Episode 2 The Gaitherin

Isn't this magnificent?

Oh, welcome to the beautiful surroundings of Glenarm Castle

and on today's show, as a Ballymoney couple

prepare for their Ulster-Scots wedding, is she really sure?

I preferred Raymond's brother to him, I get on more with him.

Cos Raymond was one of these hard men at school, he thought he was it.

Tim McGarry begins his task of learning Ulster-Scots.

It's caul or cold, make up your mind.

-Caul.

-Caul.

-Cold.

Jackie Fullerton tells us about some of his Ulster-Scots sporting heroes.

Yeah, get in!

Welcome to The Gaitherin.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

TRADITIONAL MUSIC PLAYS

Welcome to the beautiful and historic Glenarm Castle.

Do you know, actually, that the town of Glenarm

claims to be the oldest in Northern Ireland.

It dates back to the 12th century. Is it?

Well, we might find out about that later on

because we have Liam Logan, who's an Ulster-Scots enthusiast,

and Adrian Morrow, who's the estate manager,

and we have the lovely Jackie Fullerton.

What are you doing here, Jackie?

I'm here, Helen, because of the World Cup.

I'm here to talk about penalty kicks, about memories,

about glories of yesteryear.

Oh, aye.

Well, we'll have a chat about that later on.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Can we say a big thank you to The Grousebeaters?

CHEERING

Now, we have found some more schoolchildren who just love

speaking Ulster-Scots.

They come from Ballinamore Primary School

and at their end-of-term assembly, they were giving out awards,

really, to celebrate their use of Ulster-Scots.

So, we sent Ralph McLean along to find out more.

First cup is awarded for effort and endeavour at Key Stage 1,

and that goes to Henry Campbell.

'It's a very busy morning for us,'

awarding all our prizes

and celebrating the successes of all the pupils this morning.

Next up, we have the Kane Family Shield...

The Ulster-Scots trophy that we awarded today is

the Kane Family trophy and awarded for excellence in Ulster-Scots.

..and that goes to Corey McIntyre.

And how do you make Ulster-Scots fun for kids?

I think it's because we spend quite a bit of time looking at the

words and we look at the different phonics or sounds that are made.

And, you know, there's glorious words.

You've got sheugh and throch and we love all those "och" sounds,

you know, so you have to keep it alive in that way.

Bring it to life by showing the children that it is energised

and it is an exciting language.

But, of course, they've taken to it like ducks to water.

The auld broon troot lay unner a stane

Unner a stane lay he

He thocht o' the wund An he thocht o' the rain

An the troot that he uist tae be

"A'm a gey auld troot" quo he tae hissel

"A gey auld troot" quo he

"And there's mony like a queer-like a tale a cuid tell

"O the things that's happenin' tae me."

Corey, that's a well shiny trophy and why did you win that?

I won that because I was really good at Ulster-Scots.

What's your favourite words in Ulster-Scots?

Soor and what ye daein?

What ye daein? Do you say that all the time?

Yeah, if like my little sister doesn't get something right -

-what ye daein?

-RALPH LAUGHS

-You can have fun with Ulster-Scots, can't you?

-Yeah, you can, actually.

It's really great to learn Ulster-Scots so it is.

I enjoy learning Ulster-Scots.

Are you going to keep on speaking Ulster-Scots cos you're P7 now

and you're leaving the school but are you going to keep it going?

Yeah, I am.

My mum and my dad grew up in Ballymoney

and they usually speak Ulster-Scots and I want to be like them.

APPLAUSE

Well done, Corey, that was lovely to see you and you had such

a good chat with Ralph there

about how important Ulster-Scots is to you.

Now, we've something special for our audience tonight because Gary Blair,

who is from the Ulster-Scots Agency, he has written you a special poem.

So, take it away, Corey, the stage is yours.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

I can hardly believe that I'm standin' here

telling yous a rhyme in Ulster-Scots

but if you're wonderin' "Dae I know much aboot it?"

Me answer's aye, lots and lots.

It's the language used every day when talkin' at school

and I can speak as well in English for I'm naebody's fool.

Ma wee dog knows Ulster-Scots as well

for when I call him o'er, he runs right to me hill.

