Ulster-Scots culture heads into new and exciting horizons

The work of the Ulster-Scots Agency is making huge strides on various fronts, involving and increasing number of people in culture, language, dance, music and educational and historical research

The Agency is now communicating with more than 100 Ulster-Scots groups across Northern Ireland in the Republic's border counties of Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan and officials at Agency headquarters in Belfast report a vibrancy and enthusiasm for the projects presently being undertaken.

Every week in cities, towns and villages across Ulster, cultural, musical and historical events are being organised with a distinctive Ulster-Scots theme and the support and recognition given to the various groups extends across the community divide. 

The proposed establishment of an Ulster-Scots academy in Northern Ireland is creating a considerable interest and when set up, it should compliment the existing brief of the Institute of Ulster-Scots Studies in Londonderry.

The Institute, based at Magee College on the University of Ulster campus, is under the direction of Professor John Wilson, is involved in research and development with universities in Scotland, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

A far-reaching Ulster-Scots educational project is well underway at Stranmillis College in Belfast, with two teachers seconded for the past six months to a task of preparing a curriculum on Ulster-Scots culture and language for primary school children.

The work is near completion and it is hoped that a pilot scheme will be offered to schools over the coming months.  On Friday May 9, a presentation will be made by the teachers to members of the board of the Ulster-Scots Agency at a meeting in Stranmillis College.

The series of eight detailed leaflets, highlighting the historic Ulster-American links, have had a fantastic response, with more than 30,000 sets of the leaflets distributed to people around the world, with people of the Scots-Irish diaspora in the United States showing a particular interest and desire to extend their knowledge or the close connections between this province and their side of the Atlantic.

Next month, a group of 46 people will visit Northern Ireland, on a trip organised by the East Tennessee Historical Society in Knoxville and they will be warmly welcomed by officials ofthe Ulster-Scots Agency at a reception in Co. Antrim on May 23.

An hour-long television documentary on the Ulster-American links is currently being filmed in the Appalachian region of America's south east by a Northern Ireland company, for networking release in the United States and the United Kingdom over the coming year.

One other television company and BBC 4 radio producers are also considering similar projects on an absorbing story that needs to be told and re-told.

The highly colourful musical On Eagle's Wing, written by Northern Ireland composer and musician John Anderson, is still on cue for presentation later this year and indeed, it will provide a supberb stage setting for Ulster-Scots culture and achievement over four centuries.