Episode 1 A Special Relationship


Episode 1

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My name is Lesley Riddoch.

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I grew up in Belfast because my parents, both Highlanders,

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moved there for work when I was aged three,

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then back to Glasgow when I was 13.

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So I am a Scot.

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And as a journalist and writer,

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Scotland is the focus of most of my work.

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But I've never lost touch with Northern Ireland.

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In this series, I'm going to explore the relationship

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between Scotland and Northern Ireland,

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how it's expressed through community...

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I think the southern part of Scotland would nearly be

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the seventh county, the amount of Northern Irish folk

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that have moved across.

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..through language...

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You would meet somebody every day

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that you would be talking Ulster Scots to.

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..through culture and faith.

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And I'm going to meet people on both sides of the North Channel

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for whom those things that link Northern Ireland and Scotland

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are an integral part of their lives, their identity and their future.

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I don't know if it's Ulster Scots, if it's Scots,

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or if it's Scot Irish or what it is,

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I don't know what the label is but there's something there.

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This is Dunadd Hill Fort in Argyll

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on the West Coast of Scotland.

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Once the citadel of the Kings of Dal Riata,

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whose ancient kingdom straddled the Irish Sea.

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It's a physical embodiment of the historic links

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between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

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It lies at the centre of mainland Scotland's

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most important archaeological landscape.

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Over 800 historic monuments, cairns, standing stones and rock art -

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evidence that for over 5,000 years,

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this has been a significant place.

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The story of Scotland as a nation begins here

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and people from the North of Ireland are credited with being

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its first Kings.

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So before I start looking at the relationship

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of Scotland and Northern Ireland today,

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I'm meeting archaeologist Sharon Webb at Kilmartin Museum

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to find out more about Dunadd and its connection to Ulster.

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So, Sharon, what is the significance of Dunadd?

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Basically, it is the capital of the Kingdom of Dal Riata,

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which was a kingdom that stretched across the whole of Argyll

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and also into Northern Ireland, mostly the County of Antrim.

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We've got quite a lot of fairly high hills in between here and Glasgow

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and Edinburgh, so the transport links would have all been

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around the sea.

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It kind of made a lot of sense for that to be one whole kingdom

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as it was.

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The reason we know that this is the capital is related

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to the carved stone that you can see almost at the summit of Dunadd,

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and on the stone is carved a footprint.

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And the footprint is particularly significant because we know

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from early documentary evidence that

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part of the inauguration ritual of a king was that they had to

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place their foot into this footprint

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because kings were not hereditary, so that ritual kind of

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sealed the deal, as it were.

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There was a kind of accepted view that people from Northern Ireland

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got in their ships and came over and invaded this part of Argyll

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and then founded the Kingdom of Dal Riata.

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But actually, there's no evidence of an invasion at all.

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In fact, actually, some of the evidence points

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to the movement of people going the other way,

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so from Scotland to Northern Ireland.

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I kind of wonder myself whether these groups of people

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living on these two bits of land separated by a sea

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have always had contact because we've got

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artefacts in our collection that go right back to the Neolithic period,

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5,000 years ago,

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which come from Antrim, from Northern Ireland,

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in the form of stone axes,

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which are made of stone that you can only find

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in Rathlin Island and Northern Ireland.

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So, those contacts have been going on for ages and ages,

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so to kind of see it as a sort of one-off invasion

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might not make as much sense

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as to say they already were one people, as it were.

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It's long been part of the founding myth of Scotland that the first

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Scottish kings were invaders from the North of Ireland.

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But Sharon's explanation that the people of Dal Riata,

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both here and in North Antrim, were in fact the same people...

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..linked by birth, marriage,

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culture and language, is so much more interesting.

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In the centuries since then, we've borrowed and embraced

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cultural traditions from both sides of the North Channel.

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But if I want to discover whether that's still the case today,

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then I've got to start with

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arguably Scotland's greatest cultural export -

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Robert Burns.

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I know he has an unrivalled place in Scottish culture,

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but what about in Northern Ireland?

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BAGPIPES PLAY: Scotland The Brave

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I've come to a hotel outside Belfast for the 130th Belfast Burns Supper.

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I know that because my father made an address to the same association

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in 1968.

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That year, they had tinned haggis because of an outbreak

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of foot and mouth disease, which led to a ban on all imported meats.

