0:00:08 > 0:00:11Robert Burns is one of Scotland's national treasures.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17He has been voted the greatest Scot of all time
0:00:17 > 0:00:20and is regarded as the country's national poet.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28But the appeal of Burns stretches far beyond Scotland's shores.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31He's celebrated worldwide, not least in Ulster,
0:00:31 > 0:00:35where his influence was felt even during his own brief lifetime.
0:00:36 > 0:00:41But what about now? What is the connection between Burns and Ulster?
0:00:41 > 0:00:46And in particular, what influence does Burns have on the Ulster poets
0:00:46 > 0:00:47living and working today?
0:01:07 > 0:01:11Robert Burns was born in Ayrshire in Scotland in January 1759...
0:01:13 > 0:01:15..where he was to live for just 37 years,
0:01:15 > 0:01:19dying at his home in Dumfries in 1796.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25But Burns packed so much into his short life.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28He left behind not only a substantial body of work,
0:01:28 > 0:01:33in his poetry and songs, but he was also a farmer and father
0:01:33 > 0:01:37of nine children with his wife, and several more with other women.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43Part of the appeal of Burns is that he means different things
0:01:43 > 0:01:45to different people.
0:01:45 > 0:01:49Even within his work, he was regarded as a Romantic,
0:01:49 > 0:01:53as a nature poet and as a political radical.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58As a Scot, I feel a simple, straightforward connection to Burns.
0:01:58 > 0:02:02But how was that connection made across the Irish Sea,
0:02:02 > 0:02:05in Ulster, and with Ulster poets?
0:02:16 > 0:02:20I was brought up in Ayr and Dumfries, real Burns country,
0:02:20 > 0:02:23and as a child growing up in that part of the world,
0:02:23 > 0:02:25I was always aware of Burns.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27He was a constant presence.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34It's when you're on a sailing like this
0:02:34 > 0:02:37that you realise there's no real distance
0:02:37 > 0:02:41between the West of Scotland, where Burns lived, and Ulster.
0:02:41 > 0:02:46So it's no surprise that there's a bond between Burns and his poetry
0:02:46 > 0:02:50and the people living in Ulster, on the other side of the Irish Sea.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59Over the years, I've been in Ireland many times.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01But this trip is different.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05I'm on my way to meet some of Ulster's most celebrated poets,
0:03:05 > 0:03:07to talk to them about Robert Burns
0:03:07 > 0:03:11and for me, that makes this a real journey of discovery.
0:03:19 > 0:03:21I've come to the North Antrim coast.
0:03:21 > 0:03:23Just then there is the village of Cushendall
0:03:23 > 0:03:26and over in that direction, not so very far away,
0:03:26 > 0:03:28is Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland.
0:03:28 > 0:03:32Now, this site dates all the way back to the Stone Age, to the Neolithic.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35But it's also said to be, in folklore at least,
0:03:35 > 0:03:38the grave of the legendary warrior poet Ossian.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45One of Ulster's most influential poets, John Hewitt,
0:03:45 > 0:03:50wrote a poem about this site, which he described as his chosen ground.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55Hewitt, who died in 1987,
0:03:55 > 0:03:59also wrote about his close connections to Scotland.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04But I'm here to meet Chris Agee, a poet who was born in San Francisco
0:04:04 > 0:04:07but has lived and worked in Ireland for over 30 years.
0:04:08 > 0:04:14Where do you detect the influence of Burns on Hewitt
0:04:14 > 0:04:16and other poets here?
0:04:16 > 0:04:18To discern the influence of someone like Burns,
0:04:18 > 0:04:21you would have to step back to the early 19th century
0:04:21 > 0:04:24because Burns obviously had a huge impact
0:04:24 > 0:04:26on the Ulster-Scots writing tradition,
0:04:26 > 0:04:29which is rich enough in the first half of the 19th century
0:04:29 > 0:04:32and then that tradition goes in a more subterranean way.
