Episode 4 The Gaitherin

Hello, welcome to The Gaitherin and we're heading to the heart of East Belfast.

Today we're under the shadow of Samson and Goliath.

Our young pipers, Zoe and Kyle - they're heading in the

right direction.

That's Scotland. Back there's Northern Ireland,

-don't want to go there, right?

-OK.

-Scotland, it is.

Tim McGarry's language course takes him to the market.

-Any chance of you buying me one?

-Well, we'll see about that.

Typical Ulster-Scot.

And we find where King Billy sat...

and it's not on a horse.

So that's the chair that King Billy used

when he attended the service here.

All that plus Dan Gordon, world champions and

Ulster-Scots' inventions.

Welcome to The Gaitherin.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Welcome to the Skainos Centre in East Belfast.

What a wonderful display from our drum majors - champions one and all.

And they were brought together specially by former world champion

Brian Wilson for the Belfast Tattoo

and that's one of the reasons why we are here.

The Belfast Tattoo took place just down the road at the

Odyssey Arena and this was one of the events -

so, could we have a big round of applause for our drum majors?

CHEERING

What other Ulster-Scots links do we have with East Belfast?

And there's no better person to ask about that than

historian Jonathan Bardon.

So, Jonathan, if you were to try and explain

to us those links, where would you start?

In 1605 the Lord of Clandeboye Conn O'Neill

was forced to give up two thirds of his estates

to Sir Hugh Montgomery and to Sir James Hamilton

and they brought in tens of thousands of Scots to make the most

successful British colonisation of the 17th century in North Down.

But how did they start then to make a move

into this part of the world? And what was it that

-was driving that, Jonathan?

-They kept coming -

mostly to farm and sometimes to weave - in particular in the 1690s you

have a great influx of about 80,000 Scots coming in.

And then, as industry began to establish itself

in East Belfast, it was then the township of Ballymacarrett,

it didn't become part of Belfast until 1840.

So, the Ulster-Scots had quite a strong community

-in Ballymacarrett, then?

-Yes, they had a strong, er,

farming tradition there. They were farming on the

Beer's Bridge Road planting oats as late as 1850.

And, of course, there was a glasshouse built at the end

of the long bridge, which connected Belfast with Ballymacarrett

and there, er, they made all kinds of watch glasses

and bottles and so on which were very successful.

But you mentioned there the Industrial Revolution,

that really drove migration, didn't it? Into this part of Belfast.

Yes, it was simply a rural place until the Industrial Revolution

got going in the early 19th century, starting off with

Catholic weavers who settled in Short Strand and then

followed by foundry workers - most of them UlsterScots in

-the Laggan Foundry.

-And the shipyards have a big part

in that story as they were developing.

Yes, in the 1840s the Victoria Channel was dug

and the sleet or mud from there was dumped in East Belfast

and became Queen's Island.

Here shipbuilding began in the 1850s -

a 23-year-old from Scarborough getting things going, Edward Harland.

Alongside the shipyard there were lots of other industries developing.

Rope works, there was glass, well, of course, there was linen, we can't forget that

and there were Ulster-Scots workers who

came in to fill many of those jobs.

They did. Earlier in the century they mostly came from Mid Ulster

but in the later 19th century they mostly came from North Down,

many of them Ulster-Scots and working in mills like the Owen O'Cork mills

and the great rope works founded in the 1870s, and, of course,

whiskey distilling was also very important.

You have the Connswater Distillery producing two million

gallons of whiskey a year.

Jonathan, thanks very much. Now, we've been following

the fledgling piping career of young Kyle Sawyers and Zoe Somerville

and they play with the Ulster-Scots Agency Juvenile Band

and since we last saw them they have headed off to compete

with the best of the best at the world championships, in Glasgow.

Kyle, Zoe, I'm delighted to finally meet yous.

This is it, we're on our way to Scotland

and this is the big one now, this is the world's.

You've been practising for this one, haven't you?

That's understating it, cos you've really been going for it,

how much practice have you been doing for this?

Been practising every day for about 15/20 minutes or so.

-Every day in the run-up to this?

-Yeah.

