A cup of tea in Donaghadee?

If you do a Google search for Café Manor in Donaghadee, it gives six alternatives that you could try instead under the title "Related Places". Three of them are in Scotland. Click here and see for yourself.

"True Grit" and "Protestant Hymns"

This interview with the Coen Brothers on Telegraph.co.uk about their acclaimed remake of True Grit has an interesting excerpt:

'...The film is underscored by four different 19th-century Protestant hymns, the most notable of which, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, builds slowly throughout the movie, rising in prominence as the story hurtles towards its action-packed conclusion, and the main characters learn to depend on each other. “Choosing that hymn was important,” says Ethan, “because that Protestant attitude is such a part of who Mattie is. The music speaks of faith and certitude, and that she has in spades.”...'

The film also includes What A Friend We Have in Jesus (written by Ulsterman Joseph Scriven of Banbridge), Hold On To God's Unchanging Hand and The Gloryland Way. It's good to see that even mega-famous directors have a regard for transatlantic evangelical culture. If you know the hymns already, then the style of the score on this clip will move you. (True Grit opens here in the UK on Feb 11th)

BBC - "We're Fur Hame"

The first two programmes of this new series have already been broadcast on tv, and are currently available on BBC iPlayer. The series tells the story of a group of American tourists who arrive in Ulster with Glen Pratt (President of the Ulster-Scots Society of America) in search of branches of their family trees and the heritage of their emigrant ancestors. It's clearly an emotional experience for many of them, and is definitely worth watching. You'll also spot some well-known local faces.

Along with UTV's "Plantation - the Truth and the Legacy" which was broadcast before Christmas, and next week's simulcast of Senator James Webb's "Born Fighting" on UTV and STV, it is encouraging to see our stories emerging from the shadows, being well told, and reaching a wider audience.

First two episodes are on the BBC iPlayer here.

RIP Charlie Louvin (1927 - 2011)

Charlie Louvin has passed away in Tennessee. He was one of the renowned Louvin Brothers. His brother, mandolin player Ira Louvin, died in the 1960s. Like many traditional country artists of the early 20th century, a large proportion of their repertoire was gospel music. Here are a few rare clips of them in their heyday:

"But now life's evening sun for me is setting, I have reached the ending of my way"...

'Born Fighting" tv documentary on air on UTV and STV on Tues 1st Feb

More information available here and here.

The Red Fox Chasers / Lester McFarland & Robert Gardner

From the Irish News, 1952

This was scanned from a collection of poems which had appeared in the Irish News, spanning a period from 1938 to 1960; the book itself, "Lays of an Ulster Paradise", was published in 1960. The poem is a satire, attacking aspects of policy within the Stormont goverment of the time. However it does show that there was an awareness of Ulster Scots identity back then. Hae a guid Burns nicht.

(I mentioned this poem in a previous blog post here)

A Prayer in the Prospect of Death

We had a series of funerals over the past 12 months. So, to mark Burns Night on this 25th January, here's a gem:

Shock horror - official report recognises influence of Scotland upon life in Ulster

From the same book mentioned below, published in 1952, here's a map which dares to acknowledge that Scotland exists! It's not very clearly drawn, and so it's hard to make out the detail, but what it does show is an understanding on the part of the authors that Scotland has exerted an influence beyond its shores, and that there are similarities on both sides of the narrow sea. In the case of this map, it's a survey of the common architectural styles of castles. But how often do you see vision like this today? For all of the political promises about "East-West" linkages, there are none of any real significance. We are stuck in a two-tribes "Hiberno-centric" society where perspectives are limited to this island - in almost every area you can think of. When is the "Shared Future" going to reach across the North Channel and acknowledge the similarities we still share with Scotland? The policy-makers need to take a far, far wider view.

(Click to enlarge)

Sometimes I feel sorry for the Ulster English...

...because they don't get any recognition. The map below is from a book published in 1952, which shows the locations of the Anglo-Norman castles and motes in Ulster. These were built following the arrival in 1177 of John de Courcy. In 1210, King John (of Magna Carta fame) visited Ireland - 2010, the 800th anniversary of this, came and went and as far as I'm aware nobody commemorated it. Yet in many cases it was the Anglo-Normans who were responsible for the building of castles and churches which the later Scots then extended or refurbished.



Dunluce Castle is a good example of this, originally built in the late 1200s by Richard de Burgh, the Anglo-Norman 2nd Earl of Ulster. But it's often only talked about today as having been a MacDonnell castle, because of the (originally Scottish) Macdonnells who took control of it three centuries later, in the late 1500s. Conversely, at Grey Abbey, the Anglo-Norman origins of the Abbey are well articulated - and yet the role of the later Scots who revitalised the ruins and restored worship there is unfortunately downplayed. There are other similar examples in Antrim and Down, as the map shows. Ulster has a three-way cultural triple blend of Irish, English and Scottish influences. To tell the true story, all three strands must be presented.