0:04:32 > 0:04:37Do you see a discernible impact still today in poets
0:04:37 > 0:04:41living and working in Ulster now, that you can dot a line all the way
0:04:41 > 0:04:46- back to Burns?- Yes. You can see very clear influences in Tom Paulin
0:04:46 > 0:04:49and Michael Longley, fairly self-consciously,
0:04:49 > 0:04:51much more integral in Alan Gillis,
0:04:51 > 0:04:55who is really dealing with Ulster-Scots as a familial presence.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59And you can feel it in Heaney. What is the Scots thing?
0:04:59 > 0:05:03It's this folk closeness, it's this precision,
0:05:03 > 0:05:08it's the sensuality close to the lived reality of daily details
0:05:08 > 0:05:12and things, or as Heaney put it in one poem, "the bastion of sensation".
0:05:12 > 0:05:16And this was very different from mainstream,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20metropolitan London, English lexicon of the day.
0:05:20 > 0:05:24So Burns was bringing a confidence, making people feel that their
0:05:24 > 0:05:26daily lives, the way that they spoke to one another,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29the things they were experiencing in the home and in the field,
0:05:29 > 0:05:35were worthy of art and being made the stuff of art and poetry?
0:05:35 > 0:05:36Absolutely.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39And his art, his final art, is the art of simplicity
0:05:39 > 0:05:42because he is accessible.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45He is conversational.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49And he consolidated and internationalised
0:05:49 > 0:05:52the Scottish variant of English and gave it status.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55And gave it definition.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59And that travelled globally.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03And, to that extent, he must have an influence.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12I'm intrigued by Chris's view that Burns' influence has travelled
0:06:12 > 0:06:13across the world.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16That he has an impact on an international level.
0:06:21 > 0:06:24But what is the nature of that influence?
0:06:24 > 0:06:27For back in Scotland, and probably elsewhere,
0:06:27 > 0:06:30people are drawn to different aspects of Burns' poetry.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35One thread that runs right through Burns's work
0:06:35 > 0:06:37is his political radicalism.
0:06:37 > 0:06:40He welcomed both the French and the American revolutions
0:06:40 > 0:06:44and he believed in the fundamental rights of ordinary men.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54To try and understand more about how this aspect of Burns' poetry
0:06:54 > 0:06:55has been felt here,
0:06:55 > 0:07:00I've come to meet one of Ulster's most celebrated poets - Tom Paulin.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05How much would you say that your work, and even your thinking,
0:07:05 > 0:07:11was shaped and informed by Burns' radical politics?
0:07:11 > 0:07:17When I was a child, my maternal grandparents were from Scotland
0:07:17 > 0:07:23and I was born on what is known as Burns's Day, the 25th of January,
0:07:23 > 0:07:28so I grew up with the idea of Burns and then I realised,
0:07:28 > 0:07:33when I got interested in politics, I realised he was a great radical poet.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37I mean, he is the most radical poet in the 18th century.
0:07:37 > 0:07:43So there are all sorts of great poems to friends of his about drinking
0:07:43 > 0:07:47and about going out chasing women,
0:07:47 > 0:07:51and there is this great sort of radical libertarian
0:07:51 > 0:07:54sort of joyous sense running right throughout the poems.
0:07:54 > 0:07:59If there was only one work, one poem of Burns,
0:07:59 > 0:08:02that you could save, which one would it be?
0:08:02 > 0:08:07I think it would be a poem called Love And Liberty.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11It's set in this, you know, dark, as they would have said,
0:08:11 > 0:08:14noisesome drinking den.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17Very interestingly, what he does is, he has Boreas,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21which is the classical word for the north wind.
0:08:21 > 0:08:28And he mixes that up with the bauckie bird, which is Scots for bat.
0:08:28 > 0:08:34So you get this movement in the poems constantly between standard English,
0:08:34 > 0:08:37which he writes very perfectly, and Scots,
0:08:37 > 0:08:40which is again part of the energy of the poems.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45When lyart leaves bestrow the yird
0:08:45 > 0:08:47Or wavering like the bauckie-bird
0:08:47 > 0:08:50Bedim cauld Boreas' blast
0:08:50 > 0:08:53When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte
0:08:53 > 0:08:55And infant frosts begin to bite
0:08:55 > 0:08:58In hoary cranreuch drest
0:08:58 > 0:09:02Ae night at e'en a merry core O' randie, gangrel bodies
0:09:02 > 0:09:07In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore To drink their orra dudies
0:09:07 > 0:09:10Wi' quaffing, and laughing They ranted an' they sang
0:09:10 > 0:09:14Wi' jumping an' thumping The vera girdle rang.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17Again, you know, celebrating drinking
0:09:17 > 0:09:21and drinking songs in this very low dive.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23If you and he had been contemporaries, what would you
0:09:23 > 0:09:26have seen as the things that you have in common, as men?
