Another highland dance teacher

This afternoon I presented Mrs Clayre Evans A.U.K.U. with her certificate from the United Kingdom Alliance of Professional Teachers, Highland Associate Exam.

Clayre is a member of Magherafelt Highland and Country Dancing Group where she received her training and she is the first person from the Mid-Ulster area to receive this certificate. Financial assistance for the training was provided by the Ulster-Scots Agency.

At one time we were dependent on Scottish teachers coming across to Ulster to teach Scottish highland dancing but that situation has changed and we now have our own local teachers.

Congratulations to Clayre and all those associated with the Magherafelt group.

North Belfast schools project

Prof Tony Gallagher (QUB), Ruth McWilliams (Belfast Model School for Girls), Sharon Walker (Invest NI), Maeve McCambridge (Little Flower Girls School), Nelson McCausland MLA and Ciara McCann (Our Lady of Mercy), plus a large cut-out of book character Freddie the Frog!

Three North Belfast girls schools have written and published an innovative book for children promoting tourist attractions in Northern Ireland.  The colourful story book was launched at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, on Wednesday 3 February with North Belfast MLAs Nelson McCausland (DUP) and Alban Maginness (SDLP) in attendance. 

The pupils - from Belfast Model School for Girls, Our Lady of Mercy and Little Flower Girls School - worked together to create their own publishing company LeapNI, with the support of Young Enterprise NI.

They noticed a gap in the market for a story book which would appeal to children and would promote ideas for days-out in Northern Ireland. The storybook follows cartoon characters Amy, Adam and Freddie the Frog, as they visit popular attractions in each of the six counties of Northern Ireland – including Belfast Zoo, the Giant’s Causeway and Armagh Planetarium. 

This is an excellent project and I congratulate all concerned. The pupils and staff from the three schools have worked well together to make it a success and this is an excellent cross-community project through which they have learned about working with others.

Young Enterprise NI has provided close support and the girls learned valuable business skills as they established their company – LeapNI - sold shares, appointed directors, developed business and marketing plans, discussed concepts and created their product. 

The book itself is very attractive, promoting venues in all six counties of Northern Ireland, and I am sure it will be widely enjoyed. At just £3 each the book is excellent value and I have every confidence that the girls will succeed in selling their print-run of 1,000 copies. Particular thanks are due to the School of Education at Queen’s University Belfast which subsidised the printing costs. 

I note that the pupils already have plans for a follow-up edition and I wish them continuing success with this venture.

'Shared heritage' talks in Guildhall

Derry City Council has organised a series of four talks in the Guildhall during the month of February and each of them explores a different aspect of ‘shared cultural heritage’.  Acording to the Council's website the subjects are:

1. Placenames of County Derry

2. English as it is spoken in Ireland, which investigates the influence of Irish on the way English is spoken

3. The Ulster Protestant Gaelic Tradition

4. Our Shared Musical Heritage, with Irish language radio presenter Brian Mullan

There are some placenames of Ulster-Scots origin but the emphasis in the series is almost entirely on the influence of the Irish language. It is therefore a lost opportunity, especially as Londonderry and East Donegal are part of the coastal crescent which formed the original Ulster-Scots heartland. The addition of a talk on the Ulster-Scots language would certainly have added to the inclusivity and the value of the series. 

The omission of a talk on Ulster-Scots and its influence on Ulster dialect was particularly disappointing as the series has been jointly funded by Derry City Council, Foras na Gaeilge and the Ulster-Scots Agency.

Ulster-Scots is all around us

Yesterday I was listening to our pastor preaching a sermon and noted that in it he used a number of Ulster-Scots words - wee, sleekit, footery and thran. He understood them and so did the congregation.  My departmental driver has also introduced me to the Ulster-Scots word hutherin, which he recalled being used in Belfast some years ago and meaning untidy or slovenly. Yes the language is all around us.

Ulster hymnwriters (6)

This morning our pastor continued with a series entitled Reality Check [Consider your ways Haggai 1:5] and he spoke on the subject of prayer.  As the final hymn we sang one of the best-known hymns about prayer, What a Friend we have in Jesus, which was written by an Ulsterman, Joseph M Scriven (1819-1886).

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!

O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer!

Joseph Scriven was born on 10 September 1819 at Ballymoney Lodge, Seapatrick, near Banbridge, in county Down. He was the third and youngest son of Captain John Scriven and his wife Jane.  Scriven was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and while he was there he heard the Christian gospel and was converted.

After two years at Trinity he decided on a military career and went to Addiscombe Military College in Surrey but poor health compelled him to give up this idea and he returned to Trinity, from which he graduated in 1842. In the same year he was engaged to be married and the wedding was arranged for the summer of 1844 but just before his wedding day his fiancee was accidentally drowned in the river Bann. 

Joseph Scriven, who was then just 24 years old, decided to emigrate to Canada and start a new life there. The reason for emigrating is unknown and some believe it was because he did not want to be near the place where his fiancee had died while others think it was because he had joined the Plymouth Brethren and this had led to strained relations at home. Whatever the reason he settled at Port Hope, Ontario, and was a teacher and a preacher with the Brethren. 

When he arrived in Canada, Scriven became a tutor for a young man in a family near Rice Lake, Ontario, and he lived with different families in Woodstock, Brantford, Hamilton and Bewdley. He also fell in love with a young woman called Eliza Roche but she became ill and after three years of sickness she died in 1855. During that time Scriven spent much time with her and helped with her nursing care. Her body was laid to rest in a small hillside cemetery overlooking Rice Lake, just outside Bewdley in Ontario.  Out of this tragic experience was born the hymn What a Friend we have in Jesus.  At one time Scriven was asked how he had managed to compose it and he replied, ‘The Lord and I did it between us.’ He also said that he had written it to console his mother back in Ulster. 

On 10 October 1886 Joseph Scriven was found drowned in a water-run near Lake Rice and he was laid to rest in the little cemetery beside his sweetheart Eliza. 

The words of What a Friend we have in Jesus were first published anonymously in Horace L Hastings' Social Hymns, Original and Selected in 1865 but Scriven was given credit as the author in Hastings' Songs of Pilgrimage in 1886. A collection of Scriven's verses was published under the title Hymns and Other Verses in 1869 at Peterborough, Ontario.

Irish Indoor Athletics Championships

This evening I attended the first day of the Irish Indoor Athletics Championships at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast.  This event attracts up to 1,000 athletes from Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and beyond and includes a competition for primary and secondary age children as well as the main senior championships.

The championships are organised by Athletics Northern Ireland and Athletics Ireland and this is the seventh year of the competition.

I presented the medals for the women's 3,000 metre walk and I was rather amused when one official suggested that this was rather appropriate in view of my own participation in quite a number of long walks over the summer months, although they are rather different and usually involve bands and banners.  After that I presented the medals for the women's long jump.

The Odyssey Arena has the only indoor hydraulic 200-metre running track in either Northern Ireland or the Republic and it was interesting to see how the arena can be transformed into a showcase for top class athletes from around the world.

Arts funding in Republic

In a letter to the Irish Times (5 February), composer Conor Linehan wrote:

It has come to my attention that the Corn Exchange Theatre Company [in Dublin], for whom I have worked as a composer, has recently suffered a crippling 48 per cent cut in its Arts Council funding. ...  The overall cut to arts funding this year was six per cent.

This report relates to the situation in the Irish Republic but from this and other reports, it is clear that in the current worldwide economic climate there is pressure on arts budgets in most countries.