User:Jnestorius/King of Tory

King of Tory (Rí Thoraí; or Rí an Oileán "King of the Island") is an honorific claimed by a respected member of the 150-strong community of Tory Island off the coast of County Donegal in northwest Ireland. The holder has been described as "The Last King Of Ireland". The title has been vacant since the death of Patsaí Dan Mag Ruaidhrí on 20 October 2018.

Local kings in Ireland
[zzz more from Hayes and Kane 2015]

In many isolated districts and islands in 18th- and 19th-century Ireland there was a village head or similar who was typically styled "the King", or an Rí in Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) areas. This king's main function was to resolve property disputes, and in areas of rundale farming to redivide the land and foreshore periodically between families on an equitable basis. The title was generally for life but not hereditary, though sometimes restricted a long-established family. When the holder died, a successor was chosen by the community, with preference for wisdom, literacy, and age. Kevin Danaher writes, "Whether this selection of local leaders is a survival of ancient custom or an expedient to fill the vacuum left by the exile of the old gentry is a matter of speculation."

The kings survived on islands into the twentieth century. The last king of Great Blasket Island was Pádraig "Peats Mhicí" Ó Catháin, who died in 1929, 24 years before the last islanders relocated to the mainland. Michael Waters was king of Inishmurray until its evacuation in 1948; he found the title "an embarrassment" according to his son.

E. Estyn Evans end his discussion of rundale with:
 * It was formerly the task of an appointed leader in a townland or group of townlands to see that customs were observed, to arrange the casting of lots in re-allotting of strips, and so on. Probably we should see in the "king" not long ago recognized as leader in such communities as Rathlin and Tory as a relic of this custom.

King of the Claddagh originally maor mayor.

Origins on Tory
In Irish myth, the Fomorian king Balor had a fortress on Tor Inis, usually identified as Tory Island, though Henry Morris argued that Tor Inis was Derinish, County Sligo (modern Irish name Dairinis). A variant myth current on Tory in the nineteenth century has "King Bonnor" as a Viking.

Tourism Ireland recounts a story that Saint Columba (521–597) bestowed the kingship of Tory on the descendants of an islander who saved him from shipwreck. The Rodgers family of the last two kings claims a connection to the island of over 3,400 years. Kieran Devaney says "Over the centuries led by their Kings — and in at least one case a Queen — the Islanders have beaten off Vikings, marauding pirates and invaders from the mainland".

Dinah Craik, during an 1886 tour, on the mainland near Dunfanaghy was shown "a little hill or mound, in which lies buried one Clogher Neilly, who murdered a 'King of Tory Island' — whosoever that notable monarch might be — when he came to have his horse shod. The said Neilly was, I believe, hanged here, leaving behind him a prophecy that while one stone of this mound remains, no other man will ever be hanged in Donegal."

Robin Fox distinguishes Tory's "king" from its "ritual leader"; the latter role, filled in the nineteenth century by the "eldest Duggan", related to the devotions for local folk saints. Fox 1978 said the king was "probably a true descendant of the old Brehons".

Patrick Harrison or Herraghty
Fox, whose fieldwork on Tory was in the early 1960s, said the "last king of Tory was Paddy Heggarty" in the nineteenth century. Heggarty's surname is not native to Tory.

The 1852 DU article describes him:
 * King Bonnor has still a successor, ... and a right good one too.
 * Until lately, however, there was a constant source of dispute ...[which] arose out of the system which is styled "Rundale," ... the different lots were exceedingly small ; so much so, that it was not thought worth while to build a fence round the biggest of them. But the consequences were, the pigs and geese had free scope for their sports, and shared most of the crops ; boundaries became confused; trespasses followed ; and a civil war was threatened. What was then to be done? Abandon the rundale, and square the plots, you may think. Certainly not ; "it was an ancient and an honourable custom ; their fathers had followed it, and why should not they?" Another remedy must therefore be applied; and this remedy was resolved upon — that all the pigs and geese should be banished as was actually done ; so that, for several years past, there has been neither one nor other of these at Tory ; although smaller fowls and larger animals are numerous enough. But, I rejoice to add, that Mr. Woodhouse ["The island is the property of Mr. Woodhouse of Portadown." — p.435] has lately induced the people to forego their prejudices, and give up the rundale.
 * With the exception of the present King, they are Roman Catholics wholly ; his Majesty is a Protestant ; feeling bound, I suppose, by the analogy of the Act of Settlement.
 * Paddy Heraghty, then, alias Harrison, for that is his name, is about forty years of age and four feet high ; his head is well shaped, his features intelligent, and adorned by an abundant supply of black, curling hair ... he was treated with the utmost respect by all present, and that the stoutest among them patiently obeyed him ; for his manner is as firm as it is winning — he has the learning, too, having acquired a fair education, though born in Tory, and was a schoolmaster in Rathlin. He is also the under agent, and as such has considerable authority over the tribe. This was one of the inducements to their dubbing him "King;" another was presented in his size, as contrasted with that of his subjects, and the doctrine of lucus a non lucendo. Yet there never was a Sovereign who enjoyed his title more, or abused it less.
 * his sister, the Princess Nelly, a dark-eyed and merry lass of some fifteen years or more
 * There succeeded a State procession over the entire island ... During our tour, he showed me the antiquities, and other objects of interest

Edmund Getty 1853:
 * It is said that, when occasion requires more than usual deliberation on the part of the people, they elect a "king." The last occasion when this august ceremony took place was for the purpose of considering whether geese should be allowed to be kept on the island ; as complaints had been made that they injured the crops. A legislative decree was the result, banishing all geese for the future!

