form new stems, which then rise up around the old central growth as separate but linked trunks. After a time, they cannot be distinguished from the original tree. So the yew has always been a symbol of death and rebirth, the new that springs out of the old,

In Irish mythology, the yew is one of the five sacred trees brought from the otherworld at the division of the land into five parts. Known as the Tree of Ross, it was said to be the "offspring of the tree that is in Paradise", it is fabled to have brought plenty of goodness to Ireland. In the Brehon Laws, it is named as one of the Seven Chieftain Trees, anyone found chopping one down suffered the ancient curse or if they were still about heavy penalties from the forbidding laws. Owning a yew-tree was the cause of a great battle in the twelfth century tale, "Yew Tree of the Disputing Sons". The tree's high status is also shown in an Irish tale from the Historical cycle, in which a swine herder dreamed he saw a yew tree upon a rock, with an oratory in front of it angels ascended and descended from a flagstone at the threshold. He told a druid about the dream & he interpreted it. He said the rock would be the seat of kings of Munster from that day forth, and the first king would be he who kindled a fire beneath the yew.

Staves of yew were kept in pagan graveyards in Ireland where they were used for measuring corpses and graves. In the tragic love story of Baile and Ailinn from the Historical Cycle, Baile dies of grief for the beautiful Ailinn. When he is buried, a yew-tree grew out of his grave, and "the likeness of his head was in the branches." After seven years, poets cut down the yew and made writing tablets out of it.
Another use of yew-wood by poets is recounted in a tale of Conn of the Hundred Battles, who with his druids and poets, lost his way in a mist and came to a supernatural world where a druid was recording names of every prince from Conn's time onwards on staves of yew. In the bardic schools, poets used staves of yew to help them memorize long incantations. We hear tell how the poet Cesarn "cut (the words) in Ogam into 4 rods of yew. Each was 24' long and had 8 sides.

Staves of yew were also used for carving Ogam letters for magical use. An early medieval Irish poem fragment refers to a yew outside an early Celtic Christian cell:

There is here above the brotherhood
A bright tall glossy yew;
The melodious bell sends out a
clear keen note
In St. Columba's church.

Although from Ireland, this verse rings of the Isle of Iona, whyere the sacred island of St. Columba off western Mull, Scotland, which is said to derive its name from the Gaelic word for 'yew-tree', Ioho or Ioha. The island was once a powerful Druid centre, planted with sacred groves of yew, and the traditions of Iona traditionally involve rebirth and reincarnation.

After the never happened but so called Norman Conquest of Ireland, a spate of church building led to the planting of many churchyard yews. This following the pattern of the Irish plantings of Yews in days of yore, i.e St Pats time, Some of these ancients still thrive today, some over 900 years old. Many of these unrecognised, because they shed them selves as they grow anew, old trunks fall to the way side as new are formed with in, or so I read. . Fortunately their function as icons of everlasting life had been forgotten by the 17th century, or they would have probably not survived destruction by the Puritans. The yew trees were usually planted in a deliberate manner: one beside the path leading from the funeral gateway (check out St Patricks Newry), of the churchyard to the main door of the church, and the other beside the path leading to the lesser doorway. In early times, the priest and clerks would gather under the first yew to await the corpse-bearers.