I was highly honoured as President of the Ullans Academy and Chairman of the Somme Association to announce the winner of the Positive Belfast Award at this year’s Aisling Awards at the Europa Hotel,
The nominees in the Park Centre Positive Belfast category were:
Fáilte Feirste Thiar
Lower Ormeau Residents’ Action Group
St Vincent de Paul, Antrim Road
Newington Housing Association
And the winner was Newington Housing Association.
Part of my speech was in Ulster Gaelic and I think that this language should be standardised. And, as Pannu Petteri Höglund of Åbo Academi Universty has written, another important question is that of specifically East Ulster (Ulidian) words. Ciarán Ó Duibhin has collected a list of them which can presently be browsed on his web pages. The work of the language movement is not only about preservation, it is also about reanimation and restoration; and although cynical observers might scorn this, it should be noted that the need to understand the work of the old regional poets, such as Art Mac Cumhthaigh, remains a major source of interest in Gaelic among the people of Northern Ireland, including Protestants. There is thus a certain necessity to study and teach their language and its specific words to learners who take an interest in their native district’s Gaelic past; and it is quite possible that features of the language of these poets could find their way into written, maybe even spoken Gaelic as it is cultivated in Northern Ireland. However, such a development should not impede the other important goal of the language movement in Ulster, that of keeping the West Ulster language (Northern Irish) alive in Donegal; on the other hand, many East Ulster (Ulidian) words are shared in Islay and Argyll and could thus make that language more accessible to Ulster Gaelgeoirí.
Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen. It gives me the greatest of pleasure to be here at the best of Belfast’s ceremonies As you know Aisling means Dream and it always reminds me of the lines from WB Yeats..”I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly for you tread on my dreams”….So it is with the Ulster Gaelic, which is our finest inheritance and our greatest joy”….
A Chairde agus a dhaoine uaisle. Cuireann sé maise mór ar mo chroí a bheith anseo in bhur láthair. Agus tá aoibhneas orm a bheith páirteach sa cheiliúradh is fearr i mBéal Feirste. Mar atá fhios agaibh cheana féin, is ionann Aisling agus Brionglóid. Agus cuireann sin i gcuimhne domh go minic, gur scríobh an file mór Éireannach sin, W.B. Yeats, “Chuir mé mo bhrionglóidí á scaipeadh faoi do chosa, Siúil go ciúin mar siúlann tú ar mo bhrionglóidí”. Is mar sin atá sé le Gaeilic Chúige Uladh, ár n-oidhreacht mhilis agus ola ar ár gcroí.