So, tomorrow you've got to deliver, haven't you?

You've got to do it - all the practice has to come together - it's all on tomorrow.

I've lined up something special for you, all right?

Do you want to go somewhere a bit different?

-Take your mind off tomorrow?

-OK.

-Excellent, let's go.

-How cool is this? Eh? What? Are you impressed?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Brilliant.

Got to have a hat, get the hats on, guys, let me see.

Oh, very smart, very smart, very cool. Get the badge up -

look at that, that's proper. Right, here's the good news -

you're going to do all the steering, you're going to get us there, right? Here's a tip - I'm no expert,

but that's Scotland. Back there's Northern Ireland.

-Don't want to go there today, right?

-OK.

-Right?

Scotland it is. You happy? BOTH: Yeah.

Go for it...

PIPE MUSIC

OK, guys, blow up, play whatever you want.

Well, guys, this is it, Glasgow, the world's.

This is the big moment. Any nerves today?

I'm a bit nervous but, erm, it's kind of sunk in,

the thought of it.

What do you hope happens when you go out there, what are you hoping for?

Hopefully qualify.

-And get through to the next bit?

-Yeah.

This is huge, obviously, it's the world's so it's the pinnacle

of piping but, in terms of scale, there's thousands of people here,

that must add to the pressure for them.

I would imagine 20/30,000 people will be at this event.

The world's is so important for them, you can see a huge

change in them the week before the world's

because it is...they don't want to let themselves down.

And today I couldn't have expected any more of them.

You know, it wasn't great weather for the kids

and they feel the cold a wee bit more than the adults.

But they've done really, really well.

I wouldn't say I'm confident but I'm more confident than I was

-this time last year.

-Good, well, I think they did great anyway

and I know you're a proud man today so we'll just wait and see, will we?

Fingers crossed.

Step short, step short.

Well, guys, firstly congratulations - how do you think it went for you?

Well, we played really, really well but it doesn't really matter

if we get placed or not cos there's bands that have played for

five years and some of us have only joined the band, so,

as long as we've done well I'm really happy.

What about the rain, Zoe? Cos it was quite heavy when you guys were on,

did it make it hard for yous?

Yeah, it made it tougher cos where I was standing the wind was just

blowing and I thought my pipes were about to fall at some stages.

-You frozen, were you?

-Yeah.

-Listen, good luck, guys,

we wish you all the best, you've just got to wait and see

what the judges think now but I think you did great - well done.

APPLAUSE

Wonderful - and, do you know, I can't wait to find out -

-how did you get on?

-Well, you can ask Andy that.

-Right. So, how did they get on, Andy?

-They done really well,

unfortunately they never qualified but the pipers came ninth and tenth

out of 15 but the drum corp came second.

And what about yourselves? You know, you've been to the

world championships now - do you say, "Well, I've done that

"with my life, I'll do something else"? Or do you keep playing?

Well, we'll keep playing with the Ulster-Scots

and any concerts that come up we'll play at them

and we'll go to the world's next year, hopefully.

Zoe, did your friends know what you were doing?

And what do they think about you and your wonderful hobby?

Yeah, they thought it was good and they were all waiting for it,

looking at me on the TV and everything.

And we are so proud of you, coming in the top ten!

In the whole of the world!

CHEERING

Time for some more music now with the Hank Williams'

I Saw The Light, the Low Country Boys.

CHEERING

MUSIC: I Saw The Light

# I wandered so aimless

# Life full of sin

# I wouldn't let my dear Saviour in

# Then Jesus came like

# A stranger in the night

# Praise the Lord I saw the light

# I saw the light, I saw the light

# No more darkness, no more night

# Now I'm so happy No sorrow in sight

# Praise the Lord, I saw the light

# I was a fool to wander and stray

# For straight is the gate And narrow the way

# Now I have traded The wrong for the right

# Praise the Lord, I saw the light

# I saw the light

# I saw the light

# No more darkness

# No more night

# Now I'm so happy

# No sorrow in sight

# Praise the Lord, I saw the light

# Praise the Lord

# I saw the light. #

CHEERING

They're great - the Low Country Boys. And we'll be hearing more

from them later on. Now, I've come to join actor, writer,

director Dan Gordon. And this part of Belfast for you, Dan,

has really strong family connections.

