Episode 3 A Special Relationship

My name is Lesley Riddoch.

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

moved there for work when I was aged three,

then back to Glasgow when I was 13.

So, I am a Scot.

And as a journalist and writer,

Scotland is the focus of most of my work.

But I've never lost touch with Northern Ireland.

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

between Scotland and Northern Ireland,

how it's expressed through community...

I think the southern part of Scotland

would nearly be like the seventh county,

the amount of Northern Irish folk that have moved across.

..through language...

You would meet somebody every day

that you would be tagging "Ulster Scots" to.

..through culture and faith.

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

for whom those things that link Northern Ireland and Scotland

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

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

if it's Scot-Irish or what it is.

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

For over a thousand years,

the narrow stretch of sea between Northern Ireland and Scotland

has been a highway for traders and churchmen,

seasonal workers and students

travelling between our two countries.

And it's those connections, forged through work and faith,

that I want to find out more about.

Farm labourers may no longer travel to Scotland to dig potatoes,

as they once did, but the tradition of buying and selling livestock

in the auctions of Stirling and Lanarkshire is alive and well.

Lawrie Symington Auctioneers in Lanark

is one of the biggest marts in Scotland.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of animals pass through this ring,

from family pets for a pound, to bulls worth

tens of thousands of pounds.

We've a mixed Japanese and Mexican...

Among the 30 staff is farmer and auctioneer David Lowry,

from Saintfield in County Down.

Three, I'm bid. Four. ?4. I'm at five. Five. ?5. Six.

Six. I'm at eight. ?8...

'I started in 1976 as a boy

'in my local town in Saintfield.'

30, 32, 35...

'You get the buzz and a kick out of it when the crowd gets going

'and the atmosphere is there.

'You get gathered into it as well.'

?38. HE BANGS GAVEL

?38. There we are, 204.

I actually hold the world record for auctioning a sheep

at 220,000 guineas.

14. 16? 16, I'm bid. At 16. At 16...

So, what actually brought you here?

Probably the price of land.

I could buy land in Scotland for anywhere between

?2,000 and, at the very most, nearly ?3,000 an acre.

And the same land in Northern Ireland

was costing anywhere from ?15,000 to ?20,000 an acre.

So, that was one big factor, because with only having ten acres,

we had to rent quite a bit of land.

So, we made the decision that we would move to Scotland.

On April Fools' Day, I bought the farm privately over the phone,

and I remember going up the stairs,

my wife was already away to bed,

and saying, "I have a farm bought in Scotland."

And she says, "Ha-ha, April fool!"

I says, "Aye, you're either on the bus or you're not on the bus!"

And the family ended up in Scotland and never looked back.

David keeps 200 Simmental beef cattle,

and vet Chris McGregor has come to check on some of them.

Aye. We've got some fluid in her uterus, certainly.

Well, that's good news, for a start.

Yeah, she's in calf, so she is.

She's in calf, OK? Good. Yeah, just about six weeks.

About the six-weeks mark? Yeah. Good. That's good news, at least.

So, are you here checking everyone?

Some people will get us to check every cow,

so that they know which cows are going to calve,

and also getting a stage of when they are going to calve,

so they can manage them suitably up until that point.

Obviously, from your twang, you're a Northern Irish chiel as well.

Yes. Uh-huh. What took you over here?

Initially, I came over to go to university in Glasgow,

and after my five years studying there, I got a job with Clyde Vets,

and I've just stayed so far, so I have. Mm-hm.

So, are you a wee sort of Northern Irish cabal?

THEY LAUGH

Or is it just coincidence that there is a Northern Irish farmer

and a vet in the same neck of the woods?

It's partly a coincidence,

but I thought when I moved over

with family 16 years ago,

that I would be a loner and there would be no Northern Irish about,

until about after a month I realised

just how many Northern Ireland farmers there were

within a 20-mile radius of where I had bought the farm.

So, are there differences, then, in the way that the Northern Irish

and the Scottish farmer operate in an auction?

In Northern Ireland, they're laid-back.

And, eh, they see the animal in the ring and they think,

"That looks a right beast there.

"That would maybe do a job.

"Will I buy it or will I not buy it?"

