Derry academic, Dr Áine Downey, one of the few native Irish speakers to grow up in 1940s unionist heartland of east Belfast, has died at her home in Derry.
A retired psychologist and university lecturer, she passed away peacefully on Monday. The 78-year-old'’s story was featured last month in The Irish News after her sons, Garbhán and Cormac published a book of her letters and memories as a Christmas present to their mother.
Born in Fintown in County Donegal in 1942, Dr Downey’s family moved to Belfast where her father, Richard Morton was a teacher at St Malachy’s Christian Brothers’ primary school. With her family, she lived at 3 Clara Street.
The Morton family’s practice of speaking Irish was so unusual in the unionist heartland that Dr Downey’s neighbours referred to them as “The Mickeys who speak Chinese”.
The family’s unofficial nickname was used by Dr Downey’s sons for the book they published last year, “The Mortons who speak Chinese”.
In the book, she recalled: “I did not, a child doesn’t, distinguish between languages – so there was the family way of talking (Irish), spoken between and by us whether in the house or outdoors and normally spoken with the many visitors to 3 Clara Street.
“I didn’t realise that this was ‘Irish’ and was different from the way of communication at St Anthony’s primary school and outside playing in the street or in the park; seemingly that was called English.”
Dr Downey’s son, Garbhán, a former Irish News journalist, recently ran as a candidate in the Republic’s Seanad Éireann elections to highlight the campaign for an independent north west university.