0:09:27 > 0:09:34Well, I suppose, you know, interest in sociability and craic
0:09:34 > 0:09:41and obviously drinking is very, very important in Burns.
0:09:41 > 0:09:45And to be prepared to write in that way at that time,
0:09:45 > 0:09:47he had to kick the doors down.
0:09:48 > 0:09:55Yes, I think there is this tremendous egalitarian sense of irreverence
0:09:55 > 0:10:00towards hierarchy and towards, you know, moralistic ways of thinking,
0:10:00 > 0:10:04he just runs completely counter to that and tries to explode it.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12I had expected Tom to talk about Burns the egalitarian,
0:10:12 > 0:10:16so it was fascinating to discover that he was equally enthusiastic
0:10:16 > 0:10:20about remembering him as an irreverent free spirit, and a man
0:10:20 > 0:10:23who liked to drink with his friends and seek the company of women.
0:10:23 > 0:10:27That, I think, is the Burns that many of us have loved
0:10:27 > 0:10:29down through the years.
0:10:41 > 0:10:45When you grow up in Scotland, you're made aware of Robert Burns
0:10:45 > 0:10:47and his poetry very early on.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51I can't honestly remember a time when I didn't know that name.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55And now my own children are coming home from primary school
0:10:55 > 0:10:58with Burns' poetry to learn and memorise
0:10:58 > 0:11:02and they're encouraged to perform it, to recite it, and the prize,
0:11:02 > 0:11:05if you're good enough, will be The Collected Works Of Robert Burns.
0:11:05 > 0:11:09And because of all of that, it becomes very difficult to separate
0:11:09 > 0:11:12the man from the myth that has grown up around him.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17I'm now on my way to Dublin to meet Seamus Heaney.
0:11:18 > 0:11:23And that, for me, is another name with powerful resonance.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28And it's quite nerve-wracking enough just to contemplate
0:11:28 > 0:11:32going to speak to a poet of that stature.
0:11:46 > 0:11:47- Hello, Seamus.- How are you?
0:11:47 > 0:11:50- How are you doing?- Nice to meet you. I've seen you around.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52- Oh, good!- Come in.
0:11:54 > 0:12:00Seamus, how and when did you first encounter Burns and his poetry?
0:12:00 > 0:12:05Well, I first encountered Burns at secondary school level,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09about the age of 12, in a book called The Ambleside Book Of Verse,
0:12:09 > 0:12:12which was a prescribed text,
0:12:12 > 0:12:16and it had To A Mountain Daisy
0:12:16 > 0:12:18and, of course, To A Mouse.
0:12:18 > 0:12:23But before that, in the ceilidhs at home,
0:12:23 > 0:12:29when visitors would call, Burns would be referred to.
0:12:29 > 0:12:33It was an old cousin of my father's who was a country man
0:12:33 > 0:12:35without any schooling.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38But he had read Burns and he quoted Burns,
0:12:38 > 0:12:42admittedly a line at a time or two lines at a time.
0:12:42 > 0:12:44But nevertheless, Burns was part of,
0:12:44 > 0:12:48if you like, the vernacular in that part of County Derry anyway.
0:12:48 > 0:12:53What was it that caught your ear, why did it resonate for you?
0:12:53 > 0:12:57Well, it was the sense of at homeness with the language.
0:12:57 > 0:13:02I've written a couple or three paragraphs about the word "wee",
0:13:02 > 0:13:05you know, "Wee, sleekit, tim'rous, cow'rin beastie."
0:13:06 > 0:13:12"Wee" is a very common word in our vocabulary in the North of Ireland.
0:13:12 > 0:13:18Sleekit is also a word that would have been part of the vocabulary
0:13:18 > 0:13:21of the people around where I lived,
0:13:21 > 0:13:23"You're a sleekit sort of a boyo."
