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My name is Lesley Riddoch. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
I grew up in Belfast because my parents, both Highlanders, | 0:00:04 | 0:00:09 | |
moved there for work when I was aged three, | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
then back to Glasgow when I was 13. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
So I am a Scot. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:16 | |
And as a journalist and writer, | 0:00:16 | 0:00:18 | |
Scotland is the focus of most of my work. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
But I've never lost touch with Northern Ireland. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
In this series, I'm going to explore the relationship | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
between Scotland and Northern Ireland, | 0:00:28 | 0:00:30 | |
how it's expressed through community... | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
I think the southern part of Scotland would nearly be | 0:00:33 | 0:00:35 | |
the seventh county, the amount of Northern Irish folk | 0:00:35 | 0:00:37 | |
that have moved across. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:39 | |
..through language... | 0:00:39 | 0:00:40 | |
You would meet somebody every day | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
that you would be talking Ulster Scots to. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:44 | |
..through culture and faith. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:46 | |
And I'm going to meet people on both sides of the North Channel | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
for whom those things that link Northern Ireland and Scotland | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
are an integral part of their lives, their identity and their future. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:57 | |
I don't know if it's Ulster Scots, if it's Scots, | 0:00:57 | 0:01:00 | |
or if it's Scot Irish or what it is, | 0:01:00 | 0:01:01 | |
I don't know what the label is but there's something there. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
This is Dunadd Hill Fort in Argyll | 0:01:23 | 0:01:26 | |
on the West Coast of Scotland. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:27 | |
Once the citadel of the Kings of Dal Riata, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
whose ancient kingdom straddled the Irish Sea. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
It's a physical embodiment of the historic links | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
between Scotland and Northern Ireland. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
It lies at the centre of mainland Scotland's | 0:01:47 | 0:01:50 | |
most important archaeological landscape. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:54 | |
Over 800 historic monuments, cairns, standing stones and rock art - | 0:01:54 | 0:01:59 | |
evidence that for over 5,000 years, | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
this has been a significant place. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:05 | |
The story of Scotland as a nation begins here | 0:02:10 | 0:02:13 | |
and people from the North of Ireland are credited with being | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
its first Kings. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:18 | |
So before I start looking at the relationship | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
of Scotland and Northern Ireland today, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
I'm meeting archaeologist Sharon Webb at Kilmartin Museum | 0:02:24 | 0:02:28 | |
to find out more about Dunadd and its connection to Ulster. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:33 | |
So, Sharon, what is the significance of Dunadd? | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
Basically, it is the capital of the Kingdom of Dal Riata, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
which was a kingdom that stretched across the whole of Argyll | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
and also into Northern Ireland, mostly the County of Antrim. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:51 | |
We've got quite a lot of fairly high hills in between here and Glasgow | 0:02:54 | 0:02:58 | |
and Edinburgh, so the transport links would have all been | 0:02:58 | 0:03:00 | |
around the sea. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:02 | |
It kind of made a lot of sense for that to be one whole kingdom | 0:03:02 | 0:03:05 | |
as it was. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:06 | |
The reason we know that this is the capital is related | 0:03:08 | 0:03:12 | |
to the carved stone that you can see almost at the summit of Dunadd, | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
and on the stone is carved a footprint. | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
And the footprint is particularly significant because we know | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
from early documentary evidence that | 0:03:23 | 0:03:25 | |
part of the inauguration ritual of a king was that they had to | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
place their foot into this footprint | 0:03:28 | 0:03:30 | |
because kings were not hereditary, so that ritual kind of | 0:03:30 | 0:03:33 | |
sealed the deal, as it were. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:35 | |
There was a kind of accepted view that people from Northern Ireland | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
got in their ships and came over and invaded this part of Argyll | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
and then founded the Kingdom of Dal Riata. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:47 | |
But actually, there's no evidence of an invasion at all. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:52 | |
In fact, actually, some of the evidence points | 0:03:52 | 0:03:54 | |
to the movement of people going the other way, | 0:03:54 | 0:03:56 | |
so from Scotland to Northern Ireland. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:58 | |
I kind of wonder myself whether these groups of people | 0:04:00 | 0:04:03 | |
living on these two bits of land separated by a sea | 0:04:03 | 0:04:07 | |
have always had contact because we've got | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
artefacts in our collection that go right back to the Neolithic period, | 0:04:09 | 0:04:12 | |
5,000 years ago, | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
which come from Antrim, from Northern Ireland, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
