Jenny's creepie

In my last post I referred to a three-legged stool, which in Scots and Ulster-Scots is called a creepie, and I tried to find a picture of one on the internet. 

While browsing around I came across a reference to a creepie in relation to that notable Scottish woman Jenny Geddes.  She was in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh on 23 August 1637 when James Hannay, the dean of Edinburgh stood up to use of the Book of Common Prayer for the first time.

Jenny was outraged by the introduction of the prayer book and she lifted the creepie on which she was sitting and threw it at the dean's head.  As she threw the stool she shouted, 'Deil colic the wame o’ ye! Oot thou fause thief! Dost thou say the mass at my lug?' (The devil give a colic to your stomach! Out you false thief! Dare you say the mass at my ear?).

This led to general unrest in the city and elsewhere in Scotland and eventually to the signing of the National Covenant in February 1638.  The covenant rejected any attempt to introduce innovations like the Prayer Book that had not first been subject to the scrutiny of Parliament and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

In November of the same year, the bishops and archbishops were formally expelled from the Church of Scotland, which was then established on a fully Presbyterian basis. Charles reacted by launching the Bishops' Wars and this was the start of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

In 1991 the artist Merilyn Smith proposed the creation of a memorial to commemorate Jenny Geddes and after extensive research she came on the ides of creating a bornze cutty stool or creepie.  January 1992 she designed the wooden prototype and in consideration of the leading role taken by women in the Edinburgh riot, a subscription list for Scottish women was opened in February. Forty women responded, the money was raised and the stool was cast in April. The Hughson Gallery negotiated with the Very Rev. Gilleasbuig Macmillan, the minister of St. Giles, on the presentation of the work to the cathedral and the work was unveiled on Sunday 23 August, after the mid-day service.  On that occasion the eminent Scottish poet Iain Crichton Smith read his specially written poem The Stool.

Another great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, was obviously an admirer of the doughty Protestant and he named one of his horse after her.  This was the horse that he rode on his tours of the Borders and the Highlands.

Culture Matters (7)

A shared and better future

An important facet of our vision for Northern Ireland is a 'shared and better future' and it is indeed a great aspiration.  It says that the future of Northern Ireland must be a 'shared future' and it amplifies that by adding the word 'better', which means that a 'shared future' will be a 'better future'.

However  we need to have a common understanding of what what we mean by a 'shared and better future' and in that regard there are three core values or principles which are widely recognised as underpinning values.  They are equity, diversity and interdependence.

Culture has an important role to play in the creation of that 'shared and better future' and especially our cultural traditions.  For that reason we need to consider how we apply those three values or principles to cultural traditions.  What is the outworking of that 'shared and better future' as regards the cultural life of Northern Ireland?

We have a rich diversity of traditional cultures or cultural traditions in Ulster, a diversity that is special and is part of our cultural wealth.  Moreover those strands within our traditional diversity are all part of our traditional cultural wealth.

That diversity is more than just two traditions and as we broaden the understanding of diversity and move away from a flawed two traditions model, we also move away from polarity to plurality. 

There are certainly three main traditional influences which have shaped Ulster - English, Irish and Scottish -and they have left all their imprint on our cultural landcape.  We also have an Orange cultural tradition, with its colourful regalia, the pageantry of its parades, the artistry of the banners, the music of the bands and a heritage of Orange song and poetry.

This diversity is one of the things that makes Northern Ireland such a unique and distinctive place and the diversity, along with its component cultures, should be recognised, valued and celebrated.

In more recent years we have seen the arrival in Northern Ireland of new communities from abroad and they have brought their own cultures with them  These communities have added to our diversity but their numbers are still comparatively small and the indigenous cultural traditions mentioned above are still the cultural traditions of the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland.  One has only to consider the numbers of people who watch Gaelic games or Orange delebrations to realise that this is still the case.

Secondly, these cultural traditions should be treated with equity and fairness. We cannot have a situation where special and preferential treatment is given to one tradition over another.  That would be inequitable and unfair.  Moreover that principle of cultural equity has to be applied in several important areas - recognition, respect, resources and representation.  The road to cultural equity will be a long road but that is not an excuse for day.  Equity delayed is equity denied.

Thirdly, we must recognise that there is an interdependence between cultural traditions.  They interact with each other, they impact on each other, they borrow from each other, and they influence each other.  For example, the Ulster-Scots word crack was borrowed into Irish and respelt as craic because there is no letter k in the Gaelic alphabet.  