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So here, half a century later, almost,

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I'm following in his footsteps and I'm curious to find out whether

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this Scottish tradition has real vibrancy in Northern Ireland

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or is perhaps the preserve of a few enthusiasts.

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His knife see rustic Labour dight,

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An' cut you up wi' ready sleight,

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Trenching your gushing entrails bright,

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Like ony ditch

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And then, O what a glorious sight.

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Deil tak the hindmost! On they drive.

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Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve,

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Are bent like drums

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The auld Guidman maist like to rive,

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Bethankit hums.

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'In return for my supper tonight, and following

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'in the family tradition, I've been asked to say a few words of my own

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'about Robert Burns.'

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Well, thanks very much for the invitation to come here tonight.

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This phenomenon of gathering every year since, I think, the early 1800s

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to celebrate one man and think all the time carefully about his poetry

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is really absolutely unique.

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There are no Shakespeare suppers.

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There are no Dylan Thomas teas.

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There are no Brian Friel feasts.

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Burns inspires other people to try.

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I've found that all sorts of people have heard Burns and heard in it

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ideas, language, vocabulary that is in them,

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that would let them have a bit of a go.

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So here's to another 130 years of the Belfast Burns Association

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and for all that he's inspired, ladies and gentlemen,

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please be upstanding and drink a toast to the immortal memory

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of Robert Burns.

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GLASSES CLINK

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'Talking to people, I can see there's a real passion

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'for Burns here and a feeling that Burns Night isn't just

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'a Scottish tradition but an Ulster tradition, too.

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'I'm hoping the president of the Belfast Burns Society, John Blair,

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'can tell me more.'

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I feel like I could have been in Scotland tonight,

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it was that authentic.

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You're telling me that you could be practically at a Burns Supper like

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this in Northern Ireland any day of the week for a couple of weeks?

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There's that many suppers and people trying to get a night that nobody

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else has and everybody tries to get a weekend,

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but now there's that many, the weekends is all tied up.

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What is that about?

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Because, you know, you're not getting taught Burns at school.

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Is that just a hankering after the old days or is it the music

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that you love, what is it?

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Well, for me anyway it's the music, the dancing and, like, where I am,

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I'll be living probably as close to Scotland as I would be to Belfast.

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Years ago, whenever the farmers burnt the barley straw and that

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up at Stranraer, we were able to see that there from home, like.

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And also, where I am there, I can see up,

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right up in the West Coast there to Islay.

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I can see the Paps of Jura, which is roughly 100 miles

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up on the West Coast.

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You used to listen to me when I was on Radio Scotland.

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-You could hear it.

-I did. Oh, no problem, yeah.

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If you actually listen to your own station at times,

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you'll hear quite a lot of requests from people from Ballymena

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up the North Coast there. We can pick it up clearer than

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what we pick, supposedly, Downtown, up

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or any of those stations around here.

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So, what does Burns mean to you or, indeed,

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what does Burns Night mean to you?

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To me, the biggest thing is the music.

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The songs, the songs that he wrote.

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What would be your favourite song, then?

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I would say A Red, Red Rose.

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Even when I would be maybe playing it myself,

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you can nearly picture where he lived or where he was at the time

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he wrote it, or whatever,

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and you get this image of him in your head whenever

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you're playing that particular song anyway, or that tune,

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and to me that's the one that really...

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that takes you back.

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Well, this is as feisty and authentic a night,

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a Burns supper, as I have encountered anywhere, actually.

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I'm hearing from people around me that there are dozens

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of Burns suppers going on. I'm hearing all the time about how much

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music is bringing people backwards and forwards from Scotland

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to Northern Ireland and people's easy reference points

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in Scottish culture is really quite astonishing

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to find here in Northern Ireland.

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The craic has been brilliant,

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the music is really strong and there's a sort of

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easy familiarity with people, which is what the essence of

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a Burns supper is all about,

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so it's been a fantastic night here and a bit of an eye-opener.

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'I'm sure they'll forgive me for saying that the average age

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'at the supper was on the high side.

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'Maybe that's always the case at formal occasions like these.

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'But where does the future of these Scottish cultural traditions lie in

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'Northern Ireland? Are young folk so interested in Scottish music

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'and dance?'

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To find out, I'm travelling to County Tyrone

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to visit the Sollus Centre in Bready -

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a community centre with an Ulster Scots ethos.

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It's also home to the Sollus Highland Dancers.

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Winners of UK and European championships,

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their commitment and talent has taken them round the world.

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James, we're sitting not on the coast facing Scotland.

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We're in an area that's famous for the O'Neills.

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Why, here, is there an Ulster Scots centre?

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The O'Neill dynasty basically finished

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when the Plantation arrived here, and in this area it was

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predominantly Scottish planters that were planted here

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back in the early 1600s, and ever since that,

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the names that arrived from Scotland then are still prevalent here today,

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like Rankin, Campbell.

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My surname is Kee, which, I believe, come from clan McKay,

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so that's where the Scottishness has come from,

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right back to the Plantation to the present day.

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First.

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Second.

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And there's a new generation here,

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just as enthusiastic about their Scottish culture.

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James's daughter Georgina runs Highland dance classes

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for more than 500 pupils every week.

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BAGPIPES PLAY

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Ready...

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and go.

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Land, feet, land, feet, land, feet.

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Have you got your hands nice and tidy?

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We're not doing high cuts this time. Land, land.

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You have learnt Highland dancing, you're an accomplished dancer,

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you teach it. Why Highland dancing and not Irish dancing

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or any other kind?

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Well, everybody was always in the pipe bands in this community,

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it was just something that happened in all the rural areas around here.

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I started off as a drum major and then as a piper.

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Keep up on that back foot, Jessica.

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'As a young girl, you wanted to dance

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'and you always seen Irish dancers here, there and everywhere,

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'they were everywhere here,

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'but Highland dancing was so different, yet they wore the tartan,

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'they used the music that we knew so well.'

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So it was like that cultural connection,

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but had, like, the girlie side of dance kind of thing

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that we looked for.

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'So there was no teachers in Northern Ireland.

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'We got a girl called Mischa Dodds, who's from Fife,'

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and she travelled across here every weekend for nine years

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to teach us to dance.

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Full points and get your knees out.

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'She would have flew here maybe on a Friday,

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'taught us all day on a Saturday,'

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took me back with her,

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competed all day on a Sunday, took me to auditions.

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She trained me up and put me through all my teaching exams

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and that's what built up the Highland dance scene

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and the competitions then here as well.

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Keep them hands up. Up, up, up, up, up, up. Big finish.

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But you must have had no boyfriends, no life, no homework.

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You must have done nothing, but spend much of your youth

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going backwards and forwards to Scotland every weekend?

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When I was part of the Edinburgh Tattoo team,

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it was every weekend from February to August,

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I was in Edinburgh every weekend.

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Do you see yourself as Scots?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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My dad was a member of the Orange Institution.

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In most of the local Orange halls in the Strabane district

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there was a pipe band that would have been part and parcel

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of that community. So you've got...

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You're surrounded by the skill of the Highland bagpipes,

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you're dressing up in tartan,

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so that Scottishness was there from a very early age.

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It's who we are, it's our tradition.

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I have grown now to an age that I am proud to tell the story that I'm an

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Ulster Scots, I'm Scots Irish, and I always say that

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if I'm going to a football match in Scotland, for example,

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and I get off the ferry in Stranraer,

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the hair's standing on the back of your neck.

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It's the only way I can describe it to say,

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"Look, this feels like home."

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As Daddy says, Scotland feels like home, it really does.

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It's like a wee home from home,

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and you get so many friends in Scotland

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and there's so many judges and dancers,

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and we're always coming and going,

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and they're always coming and going.

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So, I don't know if it's Ulster Scots,

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if it's Scots, or if it's Scot Irish or what it is,

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I don't know what the label is but there's something there,

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it's something in us.

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Well, there's no doubting the energy in that room,

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and the way that the enthusiasm of one family at the centre it,

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the Kees, has kind of spread into the whole community to pull them in,

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not just to the piping or the dancing,

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but to a kind of Scottishness.

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It's evident that people feel Scottish, and so far from Scotland,

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that's absolutely astonishing.

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Somewhere with a much closer geographical proximity to Scotland

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is Cushendall on the north coast of Antrim.

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It was once part of the Kingdom of Dal Riata,

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ruled from Dunadd in Argyll, where my journey began.