in the form of stone axes, | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
which are made of stone that you can only find | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
in Rathlin Island and Northern Ireland. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:23 | |
So, those contacts have been going on for ages and ages, | 0:04:26 | 0:04:30 | |
so to kind of see it as a sort of one-off invasion | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
might not make as much sense | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
as to say they already were one people, as it were. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
It's long been part of the founding myth of Scotland that the first | 0:04:41 | 0:04:45 | |
Scottish kings were invaders from the North of Ireland. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
But Sharon's explanation that the people of Dal Riata, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
both here and in North Antrim, were in fact the same people... | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
..linked by birth, marriage, | 0:05:01 | 0:05:03 | |
culture and language, is so much more interesting. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
In the centuries since then, we've borrowed and embraced | 0:05:09 | 0:05:13 | |
cultural traditions from both sides of the North Channel. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
But if I want to discover whether that's still the case today, | 0:05:19 | 0:05:23 | |
then I've got to start with | 0:05:23 | 0:05:25 | |
arguably Scotland's greatest cultural export - | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
Robert Burns. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:29 | |
I know he has an unrivalled place in Scottish culture, | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
but what about in Northern Ireland? | 0:05:36 | 0:05:37 | |
BAGPIPES PLAY: Scotland The Brave | 0:05:42 | 0:05:47 | |
I've come to a hotel outside Belfast for the 130th Belfast Burns Supper. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:57 | |
I know that because my father made an address to the same association | 0:05:57 | 0:06:01 | |
in 1968. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
That year, they had tinned haggis because of an outbreak | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
of foot and mouth disease, which led to a ban on all imported meats. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:11 | |
So here, half a century later, almost, | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
I'm following in his footsteps and I'm curious to find out whether | 0:06:14 | 0:06:18 | |
this Scottish tradition has real vibrancy in Northern Ireland | 0:06:18 | 0:06:22 | |
or is perhaps the preserve of a few enthusiasts. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
His knife see rustic Labour dight, | 0:06:26 | 0:06:31 | |
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:35 | |
Trenching your gushing entrails bright, | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
Like ony ditch | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
And then, O what a glorious sight. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
Deil tak the hindmost! On they drive. | 0:06:45 | 0:06:49 | |
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve, | 0:06:49 | 0:06:53 | |
Are bent like drums | 0:06:53 | 0:06:54 | |
The auld Guidman maist like to rive, | 0:06:54 | 0:06:59 | |
Bethankit hums. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:01 | |
'In return for my supper tonight, and following | 0:07:01 | 0:07:03 | |
'in the family tradition, I've been asked to say a few words of my own | 0:07:03 | 0:07:08 | |
'about Robert Burns.' | 0:07:08 | 0:07:09 | |
Well, thanks very much for the invitation to come here tonight. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:13 | |
This phenomenon of gathering every year since, I think, the early 1800s | 0:07:13 | 0:07:19 | |
to celebrate one man and think all the time carefully about his poetry | 0:07:19 | 0:07:24 | |
is really absolutely unique. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
There are no Shakespeare suppers. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
There are no Dylan Thomas teas. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
There are no Brian Friel feasts. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:34 | |
Burns inspires other people to try. | 0:07:34 | 0:07:37 | |
I've found that all sorts of people have heard Burns and heard in it | 0:07:37 | 0:07:42 | |
ideas, language, vocabulary that is in them, | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
that would let them have a bit of a go. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
So here's to another 130 years of the Belfast Burns Association | 0:07:48 | 0:07:52 | |
and for all that he's inspired, ladies and gentlemen, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:56 | |
please be upstanding and drink a toast to the immortal memory | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
of Robert Burns. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
GLASSES CLINK | 0:08:01 | 0:08:03 | |
'Talking to people, I can see there's a real passion | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
'for Burns here and a feeling that Burns Night isn't just | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
'a Scottish tradition but an Ulster tradition, too. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:16 | |
'I'm hoping the president of the Belfast Burns Society, John Blair, | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
'can tell me more.' | 0:08:20 | 0:08:21 | |
I feel like I could have been in Scotland tonight, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
it was that authentic. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
You're telling me that you could be practically at a Burns Supper like | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
this in Northern Ireland any day of the week for a couple of weeks? | 0:08:29 | 0:08:32 | |
There's that many suppers and people trying to get a night that nobody | 0:08:32 | 0:08:36 | |
else has and everybody tries to get a weekend, | 0:08:36 | 0:08:38 | |
but now there's that many, the weekends is all tied up. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:42 | |
What is that about? | 0:08:42 | 0:08:43 | |
Because, you know, you're not getting taught Burns at school. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
Is that just a hankering after the old days or is it the music | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
that you love, what is it? | 0:08:49 | 0:08:50 | |
Well, for me anyway it's the music, the dancing and, like, where I am, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:54 | |
