Episode 1 Santer

Welcome to a brand-new series of Santer. Boys, it's good to be back.

In this programme,

Frank McLernon tries his hand at flying birds of prey.

-You're a natural.

-Uh-huh, I'm taking him home with me.

You'll be getting a bill for four-and-a-half hundred pound

for this bird!

Mark Wilson starts off on his fascinating journey,

looking into the migration of Ulster-Scots to New Zealand.

This is some spot you've brought me to.

Mm, it looks idyllic,

but then, it's worth remembering there was nothing here.

Liam Logan and Gibson Young discuss Ulster-Scots words.

There are not many blurts in North Antrim,

is there many of them in County Down?

Well, down our way, there's plenty of them

knocking about, if you look hard enough.

And young Zoe Abraham goes off to Rathfriland

to find out how a drum's made.

There you go. One top tension ring, with all its holes drilled.

Now, the cello's not an instrument that you would always associate with

Ulster-Scots music, but just wait till you hear this.

The Northern Ireland School of Falconry's situated

just outside Ballymena.

They have a great range of birds of prey

and Frank McLernon went along to learn how to fly some of them.

I was always mad about birds, you know, all sorts of birds

and animals, but real passion for birds of prey.

So, the first bird of prey I ever had, I was nine

and I got it 41 years ago.

-Here we go, Frank.

-What's this creature, John?

-A pale barn owl

This is a boy. We've had him now for about three years.

You can see he's a bit bleached, by the sun, because we use him a lot,

so we do. So we'll just set him down here.

How close to full-grown is that, John?

Oh, fully grown. He'll never grow any bigger, so he'll not.

Oh, look at this wee tote of a thing!

This is a wee Burrowing Owl. This is a wee bird from America,

a wee desert bird.

He lives down burrows, like rabbits do.

-He does?

-Oh, aye.

-Same as the rabbits?

-Same as the rabbits!

-This here's a wee male, a male Lanner.

-A Lanner?

A Lanner, aye. So we'll take him over, we'll take him over to this.

-And where are they from, John?

-Africa.

And he's about four years old now.

He's a very good wee flier.

You're talking about a School of Falconry,

what does that entail?

It's not just taking birds out for shows and...

What does it entail?

Well, basically, you know, we do shows around the country, you know.

We go to schools, you know. We do pest control.

We've been fortunate, we've done movies, but we teach falconry.

So, if I landed up in your lane here

with a few shillings in my pocket and said,

"I'll buy that bird off you," the answer would be no?

Oh, definitely no. Unless you do a course and, at the end of the course,

I'll either say to you, "Frank, stick to whatever you do,

"don't be taking up falconry," or "Frank, you'll do OK at falconry".

Right, Frank, I'm going to let you have a go with a wee barn owl,

flying a barn owl. So if you want to just walk over

to the cut grass there.

OK, turn around.

Now, point your hand up that way, your glove, yeah.

-Right, are you ready?

-Uh-huh.

Come on, darling.

Ah, that a boy. That a boy.

-Now what's this raptor, John?

-This is an American Red-tailed hawk.

You can see by the tail.

-You know the way boys talk about the red kites...

-Uh-huh.

..but they're completely different, this is the Red-tailed Hawk.

This is the male Gos.

These are the Ferrari's, you know, when it comes to birds of prey.

You know, they're just absolutely lethal hunting machines

as you can see, like, a real spectacular-looking wee bird.

Goshawks.

That's the one the old kings and the old nobles used to fly?

Yes.

Frank, I have a wee male peregrine in here.

He busted one of his anklets, that's the boys that hold

the leather straps on their legs...

So I'm going to catch him here now and take him up to the house,

and me and you are going to put new equipment on him.

BIRD SQUAWKS And that's him caught.

So the towel stops him from having a lot of stress?

He's covered up there, he's sitting there quite happy.

What I'm going to do here now, Frank, I need you to hold...

Bring your fingers up to this bit of the leg up here now for me.

Make sure you keep a good hold of that leg there.