Yes, I mean, I grew up around here,

you can hear it all going on in the background,

it's a heavy industrial area. Got my school uniform on the road

-and my father worked in the shipyard.

-It goes further back than that,

-doesn't it?

-Oh, yeah. My grandfather came from the countryside

into Glasgow and got a job in the shipyards on the Clyde, in Govan,

and Harland and Wolff had a partner shipyard

so over he came, started a family - there were six brothers,

two sisters, all the brothers had an opportunity in some way,

to work in the shipyard. My... one uncle, Andy, did 50 years,

another uncle did 30. My father worked there on and off

and all the brothers, at some stage. They brought the language with them as well, the syntax

and the semantics, they... he would use phrases... you know,

a lot of complimentary things like - "You big hallion.

"You big skitter. You big glipe." And, "You big..." whatever.

The Ulster-Scots were a fairly entrepreneurial lot

and some great inventors amongst them.

Like John Getty McGee who invented the Sherlock Holmes coat,

the Ulster coat it's known as. Because the Victorian coats

at the time were very cumbersome so he got a cape and sleeves

and Sherlock Holmes was seen and fog-bound taxi

drivers in the old stories.

With the cape...yeah.

And there was also a woman's version, it was called the ulsterette

and the material they used was ulstering

and if you wore one of the coats you'd been ulstered.

Then you have, er, someone like John Boyd Dunlop

who is, in my mind, a big UlsterScot. He came over from

Ayrshire about 1840. He was in Downpatrick, he was a veterinary.

He set up a practice there and then he came to Belfast

and it was there in May Street that he

has a son with a little tricycle bike.

It was too bumpy for him and he thought -

"What way can I make this better?" And he invented the

pneumatic tyre, he got sheet rubber, he filled it with air,

put it on the bicycle - it was originally on a wooden disc, he realised it worked so much better.

A guy called Willie Hume,

who was the captain of the Belfast Cruisers Club cyclists,

won every race he entered, apart from one in Liverpool, I think...

Cos he had these pneumatic tyres on his bike?

Because of the pneumatic tyre. Sadly, John Boyd Dunlop,

he did patent it but there was another Scotsman had

patented it in France and America years before

so he didn't make his fortune but his name was on the company.

Dan, thank you so much.

Now, there are a lot of really good, historical walking tours

around the city of Belfast, but you know, there's not a specific

one for Ulster-Scots.

So, especially for The Gaitherin, we asked local historian

Raymond O'Regan to compose a whistle-stop tour

of some of the Ulster-Scots' churches

and the people who made their mark on Belfast.

This actual building, the Exchange & Assembly Building,

in 1786 a man called Waddell Cunningham,

he calls a meeting of rich merchants and the idea was...

you buy a ship,

take goods from Belfast to the Gold Coast.

You pick up your captured slaves, cross to the West Indies

and to the Southern Carolinas and you bring back molasses.

Thomas McCabe, he hears what they're up to,

goes along to the meeting and stands up

and speaks to them the way I'm talking to you now

and part of what he said was - "May God wither the hand

"of anybody who signs that document."

This was an Ulster-Scots Presbyterian and member of that church. Discovers...

one person, goes along and stops these really important merchants.

So, this is the particular building, it eventually became a bank

but it has a great history.

This is a very historic site.

It actually goes back to the 10th century.

You've heard of the Battle of the Boyne? 1690?

King William is in Ireland to fight King James at the

Battle of the Boyne. He arrives on the Saturday

and on the Sunday he attends a service in the

Corporation Church and the chair that he used is in the church.

So that's the chair that King Billy used

when he attended the service here

in 1690 before he headed off to the Battle of the Boyne.

Now, people say, "Oh, it's very small."

He was only 4'9".

So, if they had made a big, big chair he would have looked like a child!

1695, the Reverend McBride has leased this land,

this is him here, actually. And they build the first church.