I'll be living probably as close to Scotland as I would be to Belfast. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:58 | |
Years ago, whenever the farmers burnt the barley straw and that | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
up at Stranraer, we were able to see that there from home, like. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
And also, where I am there, I can see up, | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
right up in the West Coast there to Islay. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:10 | |
I can see the Paps of Jura, which is roughly 100 miles | 0:09:10 | 0:09:13 | |
up on the West Coast. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:14 | |
You used to listen to me when I was on Radio Scotland. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
-You could hear it. -I did. Oh, no problem, yeah. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
If you actually listen to your own station at times, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
you'll hear quite a lot of requests from people from Ballymena | 0:09:24 | 0:09:28 | |
up the North Coast there. We can pick it up clearer than | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
what we pick, supposedly, Downtown, up | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
or any of those stations around here. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:35 | |
So, what does Burns mean to you or, indeed, | 0:09:37 | 0:09:39 | |
what does Burns Night mean to you? | 0:09:39 | 0:09:41 | |
To me, the biggest thing is the music. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
The songs, the songs that he wrote. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
What would be your favourite song, then? | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
I would say A Red, Red Rose. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:49 | |
Even when I would be maybe playing it myself, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
you can nearly picture where he lived or where he was at the time | 0:09:51 | 0:09:55 | |
he wrote it, or whatever, | 0:09:55 | 0:09:56 | |
and you get this image of him in your head whenever | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
you're playing that particular song anyway, or that tune, | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
and to me that's the one that really... | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
that takes you back. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
Well, this is as feisty and authentic a night, | 0:10:12 | 0:10:15 | |
a Burns supper, as I have encountered anywhere, actually. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:20 | |
I'm hearing from people around me that there are dozens | 0:10:20 | 0:10:22 | |
of Burns suppers going on. I'm hearing all the time about how much | 0:10:22 | 0:10:26 | |
music is bringing people backwards and forwards from Scotland | 0:10:26 | 0:10:30 | |
to Northern Ireland and people's easy reference points | 0:10:30 | 0:10:33 | |
in Scottish culture is really quite astonishing | 0:10:33 | 0:10:37 | |
to find here in Northern Ireland. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
The craic has been brilliant, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
the music is really strong and there's a sort of | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
easy familiarity with people, which is what the essence of | 0:10:43 | 0:10:48 | |
a Burns supper is all about, | 0:10:48 | 0:10:49 | |
so it's been a fantastic night here and a bit of an eye-opener. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:53 | |
'I'm sure they'll forgive me for saying that the average age | 0:10:56 | 0:10:59 | |
'at the supper was on the high side. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
'Maybe that's always the case at formal occasions like these. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
'But where does the future of these Scottish cultural traditions lie in | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
'Northern Ireland? Are young folk so interested in Scottish music | 0:11:09 | 0:11:13 | |
'and dance?' | 0:11:13 | 0:11:14 | |
To find out, I'm travelling to County Tyrone | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
to visit the Sollus Centre in Bready - | 0:11:22 | 0:11:24 | |
a community centre with an Ulster Scots ethos. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
It's also home to the Sollus Highland Dancers. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
Winners of UK and European championships, | 0:11:31 | 0:11:35 | |
their commitment and talent has taken them round the world. | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
James, we're sitting not on the coast facing Scotland. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
We're in an area that's famous for the O'Neills. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:54 | |
Why, here, is there an Ulster Scots centre? | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
The O'Neill dynasty basically finished | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
when the Plantation arrived here, and in this area it was | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
predominantly Scottish planters that were planted here | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
back in the early 1600s, and ever since that, | 0:12:07 | 0:12:11 | |
the names that arrived from Scotland then are still prevalent here today, | 0:12:11 | 0:12:15 | |
like Rankin, Campbell. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:18 | |
My surname is Kee, which, I believe, come from clan McKay, | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
so that's where the Scottishness has come from, | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
right back to the Plantation to the present day. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:26 | |
First. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
Second. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
And there's a new generation here, | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
just as enthusiastic about their Scottish culture. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
James's daughter Georgina runs Highland dance classes | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
for more than 500 pupils every week. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:42 | |
BAGPIPES PLAY | 0:12:42 | 0:12:43 | |
Ready... | 0:12:43 | 0:12:45 | |
and go. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:46 | |
Land, feet, land, feet, land, feet. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