I'm just taking a measurement, to where

I need to punch my wee hole. So...

I have to do that to my belt, John, when I'm losing weight!

Frank, I think you're looking like me, you're not losing much weight!

Am I showing you enough of a leg here?

Oh, you've showed me enough leg, Frank, any more would be dangerous!

Get the first one in.

Aw, darling, it's all right.

Do you ever get darted with them talons?

Oh, many a time.

I always say you're not a falconer until you get stitches.

-Aaah!

-Hold on, hold on a wee minute.

Did you get hurt?

That's not my fault, I'm holding him!

You're the one wrestling him.

Right, when we're putting on the anklet, the jesses tie on him, Frank.

Aye.

I'll just grab his jesses, you release your hands.

-OK, are you ready?

-And take away the towel?

Yeah, take...

-Ah, there we go.

-Awww.

-Do you want a go at holding him?

-Oh, aye.

Now you hold him now, just bring your thumb up through there

and just push into his chest.

There you are. Och, look at that!

Aw, he's a bonny lad.

Right, Frank, well this bird here is the Harris hawk.

Hopefully, he's going to come back down to you.

Oh, he will, he likes me. I know the way he looks at me.

-Right, will we try it?

-By all means.

OK.

And there we go, up on a perch.

Now, if you watch him here now with his tail,

he shakes his tail, and that's basically

because these are a pack bird. They hunt together in packs.

So they have to be able to communicate to each other,

and the problem is, if they started squawking,

they'd just alert everything about. So they tail shake.

So what I'm going to do now, Frank, is just give you a wee bit of meat

and you'll hold it just in the tip of your glove here, just there.

Come on!

Come on.

-Come on.

-Here she comes.

Aw, you're a lovely bird!

Yes, you are.

-You're a natural.

-Uh-huh, I'm taking him home with me.

You'll be getting a bill for four-and-a-half hundred pound

for this bird. It's for Dervock.

Right from our first series,

Mark Wilson has always been taking off on his travels.

Well, this series is no different.

This time, he's taking a look at the migration of the Ulster-Scots

to New Zealand and, of course,

he manages to fit in a wee thin of music for by.

The story of the Ulster-Scots migration to New Zealand

is a fascinating one.

There were settlements to both the North and the South islands.

As I journey through the country, I'm really looking forward to

finding out so much more about that history.

But of course, me being me, I'd want a wee rattle on the drum

and here in New Zealand,

bagpiping is every bit as big as it is back home or in Scotland.

I'm starting my journey here, in the Bay of Plenty,

and, in particular, the town of Katikati.

One of the things I can't help but notice, as I drive through Katikati,

is the amount of murals.

Now, of course we're fond of the odd mural ourselves,

but here, they like them a lot.

In fact, they've got 50 of them,

including right here on Main Street,

mural number 20, of George Vesey Stewart,

the founder of the Ulster settlement in Katikati, in 1875.

He was from Martray in County Tyrone,

and it was back home in Ulster that he dreamt up the idea

of a plantation of Ulster settlers in New Zealand.

But it was OK having that vision and that dream,

he had to go home and sell that to the people back home in Ulster.

And he did that to a people who had a sense of community already,

through the Orange Lodges and the Orange Order.

George Vesey Stewart arranged for families from Ulster

to be transported to New Zealand on two ships,

the first being the Carisbrook Castle, in 1875,

which was followed by the Lady Jocelyn, three years later.

The Lady Jocelyn sailed directly from Belfast

on an arduous 88-day journey to Auckland.

But the final destination was the Vesey Stewart settlement in Katikati.

So the families were transferred by steamer here,

into the Bay of Plenty, to start their new life on the land

that he had purchased.

John, you're a local man and very interested in the history

of the area, the history of the Ulster settlers here.

This is some spot you've brought me to.

It's lovely, isn't it?

It really is a paradise and you can imagine,

as they came in through the heads here, into this harbour,

that they must have thought they really had reached

the promised land, you know.