From 1702 to 1714 Queen Anne is on the throne

and she is what you call a very High Tory, a very High Anglican

and she detests the dissenters, the Presbyterians,

more than the Catholics.

This particular Reverend McBride, because he held public office -

there's a notice of abjuration and, basically, you had to sign this.

There was parts of it he disagreed with in principle,

so he wouldn't sign it, so on four different occasions

he had to escape to Scotland otherwise

he would have been arrested.

One particular time, the mayor comes round with soldiers to arrest him.

Can't find him in the church, goes into the manse,

the house next door where he lived, couldn't find him there,

but in his bedroom he finds McBride's portrait, so what does he do?

"Well, you're not here, but your portrait..." So he takes out his sword

and stabs the portrait.

Just to explain why we're talking about Ulster-Scots in Belfast...

in 1603 Queen Elizabeth decides to defeat Ulster Gaels,

they were Catholics.

A man called Sir Arthur Chichester from Devon,

as a reward for his part in defeating the Ulster Gaels he is given Belfast.

1607 - he plants people from Lowland Scotland who are Presbyterians

and he takes people from Cornwall and Devon, his area, Anglicans.

So you had a mixture in Belfast from 1607 onwards of Anglicans from

the south of England and Presbyterians from Scotland.

As we go through into the 1640s Presbyterians tend to become more

in the majority.

That's the finish of it, hopefully you enjoyed it.

Thanks a lot.

APPLAUSE

Historian Jonathan Bardon - do you have any particular favourites?

I think the interior of the Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church

always delights me.

-Why?

-Erm, because it's a bit like Wedgwood pottery

in its design, the oval shape, the gracefulness of it.

Any other buildings?

Well, Belfast being a young city it hasn't got

many 18th-century buildings

but the finest is the Belfast Charitable Society,

in Clifton Street, and that is splendid both in and out.

I'm very fond of Robinson and Cleaver's with its

little statues of Queen Victoria and the Maharaja

and the Crown Prince of Germany.

But if you think of the buildings and then think of

the names in Belfast...

Ulster-Scots names that have made their mark...

Well, I think of actors and artists - people like James Ellis,

James Young, Frank Carson, erm...

these are all with Ulster-Scots names, of course,

er... Isabella Tod, the educationalist...

Helen Waddell, the translator and poet.

Harry Ferguson, who enrolled in the Tech in 1906 and

flew the first plane in Ireland in 1910.

Well, I know of the Mackies, the great, great engineers with, erm,

flax-spinning plants all across the country.

-James Mackie came across as a Scot...

-Uh-hm.

..in the early 19th century to found, er,

the firm which became the largest flax-machinery works in the world.

And, of course, there was Samuel Davidson

who came back from his tea plantations in Assam

to fund the Sirocco works, the biggest fan-making business

in the world, tea-drying machinery, even German warships

-were fitted with them.

-Oh, really?!

The German fleet scuttled itself at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys.

They were raised at the end of the war with compressed air

and then it was discovered that their fans were from the

Sirocco works in East Belfast.

Thank you very, very much, Jonathan, thank you.

So far, we have been watching Tim McGarry, you know, struggle a little

bit with his Ulster-Scots pronunciations

in his quest to learn the language and then present

a stand-up routine in Ulster-Scots before the end of the series.

So, to help him along linguist and coach Ian Parsley

took him to St George's Market for a little bit of retail therapy.

Right, Tim, the pressure's on, we've only got one more go at this.

I've been doing some homework, Ian, I want you to know that.

But I have a serious question now - some people will say Ulster-Scots

-is, basically, English in a Scottish accent.

-Yeah.

-There is more to it than that, isn't there?

-A lot more to it.

There's a whole grammatical structure,

there are idioms and phrases and there are some words of

-various origins that we all use, day and daily.

-But you've brought me here...why?

Well, really to see in daily life in Northern Ireland what sort of

Ulster-Scots terms and words we use even here in the centre of Belfast at St George's Market.

And some will have good comedy value, I hope?

Well, that's for you to decide.

That's a nice bread here, you've brought me to buy me

-a breakfast, have you, Ian?

