East-west links

Some of the Ulster-Scots brethren met with Culture Minister Edwin Poots during the week to complain that there was not enough financial support to develop east-west links between the North and Scotland. Of course, there have been east-west links between the two areas for hundreds of years – and financial ones too. My paternal grandfather, Patrick Murray, was form Dún Lúiche in the Donegal Gaeltacht and was one of many Donegal men who, for generations, migrated to Scotland for seasonal work.

The works of Robbie Burns were much admired amongst the Irish speakers of Donegal. The writer Séamus Ó Grianna – famous for works such as Nuair a Bhí Mé Óg and Saol Corrach – quotes Burns in his own writing. It is pleasing to think that the native Irish speakers of west Ulster held Burns in such esteem – a fact that, I suspect, is little mentioned on Burns’ nights in the east of Ulster.

In modern times too, there has been much cultural co-operation between Irish and Scots Gaelic speakers. The biggest project of recent years is An Leabhar Mór – or the Great Book of Gaelic, a contemporary Book of Kells, in which Irish and Gaelic poetry and art sit side by side. (I have one wee poem in the book.)

Continuing on a literary theme, I have poetry in Gaelic and English by Sorley McLean and Donald John MacDonald on my shelf. McLean was injured in North Africa during the second world war and is reckoned to be one of Europe’s leading poets. MacDonald was captured by the Nazis with the Highland Division during the retreat to Dunkirk and spent the war as a POW. He wrote Gaelic verse about his wartime experiences and the friends who died during that ill-led and ill-fated campaign:

I think of you at this time –
How you were left in France –
While we are in enemy hands
On the Rhine confined in barges.

MacDonald, by the way, was Catholic – another east-west tie indeed. And, British uniform or no, they are better writers by far than any that the Provisional movement have given us.

By all means, let Poots strengthen east-west ties – but let him strengthen them in their entirety and not just as some sop towards Ulster-Scots. There is nothing in east-west links for anyone to fear. If anything, such links simply challenge the traditional geography as defined by national flags and reminds us of the ties of blood and language that predate Union Jack and tricolour. People – and cultural links – are a lot more complicated than many Ulster-Scots and, certainly, some Green Gaeilgeoirí would have us believe.

I have been to McLean’s grave in Portree on the Isle of Skye and I have been to the Isle of Lewis and Iona. I would rather spend a week in the Highlands and the Hebrides than a month in the plushest hotels Dublin has to offer.