Have you got your hands nice and tidy? | 0:12:49 | 0:12:51 | |
We're not doing high cuts this time. Land, land. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:53 | |
You have learnt Highland dancing, you're an accomplished dancer, | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
you teach it. Why Highland dancing and not Irish dancing | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
or any other kind? | 0:13:00 | 0:13:02 | |
Well, everybody was always in the pipe bands in this community, | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
it was just something that happened in all the rural areas around here. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
I started off as a drum major and then as a piper. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:12 | |
Keep up on that back foot, Jessica. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:14 | |
'As a young girl, you wanted to dance | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
'and you always seen Irish dancers here, there and everywhere, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:19 | |
'they were everywhere here, | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
'but Highland dancing was so different, yet they wore the tartan, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:24 | |
'they used the music that we knew so well.' | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
So it was like that cultural connection, | 0:13:27 | 0:13:29 | |
but had, like, the girlie side of dance kind of thing | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
that we looked for. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:33 | |
'So there was no teachers in Northern Ireland. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
'We got a girl called Mischa Dodds, who's from Fife,' | 0:13:37 | 0:13:41 | |
and she travelled across here every weekend for nine years | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
to teach us to dance. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:45 | |
Full points and get your knees out. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:47 | |
'She would have flew here maybe on a Friday, | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
'taught us all day on a Saturday,' | 0:13:50 | 0:13:51 | |
took me back with her, | 0:13:51 | 0:13:52 | |
competed all day on a Sunday, took me to auditions. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
She trained me up and put me through all my teaching exams | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
and that's what built up the Highland dance scene | 0:13:58 | 0:14:00 | |
and the competitions then here as well. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:01 | |
Keep them hands up. Up, up, up, up, up, up. Big finish. | 0:14:01 | 0:14:05 | |
But you must have had no boyfriends, no life, no homework. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
You must have done nothing, but spend much of your youth | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
going backwards and forwards to Scotland every weekend? | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
When I was part of the Edinburgh Tattoo team, | 0:14:15 | 0:14:16 | |
it was every weekend from February to August, | 0:14:16 | 0:14:19 | |
I was in Edinburgh every weekend. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
Do you see yourself as Scots? | 0:14:25 | 0:14:27 | |
Yeah, absolutely. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:29 | |
My dad was a member of the Orange Institution. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
In most of the local Orange halls in the Strabane district | 0:14:32 | 0:14:36 | |
there was a pipe band that would have been part and parcel | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
of that community. So you've got... | 0:14:39 | 0:14:42 | |
You're surrounded by the skill of the Highland bagpipes, | 0:14:42 | 0:14:44 | |
you're dressing up in tartan, | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
so that Scottishness was there from a very early age. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
It's who we are, it's our tradition. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
I have grown now to an age that I am proud to tell the story that I'm an | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
Ulster Scots, I'm Scots Irish, and I always say that | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
if I'm going to a football match in Scotland, for example, | 0:14:59 | 0:15:02 | |
and I get off the ferry in Stranraer, | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
the hair's standing on the back of your neck. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:07 | |
It's the only way I can describe it to say, | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
"Look, this feels like home." | 0:15:10 | 0:15:11 | |
As Daddy says, Scotland feels like home, it really does. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
It's like a wee home from home, | 0:15:14 | 0:15:16 | |
and you get so many friends in Scotland | 0:15:16 | 0:15:17 | |
and there's so many judges and dancers, | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
and we're always coming and going, | 0:15:19 | 0:15:21 | |
and they're always coming and going. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:22 | |
So, I don't know if it's Ulster Scots, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
if it's Scots, or if it's Scot Irish or what it is, | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
I don't know what the label is but there's something there, | 0:15:27 | 0:15:30 | |
it's something in us. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:31 | |
Well, there's no doubting the energy in that room, | 0:15:36 | 0:15:40 | |
and the way that the enthusiasm of one family at the centre it, | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
the Kees, has kind of spread into the whole community to pull them in, | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
not just to the piping or the dancing, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
but to a kind of Scottishness. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
It's evident that people feel Scottish, and so far from Scotland, | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
that's absolutely astonishing. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:00 | |
Somewhere with a much closer geographical proximity to Scotland | 0:16:03 | 0:16:07 | |
is Cushendall on the north coast of Antrim. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
It was once part of the Kingdom of Dal Riata, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