-Well, we'll see about that,

but, erm, what I actually brought you to talk about

was the origins of some of these breads

cos a lot of them are actually Ulster-Scots.

In the corner here we have the Belfast bap.

A bap is the Scots word for any sort of bread roll.

Of course, it's come into English - it specifically means a burger bap.

And then we have the wheaten farl. Farl is from the old Scots word

fardel, which means quarter or fourth part,

and, look, he's even cut them into quarters for us here.

-Oh. Any chance of you buying me one?

-Well, we'll see about that.

Typical Ulster-Scot.

-What words am I going to learn now?

-We've got, first of all,

-neeps and tatties.

-Well, I know tatties are potatoes.

-Yep.

-Neeps are...

-Turnips.

-Turnips.

-You get that in your Burns' feasts

every 25th of January. And then over here we have kale.

-Cabbage?

-Kale is Ulster-Scots and it's also the plural,

you never talk about kales. In English you talk about cabbages.

-Right.

-Sometimes you have to think about how

you use words as well as what words are.

And then we've something I've bought you.

You've finally bought me something. What have you bought me?

-Goosegabs.

-Gooseberries? Goosegab in UlsterScots?

-Goosegab.

-Red ones, too.

-Red ones, they can be green or red

but we thought we'd go for red.

Tough job I have.

So, Ian, some breads, vegetables, now we're at fish.

We're at fish and in Scots your fishing rod is called your

-fishing wand as in magic wand.

-OK.

And if you happen to magic up a sole fish of any sort...

-a sole fish is usually called a fleuk.

-A fleuk?

-A fleuk.

-And usually that refers to plaice.

-This is plaice here?

-This is plaice here.

-Oh, that's slimy.

And if you want to refer specifically to plaice

rather than any sort of other sole fish,

you might use - just say what you see.

-Er... well, it's fairly flat.

-Fairly flat. So you might call it

-a flattie.

-Well, a flattie.

-You can refer to lots of things

as a flattie, you know, a saucer that you might have under your tea

is a flattie as well, so it's very often about just saying what you see.

Well, thanks very much, that's been really good...

OK, Tim, you need to focus, you need to plan, you need to

be ready. Next time we meet is your last chance before the event itself.

He's an awful hallion, isn't he?

So, Ian, you are having good fun when you're out and about with Tim?

But it is going to get an awful lot more difficult for him, isn't it?

There's no harm in having fun

but it only gets tougher from here because learning

UlsterScots, like any other language,

isn't just about learning different words.

It's about learning a different grammatical structure

and Ulster-Scots has its own grammatical structure, distinct from standard English.

In what sense? How do you mean it's got its grammar?

Well, if you take things that we may even be familiar with...

for example, if we say - "Do you know is he here?"

Instead of "Do you know if he's here?" "Do you know if he's here?" is standard English,

"Do you know is he here?" is from Scots and Northumbrian,

comes across from that direction so that would be

regarded as correct in Ulster-Scots but it's not correct in standard English.

How do you mean? Like in French and German? You have to construct the sentence differently...?

Just the same and also how to use the different words.

Some of the words, at least in traditional Ulster-Scots,

have different plurals. The plural of coo, for cow, is kye, not coos.

The plural of shoe for shoes is shuin, not shoes.

So, there's other complications as well.

Is, sort of, developing his language skill about understanding

the origins of the language more, do you think?

Well, I think it's very helpful to understand

the origins of any language and if we look at the origins of English

and Ulster-Scots they both

originate in the north-west of Germany,

round about the 500s. They came across to the east of England,

to the east of Scotland, at that stage...and there was a big division

in England at that time, around the River Humber

and north of that was Northumbrian and south of that was Mercian.

Standard English derives from Mercian and standard Scots,

as was spoken in medieval Scotland, derives from Northumbrian.

So you had a distinction there which was recognised

-throughout the medieval period.

-It's a fascinating story of the

movement of people and them carrying their language with them.

Yes, and they moved about Great Britain, but then, of course,

they moved from both England and Scotland to what is now Northern Ireland

and they brought with them both standard English but also Lowland Scots.

And that's where Ulster-Scots comes from.