(Click the map to enlarge)

Xtranormal.com - traditional meets modern, mandolin style

On Xtranormal.com, it says "if you can type, you can make movies". Here are two examples for any mandolin nerds out there, or for those of you who are amused by people who are constantly trying to prove they're more authentic than everybody else. Somebody could have a field day on Xtranormal with Ulster-Scots...

"Irish music all sounds alike, how can you tell the tunes apart?". "By the titles".

Ballymena Adair Castle, circa 1900

Readers from mid Antrim and the Braid will know more about this castle than I do. But here's a summary from what I do know.

The Adairs Scottish roots go back to 1315, when they were granted large area of land of Kilhilt/Kinhilt on the Mull of Galloway by King Robert the Bruce, as a reward for having fought alongside him. After seven years of battling the English, Scotland (and Bruce) was close to broke - but there was plenty of land and so he granted many of his closest allies large estates.

Move on 300 years to the early 1600s and the entrepreneurial Ayrshireman Sir Hugh Montgomery, already well established in County Down, wanted to control the major Ulster-Scottish sea route between Donaghadee and Portpatrick. So he bought much of the Adairs Galloway estates. They pocketed the money and, like so many of their generation, left south west Scotland for east Ulster - they headed to mid Antrim where they bought some of the old McQuillan estate (the superbly-named Faithful Fortescue also had a holding there). They built a castle in Ballymena, and streets in the town are still called Kinhilt today.

The photo below was taken around 1900, of the second Adair castle which was built around 1850 by Lord Waveney, Robert Adair, on the site of the original one. Folk have told me that the last wheen o' stanes of the castle were removed in the late 1980s to make way for the Seven Towers Leisure Centre and the other retail outlets that surround it. But apparently the stone coat of arms from the castle was salvaged and is now in a dentist's surgery somewhere in the town.

Click to enlarge:


The Adair's home castle on Galloway had been Dunskey Castle, which Montgomery acquired with the estate. It was said to be a haven for strange wee Scottish ghosts...!

(NB - you'll see from this previous post that Robert Adair, even though well established in Ballymena by 1638, was present at the great Glasgow Assembly of that year, representing Kinhilt as an elder within the Presbytery of Stranraer)

Hugh Montgomery's "green" found in Newtownards / the day Newtownards got flooded

It's effectively the first recorded golf course and football pitch in Ireland, beside the "great school" which Hugh Montgomery had built in Newtownards around 1620. In the latest edition of Ulster Folklife (Vol 54), historian Andrew Steven analyses all of the documentary and topographical evidence and concludes that it was in the area now known as Movilla Street and Greenwell Street. The school principal was John McClelland, who was one of the four ministers on board the emigrant ship Eagle Wing in 1636.

PS: As an aside, local folk will remember the day in the early 1980s when Strangford Lough, after centuries of retreat, suddenly reverted to its ancient high water mark and just kept coming in, flooding the flat ground of the whole Portaferry Road area, right up as far as the Old Priory where the Montgomeries had built the school and also their first house. The present-day floodgates were built shortly after this incident - but back in 1744, Walter Harris wrote that "the old house of the Mountgomery family stood pleasantly seated on the edge of the Lake". I'm trying to find the precise date of the flood - any help would be appreciated.

"Rannerin" and "fearty-ba"

Two words from a conversation of last week. I'm not going to give any definitions, look them up for yourself!

The Fish Fight update

Just goes to show the power of television. Thankfully the British public have responded mightily to the issues that Channel 4 and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall have highlighted during last week's "Fish Fight" special:

• M&S reporting fish sales up 25%
• Sainsbury's reporting pollack sales up 167% last week / mackerel up 60% and mussels up 16% / pole-caught tuna up 17% / organic salmon up 16%
• Tesco sales up between 25% - 40% across its fish range
• Waitrose reporting some species up by 163%
• Full Guardian article here

Over 500,000 people have signed up to support the campaign. If you haven't yet, click here.

Luther

"...I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self."

Martin Luther

"The Cross and the Jukebox" - a new podcast

Thanks to Robert Campbell for letting me know about this, a new podcast from Russell D Moore. Hank Williams' I Saw the Light is the subject of this first episode, which he describes as "The National Anthem of the Christ-haunted South". "We need to pay attention to the theologies of John Calvin and John Wesley, yes. But sometimes we also ought to pay a little bit of attention to the theologies of Johnny Cash." Click here. It's an excellent, thoughtful, piece - and I hope future episodes are as good, if not better.

Shell advert, Antrim Coast Road, 1964

Click to enlarge:

Psalms Roadshow events

This event was filmed at High Kirk in Ballymena last Sunday, giving a flavour of the "Psalms Roadshow" events. The next two are at Banbridge 5th Feb / Orangefield 5th March. (I'm not involved in this, but just thought it would be of interest to some of you).

Sir Thomas Smith map detail, 1572

GCSE Latin was 24 years ago, so I won't hazard much of a translation of this - a detail from a beautiful map of Ireland dated 1572, referring to Sir Thomas Smith's attempt to colonise the Ards with Englishmen: "Hanc insule partem Anglis incolendam dedet Elisabetha Anglie regina Coloniaque duceta est Dno Smetho equite aurato 1572"