My biggest passion's fitba though, I play it ev'ry day

but if I played for Liverpool, I would still tak this way.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Corey, we loved that. Well done.

Let's find out a little bit more about Glenarm, the estate.

So, Liam, let's try and get the idea of the connection between here

-and Scotland.

-Well, Helen, you only have look over the water there.

You can see Scotland,

you can't see much of the rest of the country from here.

The roads round here are good,

and the sea was available to anybody that had a boat.

Now, what about this estate, Adrian?

Can you give us an idea of the size of the estate?

The estate used to be about 330,000 acres.

Now, it's 2,000 acres today.

But it's still the same family, tell me about them.

Still the same family, there's been MacDonalds here for some 400, maybe

500 years, and they always would have had a Morrow along with them.

They've been about here for years and they built that lovely,

big house over there and a beautiful big house it is too

but I don't know as much about it as Adrian.

Well, this house over here, Liam, was built in 1629.

-Did you build it yourself?

-No.

LAUGHTER

But I'm sure there was a Morrow had a hand on it somewhere, I would say.

The hoose isnae where it was originally.

No, well, they said that one day,

His Lordship in about 1830 was over here and he looked,

Glenarm Village used to be in the field at the front

of the house where it is today

and the castle was on the other side of the river

where the village is now

and they said that the old lord came over one day to visit Glenarm

and he stood up there where the site is and he thought,

"This is a much nicer place.

"I think I'll shift my house over here and put

"the village on the other side." And that's exactly what he did.

Was that a sort of Glenarm clearances then?

I suppose you could say that in a small way, yes.

Listen to the two of you, you could talk all night,

but thanks, that's enough for just now.

Well done.

CHEERING

You might remember that in our last show,

we had a very brief introduction to this couple.

I hate him.

HE LAUGHS

We just never, we never did see eye-to-eye.

We just never really get on that well so we never.

Their ambition is to have an Ulster-Scots wedding

so I think it's time that we found out a little bit more about them.

My name's Laura, this is Raymond, and on the 19th of September,

we're having an Ulster-Scots wedding.

-Well, we've known each other...

-20 years.

I hated Raymond. We did, we used to hate each other.

I preferred Raymond's brother to him, I got on more with him,

cos Raymond was one of these hard men at school, he thought he was it.

The night I met Laura, I was sitting in a bar

so I was with one of my mates,

and she came in so she did with one of her mates and the next

thing she said was, "Do you want to come to my house for a party?"

What really happened on the night me and Raymond met,

me and my friend were sitting having a couple of drinks as you do

and Raymond walked in with his friend and, of course,

wanted to know if there were any parties.

But Raymond would have you know that it's the other way around.

RAYMOND LAUGHS

Describe Laura?

What did he say about me?

She's one of the best girls ever you could meet.

I would say he's very good to me

and he can be romantic at times when he wants to be.

Honest, loving, caring.

Absolutely everything you could ask for in a girl.

Our personalities are alike. You know, I'm thran but he's thranner.

-Hello, Raymond.

-Hello, Janet, nice to meet you.

Hello, Laura, nice to meet you.

I'm Janet, I'm going to be doing your wedding ceremony

so would you like to come down and see the room?

We decided upon the Ulster-Scots theme for our wedding

because it's more traditional now in Ballymoney.

Well, this is the Shiels Room where you plan to marry.

'I'll be wearing my tartan kilt that day so I will,

'me and the best man and groomsmen.'

We're having our cake done in tartan so we are so things like that there.

We were wondering if we could say our vows in Ulster-Scots?

The bride or groom is perfectly entitled to

declare their vows in Ulster-Scots or any language they prefer.

'For our actual ceremony on the day,

'we were wanting to do our vows in Ulster-Scots.'

We're not too sure yet on what to do because we would need to

find somebody that can actually translate the language for us.

I could go on all day and say things about her

but she's one in a million.

And I really cannae wait to marry him and become his wife.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Isn't that really romantic?

But did you notice that the mothers-in-law-to-be,

they didn't say very much.

I expect we'll hear quite a lot more from them in the future.

Now, it's not very often that I'm asked to introduce an item

using a sheep. Certainly not one that looks like this.

I think we'll need to find out more about this.

Over here is Nigel Campbell.