Back home, you nearly could bid for a beast and go for a cup of tea,

and come back and still be able to buy it before the hammer goes down.

Whereas in Scotland, you have 30 seconds to make up your mind,

or the lot is through the ring,

the hammer's down, you've missed that one,

so move on, pick something else.

It seems, quite uniquely, actually,

that farming seems to be one industry

where there is an active industry spanning the channel.

So, it's almost as if the channel between Northern Ireland

and Scotland is not there?

Yeah, I think the southern part of Scotland would nearly be like

the seventh county,

the amount of Northern Irish folk that have moved across.

It's home from home.

I knew there were a fair few Ulster folk

living in this part of Scotland,

but I'd no idea just how much business goes on

between the Northern Irish and Scottish farming communities.

Of course, agriculture isn't the only thing we share.

One of the most enduring ties between our two countries

is religion. And the links between the Presbyterian Church in Ireland

and Scotland are particularly strong.

The first Presbyterian congregations were established

in Ireland in the early 1600s by settlers from Scotland,

and there's been a flow of ideas and people backwards and forwards

ever since.

# Make me a channel of your peace... #

I've come to Belfast to meet two Scotsmen

ministering to congregations on the Shankill Road.

Jack Lamb is originally from Stirling,

and was called to Townsend Presbyterian Church

in 1996.

# Only light

# And where there's sadness ever joy. #

Just a short walk up the road, Colin Duncan is minister

of Shankill Methodist Church.

Well, we've got a little Scottish enclave here today!

But I just wonder, just to start off with you, Colin,

what was it that brought you over here in the mid-'90s,

which would have been a pretty dodgy time

to be coming to Northern Ireland?

Yes, there was quite an interesting reaction to it at that time,

to the news that we were coming over here.

One of them was horror

directed towards Brenda, my wife, and myself.

"Why would you take your children over to that place?"

And the other reaction was,

"Oh, you're going to Northern Ireland, you'll love it."

And certainly, in our time here,

we've been at home from the minute of stepping off the ferry,

back in 1994.

I think one of the things I love about Northern Ireland is that

you're never going to get a big head over here. No, that's true.

It's like, back in Scotland, you know,

if you ever thought you're getting up there,

there'll be somebody coming along and say, "Oh, I kent his faither."

And you'll never get ideas above your station. No, that's true.

Was there any reaction from your congregation about a Scot

coming in to take over the helm?

I think, if the truth be told,

sometimes the accent can be an asset.

For many of them, it's like almost a...

a memory, a generational memory.

"This is an accent from the old country, going back."

And they'll tell you, "My grandparents lived in Scotland,"

or "My great grandparents lived in Scotland,

"then they moved over here to get involved in

"Harland and Wolff shipyards." Mmm.

I think that's partly it, Lesley.

What particularly is it about this community for you?

Just the challenge in the Shankill.

I think, as ministers, we've got to face the fact that,

despite there being...

roughly 41 places of worship

in the Greater Shankill area,

of the local population attending church services on a Sunday morning,

it's reckoned to be something between 1% and 3%

of the local population.

Coming into the Shankill...

This is a very working class sort of community.

With people, what you see is what you get.

There's no back doors to them.

They'll say what they think.

And I find it a very refreshing place to work in

from that point of view.

The last few years have been particularly exciting,

because quietly, in the background,

there are closer relationships,

positive relationships happening

between what I would want to call the one community.

The people are struggling with the same issues,

and there's just this thought that

if they could come together in some way,

my goodness, they would be a powerful voice, you know?

Working class Belfast is the subject of a performance I saw recently

at the Edinburgh Festival that made a real impression on me.

I'm here at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow

to meet its creator, Matt Regan.

The millies -

they're outside the factory now,

shouting,

whistling,

watching the afternoon fade

till the streets are still.

Och, there's Belfast being made

inside the giant linen mill.

So, consider the mill.

Those old machines

from the mucky past.

The show kind of unfolds like an album. There's kind of

tracks, little bits.

And one of the bits, one of the many bits, we talk about -

the millies, which is a slang term for women who work in the mills.

I think there's a very easy, kind of, metaphor about them

making fabric and making the fabric of Belfast.

And a lot of my family were millies,

so I really connect to them making things.

