The Yola people were an ethnic group that formed in the baronies of Forth and Bargy in County Wexford after the Norman invasion of Ireland at Bannow Bay in 1169. They were descendents of the original Norman invaders and hence they were distinct from the rest of Ireland in their customs, manners and appearance. As time progressed, the Yola people became diluted with the diverse medieval ethnic mix which colonized County Wexford, including French, Norman, Danish, Welsh, English, Irish, Flemish and the original Old Norse settlers who colonized the area prior to the invasion.
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Customs, dress and manners
The Yola people used a number of unique customs that were thought to have originated in the old Duchy of Normandy. These included mumming, patrons, and the tradition of placing funeral crosses on roadway trees, which still continue to this day. They were known to be extremely law-abiding; incidents of robbery, murder and the like were seldom recorded in the baronies.
A woman's customary dress was a lilac kircher or bonnet with ribbons, and a large frock worn as the main garment, with ribbons of various colors tying them across the waist. A man wore a waistcoat, short trousers and long socks with a hat.
Norman utensils such as a "peeler" were used for cooking bread. Many unique dishes such as busqés, a type of spiced corn bread, were common in the area.
A local custom was to take a daily afternoon nap known as an enteete in the local tongue, similar to the Spanish siesta. It was common at this time of day to cross from one end of the baronies to the other and not to see a single person on the roads.
Language
The Yola language, also known as the Forth and Bargy dialect, was a unique dialect that formed in the baronies. It was mainly spoken in the structure of Old/Middle English but contained many loanwords from Irish, Norman-French and old Norse. It was similar to the Dorset dialects of West England, but its many loanwords have made it a source of major research by many academics. The language crossed the lines between Old Frisian and Old English and contained many words found only in Old Frisian. This has led some researchers to believe that it may have originated in the Frisia region (North Holland). There were also Flemish mercenaries who took part in the 1169 invasions who may have contributed to the some of the flemish content. Interestingly, this was spoken as the main language until the late 19th century and the Irish language never took precedence in the baronies.
Advanced farming
The baronies of Forth and Bargy are quite unique in that they do not experience as harsh a climate as the rest of the country, which allows for many crops to thrive in their flat and fertile plains. The main crops grown by the Yola people were beans, peas and barley; potatoes were not relied upon as heavily as in the rest of Ireland. The farmers practised an advanced crop rotation and fertilizing system far ahead of the rest of the country. For this reason the baronies did not experience the effects of the great famine and actually thrived during this period by simply relying on the bean crop.
Decline
The Yola people eventually merged into Irish culture and became "more Irish than the Irish themselves." Many lands were confiscated during the plantations and modern English was introduced at this time. The Yola language eventually succumbed to the same factors that killed off the Irish language in the county, which was the stigmatization of the language and the introduction of English in schools. The language was officially declared extinct in the 1850s. Their inhabitants still populate the majority of the baronies and many customs and words survive in the locality.