Now, you are organising the Dalriada Festival

and I should explain that this wonderful creature down here

has got something to do with that so tell me

about the festival first of all, Nigel.

Well, the Dalriada Festival is one of Northern Ireland's biggest

cultural family events.

We have so much on offer in terms of sport, music and food but one

of our wacky events is the world's only sheep fashion show at that.

So, Lucy, here, was our winner last year and she's back with us.

I'm not surprised, it's absolutely brilliant.

I have to go over and have a quick chat with her.

Lucy, this is lovely.

-I mean is this like a pet lamb that you dress up like this?

-Yeah.

Does she have a name?

It's a he and we don't usually have a name, we just call him Lamby.

Well, that's nice and simple.

Now, this item, this costume, how long did it take to prepare?

It takes about ten minutes to get him dressed

but the real challenge is to think of an idea and get the clothes.

Like, the first year, I spray-painted him pink

and put hair extensions and a handbag and a tutu

and legwarmers, all fluorescent pink.

What are you going to do this year?

Oh, I'm keeping that a secret,

keeping the cards close to the chest.

Are you? That's good, good tactic.

Thank you, Lucy, and listen, all the best to you

and Lamby in this year's competition.

Could we give her a big round of applause?

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Now, I think it's time for a little bit more music.

We've got The Grousebeaters up here again and this time,

they're going to perform Three Jigs.

THE GROUSEBEATERS PLAY

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

More from The Grousebeaters later on.

We're going to stay with music because on the last show,

we had the first chance to meet two young pipers, Zoe and Kyle,

and they really hoped to become champions at the

UK Pipe Band Championships which were held in the Stormont Estate.

Do you want to see how they got on?

BAGPIPES PLAY

I'm extremely nervous

because I've never been to a contest before.

Never even seen one so this is all new to me.

I'm a bit nervous but it should be a good day.

First thing - when I tell youse to be here at 9.30, you're here at 9.20.

You don't come waltzing down the hill 40 minutes late

and then start doing your hair! This isn't a band parade!

This is the UK Championships. The next one's the World Championships.

'Some of the band were a wee bit late and I was a bit worried in case

'we didn't get everything tuned up

'and ready to go in and play on time.'

By the right, quick, march!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

That's the best performance to date.

So between now and the Worlds,

I want you to start doing plenty of blowing on your instrument,

and be able to last about 20 minutes to half an hour blowing.

It went really well, it was brilliant.

When everybody clapped at the end, it was very good.

The next one is the World Championships.

If you miss your slot you're disqualified.

I'm going to practise really hard for the Worlds

and improve my playing, so we get maybe a better place at the Worlds.

Right, Kyle, your band leader, Andy,

he laid into you about being late, didn't he?

It really didn't affect us at the end, we all played really well.

But did you get time to warm up, being so late?

Well, we had a reasonable amount of time to prepare for the actual

-performing of it.

-Tell me about the nerves, were there any?

Well, at the start I was actually very nervous, but halfway

through the set I was starting to be more comfortable with it.

How did you get on?

Well, we came eighth out of nine,

so we didn't quite come last, but Andy did say

we performed really well, so that's all we wanted to hear.

That's good. The only way is up from there, that's what we say.

We all clubbed together.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

No more being late!

Now, I want you to do a favour for me, Kyle.

-Could you pipe in our next guests?

-Yeah.

HE PLAYS THE PIPES

And another event in the Dalriada Festival is the Highland Games.

Scott Clark here, you're a competitor in that, so welcome.

Now, how long have you been taking part in Highland Games?

I've been taking part personally for over 20 years now.

Have you seen a change, is it becoming more popular?

It's always been really popular

but it's becoming really popular all over Europe at the moment,

Helen, particularly in Germany and Hungary, it's really developing,

but it's always been really popular in Scotland.

I know there's lots of throwing of things but, of course,

the iconic one is... Tossing the caber.

And you are that man.

-Yes, I'll be doing that for you tonight.

-How heavy is it?

The one I'm using tonight for demonstration purposes

is a wee bit lighter, because we don't want any accidents.

But the one, the championship caber

that they're using at the Dalriada Festival

-is going to be over 20 feet long and weighs about 70 kilos.

-My goodness!

-How difficult is it?

-It's very difficult, in actual fact.