And, indeed, some of them kept going and remarkably, as recently as

the 1820s there was poetry written in Ulster-Scots

in the United States, not only written but also sold and bought

by subscribers in the United States.

It is fair to say, though, that Ulster-Scots is perceived as

a rural language, you know, is that it?

Well, I think what happens is - when you have a language

and then you have the global language - English

coming in and being the language of administration,

inevitably the other language, in this case Ulster Scots, is put

on the back foot so it does tend to recede into more rural,

coastal areas.

Having said that, there are aspects of our daily speech

for everybody in Northern Ireland, which are really Ulster-Scots

rather than standard English. From the word "wee"

right through to phrases like you used to hear in the shipyards here -

"Me and him's friends," is very bad grammar in standard English but it's very good in Ulster-Scots.

We were chatting to Dan Gordon earlier on and he's

actually written plays in Ulster-Scots

about the shipyards. And we have an extract from The Boat Factory

by the children of Cregagh Primary School.

They actually presented it in Scotland quite recently.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-This is the story of Willie McPhee.

-A likely wee lad, as smart as can be.

At the shipyard in Belfast he's startin' the day.

Left school at 14...

BOTH: ..and into the fray.

IMITATE HORN BOTH: We're late for the yard!

Jings, cribbens, help my boab, I'm late!

We're comin', we're comin'.

You'd better hurry or McQuillan give you a tonnin'.

Why's it Bob? He hasn't a baldy what we get up to.

You're a blether.

No, no, I'll hit him, sure I'm no fearty,

-he can't even kick back doors.

-Oh, really?

THEY MOCK

Oh, Mr McQuillan, sorry we're late, we're just clocking in now.

Mr McQuillan?

THEY LAUGH

-Got you!

-They only called him.

Now, come on and stop standing in your ain light.

Hey, boy, I'm over here...

-beside the boat.

-What do you want?

-Are you Willie McCandless the

-new joiner's apprentice.

-Aye, you're Mr McQuillan, the foreman.

-Don't be such an eejit, do you see me wearing a boulder hat?

-No.

Well, then, I'm not Mr McQuillan and I'm Tucker Riley.

-And you, Willie McCandless, are late.

-I got off the tram too

-early and I got a bit lost.

-No excuses.

That Mr McQuillan will have your guts for glider if you don't

-come up with a better one than that.

-What's glider?

It's the black, slippery slide that slips the boats

-down the slipway.

-Where would I find him?

-At the timekeeper's hut.

-Where's that?

-Boy's a dear...

You really are an eejit, hold on a minute and I'll show you.

Tucker, is that Willie McCandless, the new joiner's apprentice?

Yup, none other.

Well, Willie McCandless, apprentice,

I've got a very important job for you.

Get over to them boys

and ask them for a big tin of tartan paint for Mr Harland.

ALL LAUGH

-What have you to bring?

-A big tin of tartan paint for Mr Harland.

LAUGHTER

Good lad. Here, give us your piece.

BOTH: Oh, here comes Mr McQuillan, run! Quick!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

That was absolutely fantastic, well done.

-Let's meet the team. Your name is...?

-Owenie.

-Well done.

-Lois.

-Loved it.

-Jonathan.

-Jonathan.

-Nathan.

-Nathan.

-Nice to meet you.

-Colby.

-It was absolutely fantastic.

Now, tell me, what was it like going to Scotland to perform this play?

It was really good, just the whole experience and stuff of it.

And what about speaking in Ulster-Scots?

-How comfortable did that feel for you?

-It was OK.

Are you going to keep some of those words going?

-Yeah.

-Make sure you do, it was absolutely lovely.

Would you give another lovely round of applause for our actors

from The Boat Factory?

Thank you very, very much.

Time for a little bit more music, this is the

Low Country Boys with Wild Wood Flower.

CHEERING

MUSIC: Wild Wood Flower

Well, that's all we have time for, thanks very much to everyone

here and to the East Belfast Mission for letting us in.

Next month we'll be in Coleraine and if you would

like to be in the studio audience then contact

the address on the screen now.

That's all we've time for, we must go.

But, from everyone here, bye-bye.

CHEERING