ruled from Dunadd in Argyll, where my journey began. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
The connections between this part of Northern Ireland and Scotland | 0:16:20 | 0:16:24 | |
run deep but they aren't the same as those in Bready. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
Cushendall is a place steeped in Irish culture, | 0:16:30 | 0:16:33 | |
language and Gaelic games. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:35 | |
A mile above the town are the remains of Layd church. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:42 | |
Dating from the medieval period, | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
the parish is said to be named after a Scottish lady called Lydia, | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
who eloped here with her lover. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:52 | |
Its original parishioners were Roman Catholic, | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
but after the Reformation | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
it became an Anglican place of worship. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:02 | |
For centuries, Layd church was the chief burial place | 0:17:05 | 0:17:08 | |
of the MacDonnells, | 0:17:08 | 0:17:09 | |
who came across from Scotland in the 14th century | 0:17:09 | 0:17:11 | |
and ruled this part of Antrim for generations. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:14 | |
And the names inscribed on the headstones - Hamiltons, McCauleys, | 0:17:21 | 0:17:25 | |
McDonnells and McAllisters - are both Irish and Scottish. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
Families with roots in both nations. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:34 | |
For broadcaster and County Antrim man Liam Logan, | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
it's the very complexity of the Scottish-Irish connection | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
and how that's fed into the language, to Ulster Scots, | 0:17:46 | 0:17:50 | |
that particularly interests him. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:52 | |
Liam, can you tell me something about the connection, then, | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
between the Glens of Antrim here and the West Coast of Scotland? | 0:17:56 | 0:17:58 | |
Well, first of all, Lesley, | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
you only have to look out at the water there and you'll see Scotland. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
People certainly have been going back and forth | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
o'er that bit of water for, not hundreds of years, | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
thousands of years. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
If we look at your own background, though, Liam, | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
you're not, in a sense, | 0:18:13 | 0:18:15 | |
born into the traditions you'd expect | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
that would lead you to such an interest in Ulster-Scots. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
I mean, you're from a Catholic background yourself. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
I think it's worth noting that language | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
doesn't recognise political or religious differences. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:29 | |
I'm an enthusiast. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:30 | |
I'm somebody that likes Ulster Scots. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:33 | |
I like the fact that | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
there are particular words and particular phrases | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
that enliven the way we speak, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
and I think that's what makes us different. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:44 | |
And my own introduction to Ulster Scots | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
came through a family friend called Alec Catherwood. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:51 | |
And I saw his name written down and I said to him, | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
"Hould on a minute." I says, "You're called Catherwood, | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
"but it says there your name is Calderwood." | 0:18:56 | 0:18:59 | |
And I look back on it now, and he gave me a very prescient, | 0:19:00 | 0:19:05 | |
a very far-sighted explanation as to why that should be. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:09 | |
He said, "They're both right." | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
That's not a very Northern Ireland thing to say. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:16 | |
He then pointed out that the people I knew up the road called Ellett | 0:19:16 | 0:19:19 | |
were in fact the Elliotts. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:21 | |
The people I knew who lived down the road that we knew | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
as the Caffels were actually the Caulfields. | 0:19:23 | 0:19:27 | |
And the people over the road that were his relations, | 0:19:27 | 0:19:31 | |
he was married onto them, | 0:19:31 | 0:19:32 | |
we knew them as the Eckisons, but they were in fact the Atkinsons. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:37 | |
So, I thought it was peculiar. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:39 | |
I mean, I learned then | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
that there was an otherness about the written word | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
and the spoken word, and I think that's at the heart of Ulster Scots. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:48 | |
Ulster Scots isn't something | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
everyone in the Glens will identify with, | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
but the Scots lilt of their accent, | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
and the words they use | 0:19:55 | 0:19:57 | |
certainly straddle both cultural traditions here. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
It's there in many of the shared words, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
but the shared words aren't all exclusively Scots. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:09 | |
The Auld Alliance meant that | 0:20:10 | 0:20:12 | |
there was quite a number of French words brought in. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