And I talk about the Ulster Museum.

I talk about my experience of Belfast.

In that superheated atmosphere, you are wet with water.

Your hands are torn

and lacerated to the bone

for your contribution

to the material of Belfast.

It kind of makes you wonder, actually, why Scots theatres

would get behind a piece of theatre that's fundamentally about Belfast.

Aye, that was one of my concerns early on.

I was always a little bit worried about,

"Do they understand? Or are they relating to this

"wee story about Belfast?"

And, continually, people really would connect to it.

Now, you yourself, you've been here since 2010 when you came,

classically, for a couple of weeks and ended up staying.

What do you make of it? Oh, it's wonderful.

But it's so similar in so many ways, the people are so similar.

it's the same kind of sense of humour.

We have such a similar background of industrialism

and sectarianism and divides...

And the same kind of...

Same kind of taste of the place.

It was the perfect place for me to come to.

And all the millies go...

HE WHISTLES A TUNE

So I says to him, so I do,

"It's absolutely shocking, so it is.

Och, hiya, Peter. How are you doing, love? Are you all right?

Those links that we've looked at. Are they still there?

Are there still links, really,

between Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Yeah, definitely.

I think it might be more one-way than a lot of people

would like to think. I think it is Northern Ireland looking outwards,

and a lot of young people my age looking outwards.

There's a huge contingency of us over here,

Northern Irish people over here, who are...

contributing over here, and one of the exciting things was,

hopefully, me bringing this show to life

and persuading people to consider Northern Ireland,

to consider Belfast.

Glasgow is such a vibrant cultural hub.

I can't wait to see Belfast like that.

Matt raises a point I've often wondered about -

is the relationship between Northern Ireland

and Scotland one-sided?

Certainly, many more young people leave Northern Ireland

to live in Scotland than vice versa...

..but when you consider the contribution they make

to Scottish life and culture,

I'd say Scotland gains quite a bit from its connection

to Northern Ireland.

Here, you can stop and listen...

..to voices...

..in linen.

I've come to the Verdant Works in Dundee,

A museum dedicated to telling the history of the jute mills

that once employed more than 50,000 workers in this city.

MILLS THRUM AND WHIR

Just one of these machines makes an incredible noise,

and they're just a third of the size of the originals.

Can you imagine the noise there must have been for the mill girls,

the millies that Matt sang about,

working here eight to ten hours a day

with these machines clanging away in the background?

Jute, which was used to make rope, twine and hessian sacks,

was the reason many women with a background working

in mills in Ireland came to Dundee

in the 19th and early 20th century.

But the mills have long gone,

and today it's Dundee's universities that draw young people here

from Northern Ireland.

It's a tradition that dates back to the 17th century,

when there was no university in Ulster.

Then Anglicans went to Trinity College, Dublin,

but most Irish Presbyterians seeking third-level education

came to Scotland.

Today, Dundee seems to be particularly popular

with Northern Irish students,

and to find out why I'm meeting Kevin Burns,

vice president of the students' union

and a regular at Scottish and Irish

traditional music sessions that are so popular here.

So, what is it about Dundee that you like?

It's small enough to know everybody

and it's big enough to still have loads of things to do.

It's not one of those cities where it's a bit anonymous, if you know what I mean?

You know everybody. Somewhere around 50% of our students

are international students, so, they come from everywhere.

It's an international village,

but it's still a village, it's still very, very small.

What do you think Northern Irish students contribute to Dundee?

Our accents. Honestly, erm...

That's true. Yeah, no, it's true.

I mean, if you walk around this campus,

you just hear people from all over the place.

I can almost pinpoint the town they're from,

at this stage. If not, definitely county.

Students not from Northern Ireland kind of develop a twang.

I mean, it's an accent that sticks.

That's the thing. You know what I mean? That kind of, the...

"De-ne NE ne-ne ne-ne"...

It carries through.

And does it feel like home from home?

Yeah. I mean, home is still home, but I feel established here.

I feel like I know a lot of people.

There is Northern Irish people behind every shop counter and bar.

Musicians? Musicians.

Oh, loads of musicians.

You're hard-pressed to find a society or a sports team

in Dundee that doesn't have Northern Irish students.