0:13:23 > 0:13:29The number of words that were part of our home language,
0:13:29 > 0:13:33hearth language, but wouldn't have appeared in the dictionaries.
0:13:34 > 0:13:36Cowp, to fall, he cowped.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40And what difference did it make to you to see that someone was
0:13:40 > 0:13:43using that language of the hearth?
0:13:43 > 0:13:48Well, it made you more at home with printed books, if you like.
0:13:48 > 0:13:53You changed your clothes, as it were, to read a poem.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56Whereas with Burns you would stay in your working clothes,
0:13:56 > 0:13:58it's kind of straightforward.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01At homeness about the speech.
0:14:01 > 0:14:06But I should say this also, and it's the obverse of what I've been saying,
0:14:06 > 0:14:10when I was at Queen's University studying literature...
0:14:12 > 0:14:15..and this... I...
0:14:15 > 0:14:18I didn't do - inverted commas - "Burns".
0:14:19 > 0:14:22Because I thought he belonged in a different...
0:14:22 > 0:14:27I mean, I understood him too well and he wasn't a high-class,
0:14:27 > 0:14:29- Eng Lit creature...- Oh, right.
0:14:29 > 0:14:32So you snubbed him from your university course.
0:14:32 > 0:14:36- I didn't see how you could study it. - What changed, then?
0:14:36 > 0:14:39At what point did you think he was worthy of that kind of study
0:14:39 > 0:14:43- that you would have applied to other poets?- I got a bit older and read...
0:14:43 > 0:14:49- I mean, I think that To A Mouse is a great poem. I mean, it's...- Why?
0:14:49 > 0:14:53Because it's a sense of fate in it and a sense of doom.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58And Burns is looking at the mouse
0:14:58 > 0:15:02and there's a kind of foresight
0:15:02 > 0:15:05or sensing of his own destiny.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12November 1785.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18"Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie
0:15:18 > 0:15:20"O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
0:15:20 > 0:15:23"Thou need na start awa sae hasty
0:15:23 > 0:15:25"Wi' bickering brattle!
0:15:25 > 0:15:27"I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee
0:15:27 > 0:15:28"Wi' murd'ring pattle.
0:15:29 > 0:15:32"I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
0:15:32 > 0:15:35"Has broken nature's social union
0:15:35 > 0:15:37"An' justifies that ill opinion
0:15:37 > 0:15:39"Which makes thee startle
0:15:39 > 0:15:42"At me, thy poor, Earth-born companion
0:15:42 > 0:15:44"An' fellow-mortal!"
0:15:45 > 0:15:50Is the work of Burns, is it high art?
0:15:50 > 0:15:55Is it appropriate to let it stand with the greatest of the great?
0:15:55 > 0:15:59Yes, it is high art. There's no doubt about that.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03I mean, the artfulness of the thing is in the devising of it,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05and in the... HE SIGHS
0:16:05 > 0:16:11..energy and shape and spirit of the...
0:16:11 > 0:16:13of the whole thing.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17It isn't just a matter of words or vocabulary.
0:16:17 > 0:16:22It has to have a human boost in it, you know?
0:16:22 > 0:16:26It has to have the spirit as well as the letter, as they say.
0:16:26 > 0:16:28And Burns certainly has that.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35'I was surprised by what Seamus had to say
0:16:35 > 0:16:38'about the way in which Burns is regarded in Ulster.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41'I know that Burns and his poetry are famous around the world,
0:16:41 > 0:16:44'but I had imagined that part of this appeal
0:16:44 > 0:16:46'was the very strangeness of him,
0:16:46 > 0:16:50'the unfamiliarity of his language and vocabulary.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53'So it's really heart-warming to learn that, for Seamus,
0:16:53 > 0:16:57'he didn't become a love figure because of any sense of foreignness,
0:16:57 > 0:17:00'but precisely because he regards him as one of his own.'
0:17:13 > 0:17:16'I've come back to Belfast to meet Frank Ormsby,
0:17:16 > 0:17:18'a poet originally from County Fermanagh.