The land that Vesey Stewart bought would have run right along,

if you follow the ridge line there, all the way down.

And away in the distance there, 20 miles to the south.

And three miles back from the points in the harbour,

back to the foothills, was the first 10,000 acres

that he would have bought for the first settlement.

And then, when the second ship came out,

he negotiated the purchase of another 10,000 acres.

But if you'd journeyed for months from Belfast,

battling against the elements, I mean, looking at that,

you really would have thought,

"I've bought my own little place in paradise."

It looks idyllic,

but then it's worth remembering there was nothing here.

There was a lot of fern and scrub to clear,

and all they could see when they were first deposited here,

was a lot of hard work, years of hard work, ahead of them.

They had to build a house, they had to clear the land,

they had to feed their families. They were in survival mode, really.

This is Maria Gallaher, born in Belfast in 1833.

And when she married her husband James, they moved to Ramelton,

this is Ramelton up here, in Donegal,

and were part of the Ulster-Scots community there.

And this mural is on the side of the No.2 School here in Katikati,

the school in which Maria Gallaher was the very first teacher.

She sailed here in the Lady Jocelyn ship in 1878,

bringing with her her six children.

She left behind a three-month-old baby to come here.

And down this end is a tribute to one of her sons,

who would become exceedingly famous - Dave Gallaher,

the original captain of the All Blacks.

And this is a picture of him with his original team.

The Dave Gallaher Cup,

the Dave Gallaher Shield, France, where he died in Passchendaele

in the First World War, Letterkenny RFC, where he was from.

Maria, and her side of the mural, the orange frame around her picture

represents the Orange Tradition, the Orange Lodges

from which lots of the settlers were brought to Katikati.

The Lady Jocelyn ship she sailed on,

the Ulster flag. This mural just has tremendous resonance for me,

as an Ulster-Scot standing here in the middle of New Zealand.

The Ulster-Scots didn't arrive here in New Zealand

to an uninhabited land - the Maoris were the original Polynesian settlers

here in the Bay of Plenty.

THEY PERFORM TRADITIONAL MAORI SONG

That's a fantastic welcome your Kapa Haka group have just given me!

It's a pleasure, it's a pleasure. Our Kapa Haka group

is a really strong group, a really proud group,

and it really shows the tradition of our Maori history.

But it's great to have an Ulsterman like yourself here

and we're very much an Ulster Plantation.

And if you look at our school crest, it reflects the key things

from the Irish settlers that came out from Ireland in about 1875.

So first of all, at the top, is the red hand, the Red Hand of Ulster.

The two ships that you see on the crest, the Carisbrook Castle

and the Lady Jocelyn, these brought out some of the founding families -

the Stewarts, McMullans, Gledstanes, those sorts of people.

THEY PERFORM TRADITIONAL MAORI SONG

And the two green sections on your school badge?

The bottom left refers to the Ulster Plantation, so it's the trees,

and I suppose the founding fathers of our community really thought

of this as a plantation, an Ulster community away from home.

And then on the top right, we have what is called the sinister chief.

I suppose it looks at power, justice and righteous authority.

So again, some of, I suppose,

the core values at that time that led to the formation of this crest.

THEY PERFORM TRADITIONAL MAORI SONG

There's been thousands of students that have gone through the school,

respect the others and remember your history around us,

not only their Ulster history,

but our pre-European, our Maori history, as well,

that contributes to everything around here.

Well, that makes me, as an Ulsterman coming down here to New Zealand,

very proud to know that you guys here are thinking of where

the history came from and, maybe, you're our brothers and cousins

that we just hadn't met yet.

Throughout the rest of the series,

we'll be following Mark, as he travels from Katikati to Athenree

and Auckland, and then to the South Island,

to Christchurch and Timaru, before finishing his journey in Dunedin.

You know the way an Ulster-Scots word can be used in one place

and then another, and mean something different?

Well, throughout this series of Santer, Liam Logan

and Gibson Young will be talking about just that.

Gibson, I'm sure you're like myself - you're familiar with plenty

of Ulster-Scots people that are very fluent in Anglo-Saxon.