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The connections between this part of Northern Ireland and Scotland

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run deep but they aren't the same as those in Bready.

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Cushendall is a place steeped in Irish culture,

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language and Gaelic games.

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A mile above the town are the remains of Layd church.

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Dating from the medieval period,

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the parish is said to be named after a Scottish lady called Lydia,

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who eloped here with her lover.

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Its original parishioners were Roman Catholic,

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but after the Reformation

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it became an Anglican place of worship.

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For centuries, Layd church was the chief burial place

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of the MacDonnells,

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who came across from Scotland in the 14th century

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and ruled this part of Antrim for generations.

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And the names inscribed on the headstones - Hamiltons, McCauleys,

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McDonnells and McAllisters - are both Irish and Scottish.

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Families with roots in both nations.

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For broadcaster and County Antrim man Liam Logan,

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it's the very complexity of the Scottish-Irish connection

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and how that's fed into the language, to Ulster Scots,

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that particularly interests him.

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Liam, can you tell me something about the connection, then,

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between the Glens of Antrim here and the West Coast of Scotland?

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Well, first of all, Lesley,

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you only have to look out at the water there and you'll see Scotland.

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People certainly have been going back and forth

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o'er that bit of water for, not hundreds of years,

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thousands of years.

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If we look at your own background, though, Liam,

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you're not, in a sense,

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born into the traditions you'd expect

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that would lead you to such an interest in Ulster-Scots.

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I mean, you're from a Catholic background yourself.

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I think it's worth noting that language

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doesn't recognise political or religious differences.

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I'm an enthusiast.

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I'm somebody that likes Ulster Scots.

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I like the fact that

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there are particular words and particular phrases

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that enliven the way we speak,

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and I think that's what makes us different.

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And my own introduction to Ulster Scots

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came through a family friend called Alec Catherwood.

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And I saw his name written down and I said to him,

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"Hould on a minute." I says, "You're called Catherwood,

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"but it says there your name is Calderwood."

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And I look back on it now, and he gave me a very prescient,

0:19:000:19:05

a very far-sighted explanation as to why that should be.

0:19:050:19:09

He said, "They're both right."

0:19:100:19:12

That's not a very Northern Ireland thing to say.

0:19:120:19:16

He then pointed out that the people I knew up the road called Ellett

0:19:160:19:19

were in fact the Elliotts.

0:19:190:19:21

The people I knew who lived down the road that we knew

0:19:210:19:23

as the Caffels were actually the Caulfields.

0:19:230:19:27

And the people over the road that were his relations,

0:19:270:19:31

he was married onto them,

0:19:310:19:32

we knew them as the Eckisons, but they were in fact the Atkinsons.

0:19:320:19:37

So, I thought it was peculiar.

0:19:370:19:39

I mean, I learned then

0:19:390:19:42

that there was an otherness about the written word

0:19:420:19:44

and the spoken word, and I think that's at the heart of Ulster Scots.

0:19:440:19:48

Ulster Scots isn't something

0:19:480:19:50

everyone in the Glens will identify with,

0:19:500:19:53

but the Scots lilt of their accent,

0:19:530:19:55

and the words they use

0:19:550:19:57

certainly straddle both cultural traditions here.

0:19:570:20:00

It's there in many of the shared words,

0:20:020:20:05

but the shared words aren't all exclusively Scots.

0:20:050:20:09

The Auld Alliance meant that

0:20:100:20:12

there was quite a number of French words brought in.

0:20:120:20:15

My favourite was footer.

0:20:150:20:16

Footer, that comes from a medieval French word called foutre,

0:20:170:20:22

so this is part of what's important about Ulster Scots

0:20:220:20:25

and language in general.

0:20:250:20:27

It is not a series of words chiselled onto a granite slab.

0:20:270:20:32

It's a changing thing.

0:20:320:20:34

I think that's why it's relevant still today,

0:20:340:20:37

not that we use every single word that we speak

0:20:370:20:40

as an Ulster Scots word,

0:20:400:20:42

but sometimes the mot juste is an Ulster Scots word,

0:20:420:20:47

so remember that the next time you're footering about!

0:20:470:20:50

And how do you feel about Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic?

0:20:530:20:56

I mean, we're sitting here between all sorts of streams of language.

0:20:560:21:00

People talk about Ulster Scots as being the great link

0:21:000:21:03

between Scotland and Ulster and Ulster and Scotland,

0:21:030:21:06

but that's not really the full story.

0:21:060:21:09

There is a story there

0:21:090:21:11

which is about Scots Gaelic and Irish Gaelic

0:21:110:21:14

and they're also common tongues both sides of that sheugh.

0:21:140:21:18

There are a number of linguistic rivers that flow into Ulster.

0:21:190:21:25

I mean, we've got all the folk coming o'er here with King Billy

0:21:250:21:30

so there is an Ulster Dutch tradition.

0:21:300:21:33

There is the Huguenots

0:21:330:21:36

who were persecuted out of France, so they came over

0:21:360:21:38

and they brought a lot of their language,

0:21:380:21:40

and if people get an interest in a word,

0:21:400:21:43

if they have a gra for a particular word that appeals to them,

0:21:430:21:47

that fits well in their mouth, they're going to take it,

0:21:470:21:50

no matter where it comes frae.

0:21:500:21:52

I suggest to you that people actually enjoy that fact

0:21:520:21:56

that there are many tongues.

0:21:560:21:58

By drawing attention to the way

0:22:010:22:02

Ulster Scots has borrowed from other languages,

0:22:020:22:05

how it cuts across political and cultural divides,

0:22:050:22:09

Liam is challenging the notion that

0:22:090:22:11

it's somehow the preserve of one community over another.

0:22:110:22:14

In East Belfast,

0:22:160:22:18

Linda Ervine is also confronting

0:22:180:22:20

long-held prejudices about language and who it belongs to.

0:22:200:22:24

In 2011, she set up Turas,

0:22:290:22:32

an Irish-language project

0:22:320:22:34

that has more than 120 students and ten classes a week,

0:22:340:22:38

something that would have been quite unthinkable

0:22:380:22:41

when I was a girl growing up in East Belfast.

0:22:410:22:44

SHE SPEAKS GAELIC

0:22:440:22:47

Sitting here in loyalist East Belfast,

0:22:500:22:53

it doesn't feel as if Gaelic is part of this tradition or this place.

0:22:530:22:59

No, it doesn't,

0:22:590:23:00

but if you also realise that the townland here is called

0:23:000:23:03

Ballymacarrett,

0:23:030:23:05

Townland of the Son of Art, which of course is a Gaelic place name.

0:23:050:23:10

We have more Gaelic place names, I'm told,

0:23:100:23:12

here in East Belfast than there are in West Belfast.

0:23:120:23:15

When I started on my journey, on my turas of learning the language,

0:23:170:23:22

these were the things that I started to learn -

0:23:220:23:24

our townland names, our place names, our surnames,

0:23:240:23:28

many of the words that we use in our everyday speech are from Gaelic.

0:23:280:23:32

When you went to those first Irish-language classes,

0:23:330:23:36

did you feel a bit of an outsider?

0:23:360:23:38

I suppose I did at first, yes.

0:23:380:23:40

I mean, I, at that time, through my own ignorance, I regarded it,

0:23:400:23:45

I suppose, as many people do, as a Catholic language.

0:23:450:23:47

Once you have a deeper understanding

0:23:490:23:52

and a realisation of the true heritage of the language,

0:23:520:23:55

and when I look at Gaelic now,

0:23:550:23:57

and I understand that it was spoken in all of Ireland,

0:23:570:24:00

on the Isle of Man and in most of Scotland.

0:24:000:24:03

There's words I see on your board there

0:24:080:24:10

that actually links Scots and Gaelic,

0:24:100:24:13

like the Scots word for a jumper is a gansey,

0:24:130:24:17

and then it's the Irish word

0:24:170:24:20

and it's the Scots Gaelic word, so there's all those links.

0:24:200:24:23

What's your own backgrounds that's brought you in

0:24:230:24:26

to learning Irish or Gaelic?

0:24:260:24:28

We lost out in the state schools

0:24:280:24:30

because Irish was never taught

0:24:300:24:32

and somehow, I just always felt deprived

0:24:320:24:34

that this was a language that was all round us

0:24:340:24:36

in all our place names and every place we go to, every town,

0:24:360:24:40

it's there, and I even saw it in my mother, who's now 90,

0:24:400:24:43

words she uses are actually Irish words.

0:24:430:24:46

And I think it's such a shame we lost that.

