Monday, November 24, 2008

Watch the dust fly....



An invite came across my desk this week to a St Andrew's Night Celebration, sponsored by Castlereagh Borough Council and the Ulster Scots Agency. Sometimes it seems the closest many people here get to Scotland is tussling with the lid of a Marks & Spencer seasonal shortbread tin embellished yet again with a picture of Eilean Donan Castle. (Honestly! There are other places in Scotland, and some of them even have people). Anyway, the phrase "Ulster Scots" has a peculiar resonance for me. I'm from the south-west of Scotland. Throughout my school years, we had to learn and recite Burns' poetry and songs. I worked in Burns' Cottage for two summers, taking money from harried Americans who had scheduled a full 20 minutes to appreciate the life and times of the ploughman poet, but who generally wanted just to use the rest rooms and buy something tartan before zooming up the coast to reach Stornaway by nightfall. Our Christmas parties and school formals were always ceilidhs, and that meant practising Strip the Willow, the Dashing White Sergeant and the Gay Gordons (sic) for weeks on end. We had a ceilidh at our own wedding, where we birled and reeled the evening away in a hotel that overlooks the Brig o' Doon. A couple of generations back from my dad, his family originally came from the Ards Peninsula but left to find work in the coal fields of south Ayrshire. I've lived in Ulster for eighteen years now, and...well, you get the picture.

I'm not even going to begin here on the hijacking or contrivance made of Ulster Scots that goes on for reasons of political expediency, parity of esteem or desperate claims of identity. But it's helfpul just to observe that the first edition of Burns' poems, the Kilmarnock edition, was printed in Lallans, or Lowland Scots. Ulster-Scots is derived from, and has its closest linguistic parallels with this same tongue. Such was the impact of Burns in Ulster that the first edition of his poetry printed outside Scotland was in Belfast, and the centrality of his position within the Ulster-Scots literary tradition is beyond doubt. But when I read in my invite that the Risin' Stours were playing at the St Andrew's night party I fell about laughing. I think someone needs to go and check a dictionary. I'm happy to be corrected, but guess that whoever named the band thought they were calling themselves the rising stars. If so, surely it should be Risin' Sterns. But "Stours"? Stour (always used in the singular) is what you get when you hit a carpet with a broom, or what you find when you lift the cushion seats off the sofa . (In my house, at least, domestic goddess dna being absent from my own genetic code.) Of course it could be that they are trying to strike a more literary note, or perhaps even wanting a more martial overtone, as stour can mean strife or conflict - but mainly in the Banffshire area. Or perhaps they meant storm or wild weather as Shetlanders and Orcadians would use the word....But in Ulster Scots? I don't think so!

Well, here endeth the lesson. But for an appreciation of Burns and his influence on Ulster Scots, check out this link to hear Seamus Heaney's own warm and wonderful tribute. Enjoy!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7209402.stm

9 comments:

ScatterCode said...

Having been brought up in the Ulster-Scots 'heartland' of the Ards Peninsula, I particularly like the job adverts and government leaflets which now grace my newspaper/doormat from time to time, with phrases like "If ye hae need o' this laflet in oother tongues, telephone..."

Brilliant.

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

DRD have added summary pages to their website to help speakers of all kinds of languages found in NI ... including Ulster Scots.

There you can learn about the The Badge Scheme fer Fowk wi’ Disablements and Pairkin Enforcement who "patrol streets an’ car pairks an’ gie oot Penalty Chairge Noatices tae vehicles at ir breakin’ traffic ir pairkin rules".

You couldn't make it up!

Look forward to your future posts. I'm very familiar with the Ministry of Traybakes, though in my case, it was more a Ministry of Pouring Tea and occasionally making sandwiches.

Ministry of Tray Bakes said...

Well, thank you whynotsmile and Alan in Belfast...especially as you're the first to leave comments and I can't tell you how pleased that makes me! We lived in the Ards Peninsula for 5 years, and did hear people genuinely using Ulster-Scots. But we were also there at the time when Greyabbey went bilingual in its signage and "Fair fa'ye tae the Airds!" just makes me think of Burn's opening line in his Address to the Haggis.: "Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!" I think there might be a few more contenders for puddin-chief now...DRD for example... I got into trouble at school for speaking like that.

On a separate note Alan in Belfast, my early attempts at traybake ministry were covered in shame. I could tell you a tragic story involving a very runny lemon meringue pie, but it was only 15 years ago and the memory is still fresh and painful.

Anonymous said...

A fine start for the Ministry. You seem determined to raise some stour yourself.

I look forward to reading more thought I have to say the actual traybake count was low - does shortbread count?

Unknown said...

A fine start for the Ministry. You seem determined to raise some stour yourself.

I look forward to reading more thought I have to say the actual traybake count was low - does shortbread count?

Ministry of Tray Bakes said...

Well spikemill, shortbread does count, for many reasons. I don't want to be responsible for piling on virtual pounds in the run up to Christmas.

Mark said...

At the risk of lowering the tone:

I ceilidh'd for years when I was in Scotland, and it's only now that I'm given pause by the name of a dance called the Gay Gordons.

You and your (sic) :D

Ministry of Tray Bakes said...

I'm not sick! Just heading off at the pass any virtual sniggering or eyebrow raising. But if I have cast aspersions on the purity of my readership, I apologise most sincerely. Did I mention Strip the Willow?

Anonymous said...

Fair faa ye! Am quare taken wi' muckle o' yer blog bit a' hae tae pu' yer hoarns in a bit aboot yer rantins on tha Ulster Scotch. Am brave an' big wi' tha band Risin' Stour, an' can tell ye that it maun hae bin a misprint in yer programme, fur thair's naw a "S" ahint tha "Stour". These boadies tak thair name fae thair place o' practyzin-a byre whaur a joiner wud wrocht. Sae whaun thaiy start tae plaiy a wheen o' guid aul' tunes, wi' a' tha fit tappin gan oan thaiy cannae help "Risin' Stour!" Dinnae cruddle yer sook ye girl ye!!!!