0:17:21 > 0:17:23'Along with men like Heaney and Tom Paulin,
0:17:23 > 0:17:26'Frank is one of the golden generation of Ulster poets
0:17:26 > 0:17:29'that emerged in the 1960s,
0:17:29 > 0:17:32'those that followed in the footsteps of John Hewitt,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36'and he's been at the forefront of poetry here since that time.'
0:17:40 > 0:17:42What do you think ARE the characteristics
0:17:42 > 0:17:45simply of a Burns poem?
0:17:45 > 0:17:48What marks it out?
0:17:48 > 0:17:52I think it's probably the use of the Scottish dialect and so on,
0:17:52 > 0:17:57that kind of...makes these poems some sort of bridge between...
0:17:57 > 0:18:01maybe literary culture and popular culture.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04Do you see his influence in your contemporaries
0:18:04 > 0:18:08or, indeed, anyone working today in Ulster?
0:18:09 > 0:18:11I sense that the Ulster poet
0:18:11 > 0:18:17who was most conscious of Burns and his influence was John Hewitt.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21And that was partly because, you know,
0:18:21 > 0:18:27Hewitt had a tremendous love of the Glens of Antrim area,
0:18:27 > 0:18:31and lived, at least during his summer holidays,
0:18:31 > 0:18:34among the country folk up there,
0:18:34 > 0:18:37and made them the subject of his verse and so on.
0:18:37 > 0:18:39The language that they spoke
0:18:39 > 0:18:41and the influence of Ulster Scots on them,
0:18:41 > 0:18:46on the influence of poets like Ramsey and Montgomery and Burns,
0:18:46 > 0:18:49was something he was always deeply, deeply conscious of.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53Did he influence you directly or indirectly?
0:18:53 > 0:18:57No, I'm not aware of being influenced in any way at all
0:18:57 > 0:19:00by the poetry of Robert Burns,
0:19:00 > 0:19:04but when you come across the poetry of someone
0:19:04 > 0:19:07which seems particularly addictive, you know,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10and I would put Burns in that category,
0:19:10 > 0:19:14I would put Yeats very much in that category, you know...
0:19:14 > 0:19:18It's almost as if you have to exert a kind of caution
0:19:18 > 0:19:20about the degree of influence, you know?
0:19:20 > 0:19:22What is the nature of the addiction?
0:19:22 > 0:19:25What's addictive about the work of Burns?
0:19:25 > 0:19:26- Um...- For you?
0:19:26 > 0:19:30There's something tremendously strong and confident, I think,
0:19:30 > 0:19:33about a Burns poem on the page.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37There's a part of you that wants to begin reading it aloud,
0:19:37 > 0:19:39wants to begin declaiming it, you know.
0:19:39 > 0:19:43There's something actually about the quality of the language that...
0:19:43 > 0:19:47seduces you in that sort of direction, you know?
0:19:47 > 0:19:50- As a teacher...- Yeah?
0:19:50 > 0:19:54Did Burns figure, for you, in the curriculum,
0:19:54 > 0:19:59or was he part of what YOU brought to your students?
0:19:59 > 0:20:03No, I would have to say that he didn't really figure very much.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05- And why not?- Well, I'm not sure.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08He was certainly in the school's anthologies,
0:20:08 > 0:20:12but when they came to selecting the poets from the anthologies
0:20:12 > 0:20:16who were, you know, set writers for examinations and so on,
0:20:16 > 0:20:19Burns tended to get left out.
0:20:19 > 0:20:23I think most people were probably aware of Burns
0:20:23 > 0:20:26through certain popular songs.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29Auld Lang Syne, A Man's A Man For A' That,
0:20:29 > 0:20:32My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose, and so on.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35I mean, that's probably the Burns that they know,
0:20:35 > 0:20:39but maybe the inclusion of Burns would have...
0:20:39 > 0:20:43would have varied the poetry diet
0:20:43 > 0:20:46in a very highly enjoyable way.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51# Wide o'er the plain
0:20:51 > 0:20:55# Delights the weary farmer
0:20:55 > 0:20:56# And the moon shines... #
0:20:56 > 0:20:59'It was interesting to hear Frank say that many people
0:20:59 > 0:21:03'are perhaps more familiar with Burns' songs than his poems.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08'To find out more about this, I've come to meet Len Graham,
0:21:08 > 0:21:10'one of Ulster's leading traditional singers.'