My favourite was footer. | 0:20:15 | 0:20:16 | |
Footer, that comes from a medieval French word called foutre, | 0:20:17 | 0:20:22 | |
so this is part of what's important about Ulster Scots | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
and language in general. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:27 | |
It is not a series of words chiselled onto a granite slab. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:32 | |
It's a changing thing. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
I think that's why it's relevant still today, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
not that we use every single word that we speak | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
as an Ulster Scots word, | 0:20:40 | 0:20:42 | |
but sometimes the mot juste is an Ulster Scots word, | 0:20:42 | 0:20:47 | |
so remember that the next time you're footering about! | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
And how do you feel about Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic? | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
I mean, we're sitting here between all sorts of streams of language. | 0:20:56 | 0:21:00 | |
People talk about Ulster Scots as being the great link | 0:21:00 | 0:21:03 | |
between Scotland and Ulster and Ulster and Scotland, | 0:21:03 | 0:21:06 | |
but that's not really the full story. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
There is a story there | 0:21:09 | 0:21:11 | |
which is about Scots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic | 0:21:11 | 0:21:14 | |
and they're also common tongues both sides of that sheugh. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
There are a number of linguistic rivers that flow into Ulster. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:25 | |
I mean, we've got all the folk coming o'er here with King Billy | 0:21:25 | 0:21:30 | |
so there is an Ulster Dutch tradition. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:33 | |
There is the Huguenots | 0:21:33 | 0:21:36 | |
who were persecuted out of France, so they came over | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
and they brought a lot of their language, | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
and if people get an interest in a word, | 0:21:40 | 0:21:43 | |
if they have a gra for a particular word that appeals to them, | 0:21:43 | 0:21:47 | |
that fits well in their mouth, they're going to take it, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:50 | |
no matter where it comes frae. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:52 | |
I suggest to you that people actually enjoy that fact | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
that there are many tongues. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
By drawing attention to the way | 0:22:01 | 0:22:02 | |
Ulster Scots has borrowed from other languages, | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
how it cuts across political and cultural divides, | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
Liam is challenging the notion that | 0:22:09 | 0:22:11 | |
it's somehow the preserve of one community over another. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:14 | |
In East Belfast, | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
Linda Ervine is also confronting | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
long-held prejudices about language and who it belongs to. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:24 | |
In 2011, she set up Turas, | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
an Irish-language project | 0:22:32 | 0:22:34 | |
that has more than 120 students and ten classes a week, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
something that would have been quite unthinkable | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
when I was a girl growing up in East Belfast. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
SHE SPEAKS GAELIC | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
Sitting here in loyalist East Belfast, | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
it doesn't feel as if Gaelic is part of this tradition or this place. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:59 | |
No, it doesn't, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:00 | |
but if you also realise that the townland here is called | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
Ballymacarrett, | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
Townland of the Son of Art, which of course is a Gaelic place name. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:10 | |
We have more Gaelic place names, I'm told, | 0:23:10 | 0:23:12 | |
here in East Belfast than there are in West Belfast. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:15 | |
When I started on my journey, on my turas of learning the language, | 0:23:17 | 0:23:22 | |
these were the things that I started to learn - | 0:23:22 | 0:23:24 | |
our townland names, our place names, our surnames, | 0:23:24 | 0:23:28 | |
many of the words that we use in our everyday speech are from Gaelic. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
When you went to those first Irish-language classes, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
did you feel a bit of an outsider? | 0:23:36 | 0:23:38 | |
I suppose I did at first, yes. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:40 | |
I mean, I, at that time, through my own ignorance, I regarded it, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:45 | |
I suppose, as many people do, as a Catholic language. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
Once you have a deeper understanding | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
and a realisation of the true heritage of the language, | 0:23:52 | 0:23:55 | |
and when I look at Gaelic now, | 0:23:55 | 0:23:57 | |
and I understand that it was spoken in all of Ireland, | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
on the Isle of Man and in most of Scotland. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
There's words I see on your board there | 0:24:08 | 0:24:10 | |
that actually links Scots and Gaelic, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
like the Scots word for a jumper is a gansey, | 0:24:13 | 0:24:17 | |
and then it's the Irish word | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
and it's the Scots Gaelic word, so there's all those links. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
What's your own backgrounds that's brought you in | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
to learning Irish or Gaelic? | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
We lost out in the state schools | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
