"The aim of the Ulster-Scots Agency is to promote the study, conservation, development and use of Ulster-Scots as a living language, to encourage and develop the full range of its attendant culture; and to promote an understanding of the history of the Ulster-Scots."

The Ulster-Scots Agency, or Tha Boord o Ulstèr-Scotch as it is known in Ullans, is a relatively new but important body that aims to promote the Ulster-Scots language and culture within the island of Ireland and beyond.

The Agency is part of the North/South Language Body (Tha Boord o Leid); one of six new cross-border bodies born out of the Belfast Agreement, on Good Friday, 10 April, 1998.

This body comprises two agencies, The Ulster-Scots Agency and Foras na Gaeilge, the agency responsible for the development of the Irish (Gaelic) language.

Each agency has its own board, whose members together constitute the board of the North/South Language Body.

The remit of the Ulster-Scots Agency is “the promotion of greater awareness and the use of Ullans and of Ulster-Scots cultural issues, both within Northern Ireland and throughout the island”.

The Agency is jointly funded by the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland and the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in the Republic of Ireland. The Agency’s headquarters are in Belfast with a regional office in east Donegal, an Ulster-Scots heartland area.

Poet and Linguist James
Fenton addresses the
Gan Forrit Colluge, Oct 2001