Staying with language, both the Irish language and the Ulster-Scots language, which are our regional minority languages, have influenced each and every one of us.  They have both provided words for the Ulster dialect that we speak every day and they have both contributed to the placenames that are all around us.  Ulster-Scots has had a greater influence on dialect and Irish has had a greater influence on placenames but both have contributed to our dialect and our placenames and both languages are part of our cultural wealth. 

A better and wider understanding of that interdependence can do much to build social cohesion in our society and promote good relations.  For that reason our cultural sector should look at opportunities to reflect our cultural interdependence.

We need to find ways to celebrate and showcase our diversity in a way that contributes to community cohesion and there are certainly opportunities to do so.  Some time ago I attended a concert in the old Crumlin Road Gaol in North Belfast.  It was organised through the North Belfast Partnership and included a section by an excellent Irish traditional music group, followed by an Ulster-Scots traditional music group.  They were followed b ya group of ethnic musicians and at the finale the Ulster-Scots and Irish musicians and dancers performed together.  Another good example was a performance by some Protestant boys from a controlled secondary school in Belfast, playing the lambeg and fifes, along with an Irish traditional music group from a Roman Catholic boys' school.

We often speak about cultural communities, such as the Orange community, the Ulster-Scots community or the Irish language community but we also want to see an overarching Northern Ireland community.  This is about community cohesion and sharing.

In developing our cultural life in Ulster we must ensure that a 'shared and better future' remains a priority and it must be more than just a vague concept, which is why the 'equity, diversity and interdependence' model is so valuable. 

On visits to a folk museum you can often see a little three-legged stool beside an open hearth fire.  The stool is called a creepie and it is very steady, even on an uneven floor, because the three legs are all the same length.  A two-legged stool will not stand up and a stool where one leg is much longer than the others will be of little use.  In the same way there are three legs to a 'shared and better future' and they are all essential.  No one of them has priority over another and all three of them are necessary.  It may be a very simple and hamely illustration but the point it makes is important.

Culture Matters (6)

Ulster and Scotland

Some years ago the BBC published a book entitled The People of Ireland, which contained a chapter on the Scots by Professor Finlay holmes,  In it he said that, 'History and geography have combined to make Ulster as much a Scottish as an Irish province.'

Today we tend to think of the sea as a barrier but in the past, before the development of a modern road system, it was much easier to travel by sea than by land. Indeed down through the centuries that narrow sea between Ulster and Scotland has been more of a bridge than a barrier. For thousands of years men have crossed and re-crossed it in both directions.   Ulster and Galloway are so close that it was possible, even then, to travel across the narrow sea and back within a day.

On the other hand geography tended to separate Ulster from the south of Ireland. The border between Ulster and the south was a natural, almost impenetrable, barrier. It was, according to the Dutch geographer Dr M W Heslinga, ‘one long chain of lakes, forests and mountains, where the only passes were the Gap of the North ... on the one hand and the fords of the Erne at Enniskillen and Ballyshannon on the other’. [The Irish Border as a Cultural Divide p 150]

Indeed in earlier times that natural barrier was supplemented at its weaker points by a man-made structure, the Black Pig’s Dyke, which ran from Carlingford Lough in the east to Donegal Bay in the west.

The Scottish influence in Ulster goes back over thousands of years but the greatest and most enduring influence was that of the Lowland Scots who settled in Ulster four hundred years ago, at the start of the 17th century, and thereafter. They became the Scots in Ulster and ultimately the Ulster-Scots. 

When two Scottish lairds, Sir Hugh Montgomery and Sir James Hamilton, arrived in Ulster in 1606 and settled their lands in North Down with Lowland Scots settlers, they were the founding fathers of the Ulster-Scots and that settlement was the dawn of the Ulster-Scots.

Culture Matters (5)

Cultural diversity

The Gaelic revival movement in Ireland pursued a one-tradition model of culture, based on the principle of cultural absorption. As David Patrick Moran (1871-1936) said, 'The foundation of Ireland is the Gael and the Gael must be the element that absorbs.'

Some others have promoted a two-traditions model of culture and during the 1980s this was advocated by the Two Traditions Group.  Indeed this was the model adopted by the UK government and the government of the Irish Republic.  According to the Anglo-Irish Agreement (15 November 1985), the United Kingdom government and the government of the Irish Republic agreed to consider measures to 'foster the cultural heritage of both traditions'.  However this was a flawed model and it is a model which has failed.

There are in fact three main traditions that have shaped modern Ulster and they are English, Irish and Scottish.  At the bottom of the hill below the cathedral in Downpatrick there are three streets that meet at the traffic lights- English Street, Irish Street and Scotch Street.  That is a good illustration of our cultural diversity whereby we are a cultural confluence.  Moreover, whilst that is the simplest example, we see the three traditions reflected in street names and place names in other towns.  For example, in Carrickfergus we have the Irish Quarter, the Scotch Quarter and the Church Quarter, which was so named because of its association with the Established or Anglican Church.