0:21:10 > 0:21:12# ..swallow
0:21:12 > 0:21:15# The skies are blue The fields in view
0:21:15 > 0:21:19# A' fading green and yellow
0:21:19 > 0:21:21# Avaunt, away!
0:21:21 > 0:21:23# The cruel sway
0:21:23 > 0:21:27# Tyrannic man's dominion
0:21:27 > 0:21:31# The huntsman's joy The murd'ring cry
0:21:31 > 0:21:35# The flutt'ring, gory pinion. #
0:21:36 > 0:21:39That's the first time I've ever heard that song.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42How prolific a songwriter was Burns?
0:21:42 > 0:21:46Oh, very much a songwriter, and a song collector.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50That particular song is a fairly early one that he wrote,
0:21:50 > 0:21:55and that take on it is very much an Ulster version.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59I heard it away back, many, many moons ago in County Antrim.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03What would characterise it as an Ulster version?
0:22:03 > 0:22:06Well, a lot of these songs, when they come over here,
0:22:06 > 0:22:10they get interfered with, let's say.
0:22:10 > 0:22:11You always get that.
0:22:11 > 0:22:14It's a living tradition, it's an oral tradition,
0:22:14 > 0:22:17and, you know, it's not working off dots,
0:22:17 > 0:22:21so, whenever these things are going back and forth,
0:22:21 > 0:22:24they're inclined to get changed in the process.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27I think of Burns first and foremost as a poet,
0:22:27 > 0:22:30but can you detect that he's someone who understood
0:22:30 > 0:22:33the difference between a poem and a song?
0:22:33 > 0:22:38I think so. Particularly that song, Westlin Winds.
0:22:38 > 0:22:43It is so singable because of the internal rhyme,
0:22:43 > 0:22:48and that also turns up very much in the Gaelic tradition,
0:22:48 > 0:22:51both in Scotland and in Ireland,
0:22:51 > 0:22:57that internal rhyming is very much part of it, makes it very singable.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00It occurs quite a lot over here in songs.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06I liked what Len had to say about the songs of Robert Burns.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09It's one thing to hear that the poetry came over here
0:23:09 > 0:23:12and was learned and recited and studied.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14But it's something much more intimate
0:23:14 > 0:23:18to learn that when the music came over, the people changed it.
0:23:18 > 0:23:20Len said that was an Ulster version,
0:23:20 > 0:23:23that it came over here and was tampered with.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25And that's proof, if proof were needed,
0:23:25 > 0:23:29that here, the people took the work of Burns and made it their own.
0:23:34 > 0:23:37'This has been an intriguing journey for me.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41'Hearing how people here in Ulster have been affected by Burns
0:23:41 > 0:23:43'has allowed me, as a Scot,
0:23:43 > 0:23:47'to see my own national poet in a different light.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51'It has added new dimensions to the man and his work.'
0:23:53 > 0:23:56But, if I'm ever going to fully understand
0:23:56 > 0:23:58the connection between Ulster and Burns,
0:23:58 > 0:24:01there's one more place I have to go.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10'Now, my journey has come full circle.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12'I'm back in Edinburgh,
0:24:12 > 0:24:15'the city that Burns first travelled to in 1786,
0:24:15 > 0:24:18'after the publication of his collection of poetry,
0:24:18 > 0:24:20'Poems, Chiefly In The Scottish Dialect.'
0:24:23 > 0:24:27'Burns made his way here on a pony from his farm in Ayrshire,
0:24:27 > 0:24:30'but soon was embraced by the literary circles of the city.'
0:24:33 > 0:24:36I've come to meet two younger Ulster poets,
0:24:36 > 0:24:40Alan Gillis and Miriam Gamble, who are based here in Edinburgh,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43because I want to see what influence Burns is having
0:24:43 > 0:24:45on the next generation,
0:24:45 > 0:24:49those poets following in the footsteps of men like Seamus Heaney.
0:25:00 > 0:25:02Do you feel, either of you,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05that there's a natural connection between Ulster and Scotland?