Even picking it up, the technique to pick something that heavy up

vertically in itself, never mind the weight.

Getting it up in the air and tossing it.

Would you do me a wee favour and go and get yourself sorted,

-so we can see you actually heaving that caber?

-Of course I will, Helen.

All right, that's lovely. Thank you, Scott.

Joining us now, we have Norik Koczarian.

Welcome, Norik.

You are part of the Team NI for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow,

-but, you know, where are you from originally?

-Poland.

So how come you are able to play in Team NI?

I've been in Northern Ireland for the last eight years.

It just become so natural and I felt really at home,

-everybody treated me like at home.

-That's lovely.

Whenever I had the first opportunity just to represent

and be sort of an ambassador for my sport, I've just done it.

-And what sport are you in?

-It's freestyle wrestling.

Wrestling. Are you any good at it?

I'm current Irish Maltese champion.

I got silver in the English Championships as well.

Well, listen, that is fantastic, so with that record you stand...

Oh, my goodness! Great muscles!

You stand a good chance, and we'd like to wish all these other

competitors who've come along to The Gaitherin today...

Come the time in Glasgow.

Now, I think it is time that we saw how Scott was getting on.

Take it away, Scott, toss that caber!

Here he goes.

He's getting himself balanced up. Right.

He grips lower down.

SHE GASPS

Concentration.

Oh!

CROWD CHEERS

Fantastic!

Scott, thank you so much.

Another man who has grappled with some wrestling greats,

Jackie Fullerton.

Hello.

Do you still get a little bit nervous

when you are around people like Norik, who are great wrestlers?

Yes, I stayed well away from Norik

because even though he's smaller than I am,

I still remember Giant Haystacks.

34 years ago, people still shout at me, "Where is Giant Haystacks?"

-But he did hurt me.

-Bumped you on the ground.

Let's forget about Giant Haystacks for now, shall we?

Because you're here to tell us about the Ulster-Scots sporting heroes.

That's right.

I was interested in Norik's story, he's from Poland

but now he's over here and he's in the Northern Ireland team,

but that sort of thing has happened before.

Our very own, he's not too far away from here,

Dervock, Kennedy Kane McArthur won Olympic gold.

He was a postman.

He didn't represent Great Britain, he represented South Africa

and won a marathon gold medal.

He must have been quite an athlete because he liked to smoke a pipe,

he liked Ulster frys, no nutrition experts then, but what a guy!

-What about the football?

-That was 1912, move forward 70 years.

1982, World Cup finals in Spain and I was there.

It is one of those moments you are glad to say you were there.

The night Gerry Armstrong scored that goal that made him a legend.

But Billy Bingham's team, it was a team effort.

When you think of Pat Jennings, Sammy McIlroy,

all those people.

But Norman Whiteside also took over from Pele at that time,

the legendary Pele, as the youngest man to play in the World Cup finals.

-He was 17 and 41 days.

-Wow.

Wonderful memories.

Wonderful memories.

The story about penalty kicks as well.

Oh, aye, he's a great man.

From Milford in County Armagh, William McCrum, 1890.

He was a goalkeeper.

He invented the penalty kick

and changed the face of football forever.

That is a rather good cue for us

to get into our very own penalty competition.

And for a competition like that, we can only have one commentator.

The great Jackie Fullerton.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Header a ball.

Straight to the keeper.

You hit a header or don't.

A gey guid yin.

Look, you know what.

Come on, guys, let the girls have a go. Come on.

Come on.

Are you ready for this, Stephen, are you ready?

-I know I'm not allowed to do...

-From Scotland again.

-Look at the owl up in the tree!

-Helen Mark.

CROWD ROARS

Deception didn't even pay off.

Right, so thanks very much to the wonderful Jackie Fullerton,

to our goalie,

and we wish all the very best to the NI Commonwealth team in Glasgow.

Good luck to you all.

APPLAUSE

I threw down a challenge to Tim McGarry,

to do some comedy stand-up but in Ulster-Scots.

So he's got the task under way.

He headed off to Ballymoney to meet with linguist Ian Parsley,

who wanted to put him through some pronunciation paces.

He started off with some pretty simple words.

So Ulster Scots, like English, is a Germanic language.

The core vocabulary in each language is really very similar.

I'm glad to hear that, that's a good start.