0:24:460:24:49

I had a poem which was macaronic,

0:24:490:24:51

both in English and Irish,

0:24:510:24:54

and I went looking to get the Ulster Scots of it.

0:24:540:24:57

And, in fact, I came up here asking

0:24:570:24:59

for the Ulster Scots of it and Linda, she said to me,

0:24:590:25:03

"I can teach you the Irish of it."

0:25:030:25:05

So that's how I, basically, was introduced to come here.

0:25:050:25:09

I came looking for Ulster Scots and I ended up learning Irish!

0:25:090:25:13

I think the attraction, too, is

0:25:130:25:15

you're not identified as belonging to one political party

0:25:150:25:19

or nationality or Protestant

0:25:190:25:21

or Catholic or Unionist or whatever,

0:25:210:25:24

when you're learning your Irish in the surroundings here.

0:25:240:25:29

And I think that's the particular beauty of it.

0:25:290:25:32

This cautiousness about language,

0:25:340:25:36

religion and politics simply doesn't exist in Scotland

0:25:360:25:40

where Gaelic is spoken by people of all religions and none,

0:25:400:25:43

and of every political persuasion.

0:25:430:25:45

I've been over on the West Coast of Scotland a number of times.

0:25:470:25:51

I almost felt a sadness

0:25:510:25:53

because I saw people in Scotland with the music,

0:25:530:25:56

with the language,

0:25:560:25:58

they're Gaelic people but they're Presbyterian people,

0:25:580:26:01

and they were able to enjoy their Scottishness, enjoy being a Gael.

0:26:010:26:07

It's been denied to me because of my religion.

0:26:070:26:10

And yet, because of their position and their religion, they do have it.

0:26:100:26:15

I want people in Northern Ireland to understand

0:26:150:26:19

that this is not about being Irish,

0:26:190:26:23

it's not about being Catholic,

0:26:230:26:25

it's not about being political,

0:26:250:26:27

it's something that belongs to us all.

0:26:270:26:30

Tell me a bit about the connection that you're making, really,

0:26:300:26:33

between Irish Gaelic and Ulster Scots?

0:26:330:26:35

Up until I started learning Irish, I had no interest in Ulster Scots.

0:26:350:26:39

I thought it was a bit of a joke.

0:26:390:26:40

And then, it was people in the Irish-language community

0:26:400:26:43

who challenged me and said, "No, you need to look at this again."

0:26:430:26:46

I met Scots speakers and I met Ulster Scots people,

0:26:460:26:51

and I started to recognise the beauty of it,

0:26:510:26:53

and the history of it, too.

0:26:530:26:55

I also realised, of course, that it's full of Gaelic,

0:26:550:26:58

and Gaelic has borrowed into Scots

0:26:580:27:01

and Scots has borrowed into Gaelic,

0:27:010:27:02

so there's that lovely crossover and that overlap.

0:27:020:27:05

And again, I think it's sad in Northern Ireland

0:27:050:27:08

that we're always trying to divide things up into little boxes.

0:27:080:27:12

And they don't divide up as neatly as that.

0:27:120:27:15

So, for me, Scots, Ulster Scots, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic,

0:27:150:27:19

they are things that impact our English

0:27:190:27:22

every day here in Northern Ireland,

0:27:220:27:24

so it's something we should be able to all embrace and all enjoy.

0:27:240:27:28

What's fascinating about Linda is that her links with Scotland

0:27:330:27:36

are not about her family, they're about language,

0:27:360:27:38

and they're not about the language you'd expect,

0:27:380:27:41

it's not Ulster Scots, it's Gaelic.

0:27:410:27:43

And there's a wistfulness there

0:27:460:27:48

about the ease with which Scots Gaelic speakers

0:27:480:27:51

sit within their own tradition and the politics of the country.

0:27:510:27:55

Maybe that's something that Linda would like to see

0:27:570:28:00

happening here in Northern Ireland, too.

0:28:000:28:02

I feel like I've only just dipped my toe into the cultural connections

0:28:050:28:09

between Northern Ireland and Scotland.

0:28:090:28:11

There's so much more to be told,

0:28:140:28:16

but what I've already learned is that it's a much richer,

0:28:160:28:19

more diverse and more vibrant and relevant connection than I imagined.

0:28:190:28:24

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