This is no new discovery.  It was known in the 18th century, the 19th century and into the 20th century and a good example is to be found in a book entitled Three Wee Ulster Lassies, which was written in 1883 by James Greer as an allegory to explain Ulster to people in Great Britain.  The three lassies are Bessie Stronge (the Ulster-Saxon), Jennie Scott (the Ulster-Scot) and Nelly Nolan (the Ulster-Kelt).

Unless we recognise and remember that there are three cultural traditions in Ulster it is almost impossible to understand Ulster history.  Moreover it is the nature of this diversity and especially the strength of the Ulster-Scots tradition in the diversity which makes Ulster different from the rest of the island.

Culture Matters (4)

Cultural Absorption (2)

After my previous post about Irish cultural absorption, some folk claimed that I had been selective in my quotations and so I have two more quotes which express this aspiration in strong and strident terms.

One of the most influential figures in the Gaelic movement was David Patrick Moran (1869-1936). He was an articulate exponent of Irish cultural nationalism and founded a weekly paper called The Leader which he used it to promote his vision of Irishness. Writing in it in 1901 he said:

The only thinkable solution of the Irish national problem is that one side gets on top and absorbs the other until we have one nation, or that each develops independently. As we are for Ireland, we are in the existing circumstances on the side of Catholic development and we see plainly that any genuine non-Catholic Irish nationalist must become reconciled to Catholic development or throw in his lot with the other side ... If a non-Catholic nationalist Irishman does not wish to live in a Catholic atmosphere, let him turn Orangeman.

Even after partition the Gaelic revival produced an exclusive view of Ireland and we can see this expressed in an editorial in the Catholic Bulletin in 1924.  This was and important and influential publication because the editor John J O'Kelly was also president of the Gaelic League from 1919 to 1923 and president of Sinn Fein from 1926 to 1931.

The Irish nation is the Gaelic nation; its language and literature is the Gaelic language; its history is the history of the Gael. All other elements have no place in Irish national life, literature and tradition, save as far as they are assimilated into the very substance of Gaelic speech, life and thought.

Time and again during those first formative decades, cultural absorption or assimilation was stated to be a fundamental objective of the Gaelic revival.

'Kit' Carson

Christopher Houston 'Kit' Carson (1809-1868) was an American frontiersman, Indian agent, military officer and explorer.  He was one of the famous figures of the American West and like many others he was of Ulster-Scots stock.

The following summary of his background is taken from a biography entitled Blood and Thunder: The epic story of Kit Carson and the conquest of the American West, which was written by Hampton Sides and published in 2006.

Lindsey Carson was a farmer of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian stock who had lived most of his young life in North Carolina and fought in the Revolutionary War under Gen. Wade Hampton.  The elder Carson had an enormous family - five children by his first wife and ten by Kit's mother, Rebecca Robinson.  Of those fifteen children, Kit was the eleventh in line.'

Another biographer, Harvey L. Carter, said of him:

In respect to his actual exploits and his actual character, however, Carson was not overrated.  If history has to single out one person from among the Mountain Men to receive the admiration of later generations, Carson is the best choice.  He had far more of the good qualities and fewer of the bad qualities than anyone else in that varied lot of individuals.

In the 18th century around 250,000 Ulster-Scots emigrated from Ulster to America and played an important role in the making of the United States of America. 

Caleery

Recently on a visit to Ballyclare I was talking to my DUP colleague Paul Girvan MLA and in the course of the conversation he used the word caleeried.  I was unfamiliar with it but checked it out afterwards in the Scottish National Dictionary and there it was.  As a noun the word caleery means 'a silly, light-hearted person, a harum-scarum' and as an adjective the word caleeried means 'light, vain, full of mischief''.

The word is found in Ulster but seems to be unknown in Scotland and two of the examples of usage were from the Ballyclare author Archibald McIlroy, who used it in 1897 in his book When Lint was in the Bell and then again in 1900 in By Lone Craig-Linnie Burn.  It also appeared in 1880 in W H Patterson's Glossary of Antrim and Down and again in the Northern Whig newspaper on 14 December 1931.

The word seems to have been borrowed into Ulster-Scots from the Irish verb caleer, which means 'to caper or jump' and that in turn may be a corruption of the English dialect word caleever, which has the same meaning.

It is good to hear these old Ulster-Scots words being used today for the language is part of our cultural wealth and it has such a rich vocabulary.