Ned Maddrell

Edward "Ned" Maddrell (c. 1877/8 – (1974-12-27)27 December 1974) was a fisherman from the Isle of Man who, at the time of his death, was the last surviving native speaker of the Manx language.

Ned Maddrell
Born
Edward Maddrell

1877 or 1878[1]
Isle of Man
Died(1974-12-27)27 December 1974[2]:356
(aged 95–97)
Isle of Man
OccupationFisherman
Known forBeing the last native speaker of Manx

Life and legacy

Following the death of Sage Kinvig (c. 1870–1962), Maddrell was the only remaining person who could claim to have spoken Manx Gaelic from childhood, although at the time some other people spoke it as a second language, having learned it later in life. (According to one source, Maddrell had some knowledge of English before he learned Manx, and learned Manx from his great-aunt.)[3]

Maddrell recorded some of his speech for the sake of linguistic preservation; for example, in 1948 he recorded the following about fishing (in Manx, with the English translation):

Dooyrt "Ballooilley" rish:
"Ballooilley" said to him:
"Vel ny partanyn snaue, Joe?"
"Are the crabs crawling, Joe?"
"Cha nel monney, cha nel monney," dooyrt Joe. "T'ad feer ghoan."
"Not much, not much," said Joe. "They're very scarce."[4]

A newspaper article about the decline of Manx from about 1960 (Maddrell's age was given as 82) mentions and quotes him, since at the time he was, along with Kinvig, one of only two native speakers:

Ned Maddrell, who went to sea at 13, found he was able to keep his Manx "alive" by talking to Gaelic-speaking sailors on British ships. He was brought up in the remote village of Cregneash, where "unless you had the Manx you were a deaf and dumb man and no good to anybody." This was not the case in the towns. "Nobody there wanted to talk Manx, even those who had it well. They were ashamed, like. 'It will never earn a penny for you,' they said." Ned is a sprightly old man, a trifle deaf but very proud of his role as one of the last native speakers. "They have tape recordings of me telling legends and stories in Manx," he said, "in Ireland and in America and in places you never heard of."[5]

Maddrell appears to have enjoyed his minor celebrity status, and was very willing to teach younger language revivalists such as Leslie Quirk and Brian Stowell. When Irish Taoiseach Éamon de Valera visited the island he called upon Ned personally. De Valera had been angered some years before at the inaction of the British and Manx governments over the demise of the language, and had sent over a team from the Irish Folklore Commission with a sound recording van to preserve what was left.[6]

The Manx language has undergone a revival after his death, partly thanks to the support that Ned Maddrell gave to younger learners of the language towards the end of his life.[7] Today he is remembered by an annual lecture on Celtic language survival hosted by Culture Vannin and Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh.[8]

See also

References
  1. 'Edward Maddrell - Biographies - iMuseum'. (This short biography gives both 1877 and 1878 as the year of Maddrell's birth.)
  2. Broderick, George (2009). 'Manx'. In Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller (eds.), The Celtic Languages, second edition, pp. 305–356. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge.
  3. "Language Decline and Language Revival in the Isle of Man". Ned Maddrell Memorial Lecture. 28 November 1996. Archived from the original on 19 September 2004.
  4. Manx Language Samples (with audio): "Are the Crabs Crawling?"
  5. Miller, Stephen (2 September 1993). "The Death of Manx from newspaper clipping 1950s". GAELIC-L Archives. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011.
  6. "A Wooden Crate which preserved the Manx Language". BBC. 27 January 2010. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
  7. What is the Significance of Ned Maddrell? by Brian Stowell RBV, produce by Culture Vannin
  8. Ned Maddrell Lecture 2016 from Manx.net (accessed 21 December 2016)
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