Well, the problem is they are not absolutely the same.

Just to give an example, the English word

"have" in Ulster Scots is "hae", you drop the V, effectively.

So can you give me a drop of tea?

Gie me a drop o' tea.

That's it exactly.

-Hello.

-Hello, how are you?

Watch and learn.

-Could you gie me a wee drop o' tea?

-Yes, that would be no problem.

-And I'll hae another.

-Nae bother.

I didn't say please, but that's because he told me

there's no Ulster-Scots word for please, I wasn't being rude!

OK, Tim, we've decided to make it even harder.

We've brought you out into the countryside,

into Rasharkin Primary School.

He'll not be as good as us, hey.

-I hope he's real funny.

-I've never heard o' him afore.

He better be good.

What we have to do now is expand on what we learned earlier.

So if for example the word soon is "shain".

Shain?

What's good likely to be?

-Gut?

-No, Tim, that's German.

Very impressive in Berlin but not so good in Rasharkin.

Good is "guid".

-Guid.

-Guid.

-Guid.

-I think we've got it.

-Are we guid to go?

-We're guid to go.

I don't like the look of them, they look quite tough.

Are you ready for this?

Listen and learn. "Gie."

"Hye".

-No, it's more like "Hae".

-Like "hay"?

Yeah, like "hae".

-Like hay in a field?

-Aye.

-Curled.

-No, it's caul.

No, no, it's cold.

It's caul or cold, make up your mind!

-It's caul.

-Caul.

-Cold.

-Cold.

Caul... Co... So there's three pronunciations!

I'm confused, this Ulster-Scots isn't easy, I tell you.

Auld.

Yeah, nearly but you need a bit more practice.

You weans, yous are brutal.

It's like flipping four Simon Cowells!

I'm going to go.

I'm going to speak to my agent!

-Well, Tim, did they gie you a gunk?

-A quare gunk. Tough crowd.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I have absolutely loved being here in Glenarm.

But for some people, this is actually their home.

Jackie Wilson is that man. So what's your connection, Jackie?

Well, I was born in that we house up in the gardens, almost 80 years ago.

My father was head gardener there for 21 years.

The Lord at the time was about the same age as me

so we palled about together.

-What sort of age?

-Three-and-a-half.

Because he was called Alexander, it was kind of a bit of a mouthful

when you are three-and-a-half, so he became Lordy.

And he's Lordy to now.

And he's nearly 80.

But I think I'm the only one can maybe call him Lordy.

I take it from that that you're still pretty close.

We're pretty good, aye.

I'm the taxi man, I collect him at Belfast airport when he comes in,

and then he lets me keep a couple of cars up at the farm.

The thing is, I heard there was a fire in Glenarm in 1966.

Around about the '60s, we say,

because we're no sure if it's '65 or '66.

We were over here, I think it was about the New Year time.

We were up on Mark Street, where Francis was born,

-in the house we're living in now.

-That's your wife, yeah?

That's the boss.

We heard this awful crackling.

We looked out the window

and here's the castle going up in flames at the servants' end.

-Was much of it destroyed?

-That whole end was taken down.

That was the WAF's end during the war.

Was Lordy here at the time?

No, no, he wasn't here. He had just left.

I think it was his granny maybe was maybe a wee bit careful with

the heating and a pipe burst and water fell down on a blow heater,

which should have had the correct fuse in it.

-But at least it saved the house.

-The big house was all right.

It was saved.

Half of Glenarm came and carried out paintings and precious things

and set them out on the lawn.

I think if you set them out on the lawn today they might disappear,

but in them days it wasn't so bad.

-Of course, this is still home for you, Jackie.

-This is home.

We are back here, we went to Inverness in '58, me and Francis.

We weren't married at the time, and that was a wee bit of a scandal.

But it's been a kind of long pregnancy

because we're 55 years married and there's still no children.

Well, you know, Jackie, it is a joy to talk to you.

Thanks very much.

Pleasure to talk to you, thank you.

Time for one more piece of music.

Considering the MacDonald connection, we have the perfect one.

Road to the Isles.

Thank you, thank you to everyone for being here this evening,

we've had a great time.

Our next stop, you're going to have to bring your buckets

and spades with you because we're going to Portballintrae.

See you then, bye!