And also, you know, we bring our own sports over here,

and we participate in the, kind of, the native sports here.

I mean, the shinty team is full of people from Belfast,

Gaelic team is full of people from Glasgow.

The game of shinty is as old as Scotland itself,

and it no coincidence that it looks so like hurling.

Some say the game was brought here by the Irish 1,000 years ago.

But over the centuries, it's developed its own style

and rules of play.

Jenni Cunningham had played hockey back home in Comber

and took up shinty when she came to study in Dundee.

Jenni, you're a Northern Irish lass here in Scotland.

What on earth would bring you to shinty?

Well, I just thought, I've come to Scotland,

so I might as well try something that's very Scottish.

So, I've given camogie a crack as well and just thought,

"Why not try shinty, too?"

And tell me about shinty.

It looks like hockey, but it's a lot freer, shall we say?

Well, I mean, it is very similar to hockey.

A lot of people say it's just a bit rougher. It is a contact sport,

but it's not that bad. You know, there are rules, so you can't just flatten someone.

And, I mean, that's compared to hockey, but compared to hurling or,

camogie, how does it compare? Is it the same, basically?

Well, sometimes some of the hurling ones would come and play with us,

and they do hurling versus shinty as well, so they are quite similar

in a lot of ways. There's a lot of similar rules.

It feels to me that Dundee is half-full

of Northern Irish students.

I mean, maybe that's just my perception,

but is that what you feel?

It does feel very much like Belfast, and the people are really friendly.

It feels like home, you know,

doesn't feel like you've come to another country.

And are you planning to stay here

or leave when you've finished your course?

I could actually see myself staying here.

There's a lot more job opportunities where I'm interested,

in Scotland, and I absolutely love it here.

And you're only a flight away from home or a quick ferry,

so it's not too far.

It's interesting that all the Northern Irish people I've met

who now live in Scotland

express the same idea of it being home from home.

Whether they came here for better work opportunities,

to buy more land or to study,

it's that easy familiarity of the place and its people

that's allowed them to stay.

30 miles off the coast of mainland Scotland,

the Isle of Lewis is the largest and northernmost island

in the Outer Hebrides.

The history and culture of the island's been shaped

by the Vikings and the Celts.

More people here speak Gaelic than in any other part of Scotland,

and it's one of the few places where the Sabbath is still

strictly observed -

everything's closed here on Sunday.

Those who attend Back Free Church are among the few remaining

congregations to sing psalms in Gaelic

in the traditional way.

THEY SING PSALM IN GAELIC

We've been listening to this fantastic, emotional,

powerful wave of sound that is Gaelic psalm singing. Yes, yeah.

You're the presenter. What is the whole technique?

Well, it actually all comes from a very simple melody.

All these tunes that we have in the Gaelic psalm singing tradition

are originated from very simple

Lowland and Continental tunes.

So, what we have done, or what the Gaelic tradition has done,

is they've taken these simple melodies

and they have ornamented these melodies

with grace notes.

THEY SING PSALM IN GAELIC

And then when you put them all together

with everyone doing their own thing,

it should be an absolute horrible noise,

but in this amazing way,

there's a sort of harmony created, if you see what I mean.

It doesn't matter if you're a croaker,

you will not be heard and nobody will look round at you and say,

"That's a horrible voice." It gets absorbed.

And this mixture of good voices and not so good voices...

..I think makes it what it actually is.

We are called the Wee Frees, and we're always looked on as dour people,

but we're not really, Lesley.

You know, honestly, I mean, we might appear to be dour,

but we're actually quite humorous people.

HE SINGS IN GAELIC

But the other thing that's unique is using Gaelic.

It actually totally suits the Gaelic style.

Now, people would ask me, "Can this be done in English?"

And I said, "Yes, it can, but it won't sound right in English."

This system, I think, that we have

reflects what I would call the sean-nos Gaelic singing style.

In other words,

what we were allowed to do in the Protestant tradition,

we were allowed to take what essentially is a secular

style of singing into the church.

THEY SING PSALM IN GAELIC

Sean-nos is also an Irish musical tradition,

and Calum, and members of the congregation,

have been invited to sing in Ireland, North and South,

many times.