0:25:05 > 0:25:08You know, that there's a natural crossover there?
0:25:08 > 0:25:11I think so, to some extent.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14Sometimes it's difficult to ascertain the differences.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17No-one thinks straightaway about Robbie Burns,
0:25:17 > 0:25:18as you read the biography.
0:25:18 > 0:25:22I mean, that description of the childhood and growing up in Ayrshire
0:25:22 > 0:25:25could be Down, Tyrone, so easily.
0:25:25 > 0:25:30And, Miriam, are you aware of any ways in which, even unconsciously,
0:25:30 > 0:25:33you've inherited something of his work?
0:25:33 > 0:25:36Yeah, well, I suppose one of the things he is, he is funny.
0:25:36 > 0:25:37He's also very playful.
0:25:37 > 0:25:40You know, the way he uses language is playful, and I like that.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43I can see how he's influenced older people,
0:25:43 > 0:25:45older writers from Northern Ireland.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48I know Seamus Heaney has written about him,
0:25:48 > 0:25:52and that he would identify him as somebody enabling,
0:25:52 > 0:25:54in terms of using language, you know,
0:25:54 > 0:25:56that actually sounds like yourself,
0:25:56 > 0:26:02rather than feeling obliged to write in kind of standardised English
0:26:02 > 0:26:05that doesn't reflect the tones of your own voice.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07To some extent, I think those battles,
0:26:07 > 0:26:11for people of our generation, have already been gone through.
0:26:11 > 0:26:13A huge tip of the scales came, for me,
0:26:13 > 0:26:16going into a primary school in Edinburgh,
0:26:16 > 0:26:18when I arrived here as a lecturer.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22I said yes to judging the recitals on Burns Day.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25It was absolutely new to me.
0:26:25 > 0:26:28And the enthusiasm and joy that was going on...
0:26:28 > 0:26:30And I was quite...
0:26:30 > 0:26:33Was it Ode To A Haggis? It wasn't easy.
0:26:33 > 0:26:35And they were only ten.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37And then my own son was four, went into P1,
0:26:37 > 0:26:40and all of a sudden he was doing one, and was evidently enjoying it.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43And I started asking people about this, and what really surprised me
0:26:43 > 0:26:46is nobody had negative memories of going through that.
0:26:46 > 0:26:47That was actually what...
0:26:47 > 0:26:50"I have to read this guy again." How come these guys...?
0:26:50 > 0:26:52How come these people aren't annoyed at being made to do this?
0:26:52 > 0:26:55They're actually really enjoying having these words on their tongue.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58Do you see yourself as being connected,
0:26:58 > 0:27:00however remotely, to Burns?
0:27:00 > 0:27:02Yes, but I've only recently sort of discovered
0:27:02 > 0:27:05the possibility of saying yes to that.
0:27:05 > 0:27:06So, it's in hindsight?
0:27:06 > 0:27:09Yeah, I mean, you do work backwards, a lot of the time.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11You know, you start in a position of extreme ignorance
0:27:11 > 0:27:14and you try and fill in gaps,
0:27:14 > 0:27:17and you go on wayward paths to fill in those gaps.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28'It feels a little strange for me to have discovered aspects of Burns
0:27:28 > 0:27:30'that I had never really thought about before,
0:27:30 > 0:27:34'by talking about him with poets from Ulster.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38'It also feels strange to realise that, in some sense,
0:27:38 > 0:27:40'now I have to share my national poet
0:27:40 > 0:27:43'with people from beyond Scotland.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46'Not least, just across the Irish Sea.'
0:27:49 > 0:27:52It would be foolish for me, as a Scot,
0:27:52 > 0:27:54to try and argue that Ulster poetry
0:27:54 > 0:27:58was shaped in its entirety by Robert Burns.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02I've heard for myself from Ulster poets living and working today
0:28:02 > 0:28:05that their work was NOT influenced directly
0:28:05 > 0:28:07by Scotland's national bard.
0:28:08 > 0:28:09But it seems to me that,
0:28:09 > 0:28:13although Robert Burns the man never went to Ulster,
0:28:13 > 0:28:15some essence of him certainly did...
0:28:17 > 0:28:19..because he undoubtedly has a presence there.
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