In 1854 "Patrick Herison, King of Tory" advertised his "hotel" in the Derry Journal.

Robert Harvey (a clergyman in Letterkenny ) wrote to Alfred Newton in July 1863, "I had quite given up all hope of these (European storm petrel) eggs, when I had a letter from 'the King of Tory,' Mr. Patrick Harrison (Hibernice Paddy Herraghty), to say he had got me twenty-five eggs. His majesty is a school-master, also a dwarf, being 35 inches in height."

William Richard le Fanu, (1816–1894; father of Thomas Le Fanu) writing c.1893:
 * It was when on an inspection for the Irish Light Board, upwards of thirty years ago, that I visited Tory Island ... The islanders, with very few exceptions, spoke only Irish. ... I was very anxious to see the famous king of Tory Island, of whom I had heard, a very diminutive man, almost a dwarf, but of much intelligence. I was, however, disappointed, as his Majesty was too drunk to give an audience to visitors. He had, for two days previously, been in bed in that condition.

He died at home on Tory on 6 December 1872, with obituaries of Patrick Harrison in Belfast Weekly News 21 Dec and Belfast Telegraph 18 Dec, Belfast News-Letter 19 Dec.

Robert Lloyd Patterson 1886:
 * There is not a policeman in the place, and there seems to be little or no social distinction as among the people themselves. Till lately there was a "King" of Tory, so called because the other islanders acknowledged his authority and bowed to his decisions in the settlement of disputes ; but since the decease, now some years ago, of the last monarch, the authority in such matters seems to have passed into the hands of the resident Catholic curate, the island being in the parish of Cloughnahuly, on the mainland of Donegal. The parish priest here, Rev. Mr. M'Fadden, has two curates, each of whom, it is said, takes about a six months' turn on the island and then on the mainland.

Robin Fox distinguishes Tory's "king" from its "ritual leader"; the latter role, filled in the nineteenth century by the "eldest Duggan", related to the devotions for local folk saints. Fox, whose fieldwork on Tory was in the early 1960s, said the "last king of Tory was Paddy Heggarty" in the nineteenth century. Before Heggarty (whose surname is not native to Tory) the king was "probably a true descendant of the old Brehons".

Modern role
Niall Ward/Niall Mac an Bháird (1839/40–1926 ) was called the King of Tory in The Athenaeum in 1901, and later more equivocally by a local. His son, Irish dancer Séamus Mac a' Bhaird, was nicknamed "The Prince of Tory".

Fox in his 1978 study of Tory said that the title King of Tory was in dispute between two claimants. (Shane Leslie wrote in 1917: "There is a King of Tory and a King of Innismurray. The last time I was passing the latter there was a war of succession as to whether the crown of Innismurray was vested in the Herrity family or with the Walters." I presume he didn't mean Tory since he wrote "Innismurray" twice.) One of these was Padraig Óg Rodgers/Paddy Rodgers (1903/4–1993 ) whose claim was controversial because of his prison sentences for cheque forgery and welfare fraud. In the 1940s, the Donegal county manager described Rodgers as "notorious" and deprecated his "description of himself [as] District Representative". Rodgers secured a blind pension for all residents based on their having failed to read a text supplied by a compliant optician in English rather than their native Irish. After a 1974 storm cut off the island for seven weeks, the coalition government proposed to evacuate it to the mainland, with Rodgers leading opposition to the plan (along with priest Diarmuid Ó Péicín in 1980–1984 ). At his death in 1993, Rodgers had been king for 45 years. zzz any relation to Irish Islands Federation/Comhdháil Oileáin na hÉireann established in 1984?

When Paddy Rodgers died, his children asked Patsy Dan Rodgers/Patsaí Dan Mag Ruaidhrí (1944–20 October 2018) to accept the kingship. Mag Ruaidhrí was adopted aged four by an island couple and became a traditional Irish musician and painter of the Tory Island primitivist school. His public role as king included as a media advocate for improved services to and for the island, and welcoming visitors landing on the island, often in Irish, sometimes wearing a cloak. He travelled abroad promoting the island and its painters. He published a bilingual memoir shortly before his death. Michael D. Higgins, the President of Ireland, paid tribute on "the death of Patsy Dan Rodgers, known as the 'King of Toraigh'".

irishtimes 2023/08/12 our-islands-tory
 * "The continuing interregnum may or may not be part of the ferry dispute’s backwash."
 * Rodgers led 2018 Leinster House delegation seeking new ferry
 * "an institution as much prized by outsiders as by islanders. The days when it had actual powers, apportioning parcels of land and seafront to the various families, are long gone."
 * "essentially a PR man...the role can be self-selecting"
 * “Nobody here loses sleep over who the next king might be"
 * "his close friend Anton Meenan, a man who could be king although whether he would want to be is another matter"