because Irish was never taught | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
and somehow, I just always felt deprived | 0:24:32 | 0:24:34 | |
that this was a language that was all round us | 0:24:34 | 0:24:36 | |
in all our place names and every place we go to, every town, | 0:24:36 | 0:24:40 | |
it's there, and I even saw it in my mother, who's now 90, | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
words she uses are actually Irish words. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
And I think it's such a shame we lost that. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
I had a poem which was macaronic, | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
both in English and Irish, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
and I went looking to get the Ulster Scots of it. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
And, in fact, I came up here asking | 0:24:57 | 0:24:59 | |
for the Ulster Scots of it and Linda, she said to me, | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
"I can teach you the Irish of it." | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
So that's how I, basically, was introduced to come here. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
I came looking for Ulster Scots and I ended up learning Irish! | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
I think the attraction, too, is | 0:25:13 | 0:25:15 | |
you're not identified as belonging to one political party | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
or nationality or Protestant | 0:25:19 | 0:25:21 | |
or Catholic or Unionist or whatever, | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
when you're learning your Irish in the surroundings here. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:29 | |
And I think that's the particular beauty of it. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:32 | |
This cautiousness about language, | 0:25:34 | 0:25:36 | |
religion and politics simply doesn't exist in Scotland | 0:25:36 | 0:25:40 | |
where Gaelic is spoken by people of all religions and none, | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
and of every political persuasion. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:45 | |
I've been over on the West Coast of Scotland a number of times. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
I almost felt a sadness | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
because I saw people in Scotland with the music, | 0:25:53 | 0:25:56 | |
with the language, | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
they're Gaelic people but they're Presbyterian people, | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
and they were able to enjoy their Scottishness, enjoy being a Gael. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:07 | |
It's been denied to me because of my religion. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
And yet, because of their position and their religion, they do have it. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:15 | |
I want people in Northern Ireland to understand | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
that this is not about being Irish, | 0:26:19 | 0:26:23 | |
it's not about being Catholic, | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
it's not about being political, | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
it's something that belongs to us all. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
Tell me a bit about the connection that you're making, really, | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
between Irish Gaelic and Ulster Scots? | 0:26:33 | 0:26:35 | |
Up until I started learning Irish, I had no interest in Ulster Scots. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:39 | |
I thought it was a bit of a joke. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:40 | |
And then, it was people in the Irish-language community | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
who challenged me and said, "No, you need to look at this again." | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
I met Scots speakers and I met Ulster Scots people, | 0:26:46 | 0:26:51 | |
and I started to recognise the beauty of it, | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
and the history of it, too. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:55 | |
I also realised, of course, that it's full of Gaelic, | 0:26:55 | 0:26:58 | |
and Gaelic has borrowed into Scots | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
and Scots has borrowed into Gaelic, | 0:27:01 | 0:27:02 | |
so there's that lovely crossover and that overlap. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
And again, I think it's sad in Northern Ireland | 0:27:05 | 0:27:08 | |
that we're always trying to divide things up into little boxes. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:12 | |
And they don't divide up as neatly as that. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
So, for me, Scots, Ulster Scots, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:19 | |
they are things that impact our English | 0:27:19 | 0:27:22 | |
every day here in Northern Ireland, | 0:27:22 | 0:27:24 | |
so it's something we should be able to all embrace and all enjoy. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:28 | |
What's fascinating about Linda is that her links with Scotland | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
are not about her family, they're about language, | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
and they're not about the language you'd expect, | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
it's not Ulster Scots, it's Gaelic. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
And there's a wistfulness there | 0:27:46 | 0:27:48 | |
about the ease with which Scots Gaelic speakers | 0:27:48 | 0:27:51 | |
sit within their own tradition and the politics of the country. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:55 | |
Maybe that's something that Linda would like to see | 0:27:57 | 0:28:00 | |
happening here in Northern Ireland, too. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:02 | |
I feel like I've only just dipped my toe into the cultural connections | 0:28:05 | 0:28:09 | |
between Northern Ireland and Scotland. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:11 | |
There's so much more to be told, | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
but what I've already learned is that it's a much richer, | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
more diverse and more vibrant and relevant connection than I imagined. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:24 |