See, this connection that we have with Ireland, I think,

is a very strong connection.

I sometimes actually think that, musically, we've got more in common

with Ireland than we have with southern Scotland.

It must be very confusing, though,

to folk in Ireland when they are hearing Protestants using Gaelic

in song the way you do.

It seems to confound all the divides within Ireland.

Absolutely. Because, even now, the vast majority of Protestants

in the North of Ireland,

they look on the Gaelic as being

very much a Catholic thing.

And historically, that's not true,

because the other thing that I find really intriguing...

Over in Ireland, historically, they were...

The Protestants were singing in Gaelic,

because there is a Bible called the McLeod Bible over there.

Interestingly, they have got the psalm exactly in our meter,

in the Gaelic language.

And the thing about the psalms, Lesley, is,

theologically, you're on safe ground.

Everyone likes the psalms, whether you're a Catholic or Protestant.

Well, that was a complete surprise.

There's music, language and religion in there,

but not grouped together in the way you might classically think

from a Northern Ireland perspective.

One thing's sure, though, when it comes to culture and tradition,

nothing in Scotland and Northern Ireland

is as straightforward as you'd think.

A member of Back Free Church,

Lisa MacLean, from Bellaghy in County Londonderry,

relocated to the Isle of Lewis 12 years ago.

A tenancy had become available in the village

that my husband grew up in,

so that became something that looked like it was going to be

a real opportunity for us to build our own home,

and, I guess, look at...

establishing something on the croft as well.

One of the first things I actually commented on when I came here was,

you know, I couldn't believe there were no hedges.

It just seemed so strange to have no hedges.

I think people back home and people here are quite similar.

I think, probably, the differences I see are in a work context.

I feel that there's a lot of entrepreneurship

in Northern Ireland,

whereas I think what I see here is people maybe think more

in a community context.

In 2010, Lisa became commercial development manager

with the Galson Estate Trust,

an organisation of local crofters who came together to buy the land

that had been in the hands of private landlords for centuries.

I just think it's just been so inspirational

to see people

take that ownership and run with it.

It's just been great to be involved with something that has such a clear

purpose, and that's to make the land sustainable for future generations.

One of the biggest differences here, though, is Gaelic.

Do you? No, I don't.

And I have to be honest and say I probably spent

a long number of years sort of saying, "I don't need to speak it.

"I'm fine."

Now, the time has come where I do probably need to start learning.

One of my children is about to start school next year

and he'll be going into Gaelic medium, so, yep,

I need to brush up on some basic Gaelic

to at least be able to help him.

So, all of that really comes together in the church.

It's kind of fused together, the music, the religion, the language.

So, how important is your faith to you?

Vital importance, vital importance.

I think my faith really is what

has helped keep me in such a remote area

that I have struggled with at times.

I mean, it's just so vast and so remote here,

and home was... The landscape is just so different.

The openness of here is just amazing and this skies here

are just something else, I think.

They're just huge and amazing, and it's hard

not to be touched by creation, really, here.

Growing up in Northern Ireland,

I always knew that Scotland was our family's home.

I just hadn't realised how many other folk

share those strong cultural connections and family ties.

In this series, I've discovered those connections

aren't just ancient history, or some shortbread-tin version of culture.

The Scots traditions played out in Northern Ireland

are alive and kicking.

Language is important to community and identity in both countries.

One thing that's kept coming up is the ease with which folk

from one nation fit and flit to the other.

Whether it's a Scot in Northern Ireland

or a Northern Irish person in Scotland,

they all describe their new surroundings as a home from home.

1,300 years ago, the North Channel was a bridge, not a barrier,

linking one ancient kingdom of Dalriada.

Is it really so different today?

True stories from the heart.

I just feel as though the decisions I made when I was younger

have just ruined my future.

We'll go home and the horses still need mucking out

and the animals need feed.

Mightn't be in this particular outfit -

I probably will take the hat off!

In Islam, it's forbidden to force a girl into marriage

without her permission.

Come through that crowd, and the cheering - "Aaaah!" -

and you get into that ring,

and everything else fades away.

True North returns with...

You want to make some sort of a deal?

By the command of His Majesty,

kill him!

No-one in this city has only one master.

I do.

Yah!