Oh, definitely.

But there's some words in Ulster-Scots

that are exclusively Ulster-Scots.

They're strong in meaning, but they fall short of actual obscenity.

Definitely.

You get words that are close to the wire, I'd say, you know.

I'll tell you a good word - blurt.

If you said to somebody, "Boy, you're a cheeky blurt,"...

Or an ignorant blurt, or a lazy blurt.

Or a stingy blurt. Oh, I could go on all day.

-It's a very poor character reference, Gibson.

-No!

And it's a word in my experience that plays very well

in front of Aunt Sadie or the minister.

Oh, aye.

There are not many blurts in North Antrim,

is there many of them in County Down?

Well, down our way, there's plenty of them knocking about

if you look hard enough,

and some of them pop up just where you weren't expecting it.

I started tenor drumming three years ago

and my first band was the Geoghegan Memorial,

and then I went to Raffrey and I've been there for two years.

I practise on a Monday or a Tuesday and a Thursday.

I live in Richhill, so that means I travel quite a lot to get here.

But my dad is a piper in the band and he travels up with me,

and we travel about an hour or so.

I like the tenor drum, because of all the flourishes I get to do in it,

and I like the people in the band.

they're very funny sometimes and very kind to me.

As a drum corps, we did very well this year - we got three trophies.

This season we won the Ulster Championships.

We also won the All-Ireland Championship.

And then, because we did so well,

we won Champion of Champions, as a drum corps.

I hope we do well this season and get some prizes, as well.

We did good last year, but I'd like to do better this year, as well.

Someone asked me did I want to go and see how a drum was made,

so I thought that would be great fun.

They make it up in Rathfriland in Northern Ireland.

The process of making a drum like this

starts with a bar of aluminium, like this.

The aluminium bar is fed into a machine

and spun around this drum into a coil.

Out of this coil, they make four rings like this,

and then the machines get to work.

The aluminium ring is turned in a lathe, where the cutting tool

shapes a top tension ring.

Then, another machine bores all the holes.

There you go - one top tension ring with all its holes drilled.

All the other drum rings are shaped and bored.

And then they are degreased in a machine

that looks like a giant dishwasher.

A big oven then dries off the excess water.

Now, it's time for a bit of colour.

They use powder to paint the rings.

After it goes back into that oven, at nearly 200 degrees,

it looks like this - very tough.

The shell of the drum is made with birch.

The birch is shaped into a circle and put into a heat press,

which bonds the glue in a matter of minutes.

The drum shell is then sanded and ready for painting.

Some of them's mixed colours, some sparkly,

and some's just plain.

My drum's sparkly silver,

but I think if I was getting a new one,

I would get pink and turquoise sparkles.

It's very interesting seeing how a drum is made

cos you don't know that that much work goes into it

whenever you look at it.

Well, that's us up and running again

and I hope you enjoyed the programme.

To finish off with,

we're going to go across the Atlantic, where Lauren Rioux

sings us out with an Appalachian Scots-Irish song, Loving Hannah.

# I go to church each Sunday

# My true love passed me by

# I knew her love was changing

# By the roving of her eye

# By the roving of her eye

# By the roving of her eye

# I knew her love was changing

# By the roving of her eye

# My love is fair and proper

# Her hands are neat and small

# And she is quite good-looking

# And that's the best of all

# And that's the best of all

# And that's the best of all

# And she is quite good-looking

# And that's the best of all

# Remember loving Hannah

# When she gave to me her hand

# You said if you ever married

# That I would be the man

# But now you've broke your promise

# Go home with who you please

# While my poor heart is breaking

# You're loving at your ease

# You're loving at your ease

# You're loving at your ease

# While my poor heart is breaking

# You're loving at your ease

# I go down by the river

# When everyone's

# Asleep

# I'll think of loving Hannah

# And then sit down and weep

# And then sit down and weep

# And then sit down and weep

# I'll think of loving Hannah

# And then sit down and weep. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd