A Kist O' Wurds

Sunday 12th July 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 15 - Sunday 12th July 2009

Wilson Burgess sails away to Ayrshire with the P7 weans from Ballydown Primary, and their teacher Mr Trevor Russell. After performing their Burns Supper on ‘Kist’ earlier in the year, what better reward for the weans in Scotland’s Year of Homecoming than a chance to visit the places linked to Robert Burns’ most famous poem, ‘Tam O Shanter’, and to see the very birthplace of Scotia’s Bard himself?.

Sunday 5th July 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 14 - Sunday 5th July 2009

Tracey has news of the Ulster-Scots Folk Festival coming up in Cairncastle later this month, along with another east Antrim gathering at Braidisland, or Ballycarry, in September.  Alister McReynolds talks about his new book, ‘Legacy – the Scots Irish in America’, while Philip Robinson has two more new works on offer, a novel, ‘The Old Orange Tree’, set in Kirkreeba, somewhere in Co Down, and ‘Oul Licht, New Licht’, with poems, prose and metrical psalms in Ulster Scots.

Sunday 28 June 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 13 - Sunday 28th June 2009

Tracey plays a track or twa from the new CD by the Low Country Boys, and Gibson Young and Ivan McFerran talk about the background to their latest recording. On Slaimish, is a new collection of poems by James Fenton, who takes his stance "on the hoovin hairt o Antrim", and reads a selection from the book.

Sunday 21 June 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 12 - Sunday 21st June 2009

Charlie is in Ballygally for the launch of a CD and DVD by the Grousebeaters, who are going "international" from their base in east Antrim, and as you might allow, Charlie gets asked to play a part at their swarry.  Laura Spence from the Ards has a new poem of her own, and Ernie Scott offers a verse by W F Marshall.

Sunday 14 June 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 11 - Sunday 14th June 2009

Wilson Burgess is in east Donegal for the opening of a new Ulster-Scots Heritage Centre in Monreagh.  The Centre is in the old Presbyterian manse, and Wilson hears about Francis Makemie, the minister who left Donegal to found American Presbyterianism.  Amongst the music, readings and celebrations at the opening, Wilson learns that the Laggan district now has a repository for a shared heritage that might perhaps have been lost. 

Sunday 07 June 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 10 - Sunday 7th June 2009

The Twa Wulls, Willie Cromie and his friend Will McAvoy, give a hearty Co Down welcome to the Twa Charlies, Charlie Gillen and Charlie Reynolds, who are taking a run from north Antrim down to the Ards for a day of company and crack.  The four friends share some of the history of the Ards, and make a special visit to Mid Isle on Strangford Lough, where Will McAvoy was reared.

Sunday 31 May 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 9 - Sunday 31st May 2009

Charlie Gillen drops in on the Ullans Speakers group at their new premises in Ballymoney, and joins in the crack with the team.  Ernie Scott has a day at the May Fair in Ballyclare, and Hugh Robinson gives an Ulster-Scots reading at the launch of the Literary Strangford project.

Sunday 24 May 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 8 - Sunday 24th May 2009

Bobby Acheson and friends from Cairncastle cross ower the sheugh to Ayrshire, where the Grousebeaters have been invited to play their music by the Ardrossan Ulster-Scots Cultural and Heritage Group as part of a Burns Homecoming celebration.  Bobby meets more Scottish friends at the Ayr County Show over a busy weekend of musical and cultural kinship.

Sunday 17 May 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 7 - Sunday 17th May 2009

Wilson Burgess takes a run to Sixmilecross, where the village is putting on a special weekend to commemorate W F Marshall, the bard of Tyrone.  Wilson meets fans and friends of Marshall and he joins a bus tour along the Marshall Trail.

Sunday 10 May 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 6 - Sunday 10th May 2009

Charlie meets a singer/songwriter who is entering an Ulster-Scots song in a contest for Celtic and Scots languages.  Wilbert Magill reads us another poem, and in Ballywalter, Willie Cromie visits the old lime kilns, and points out the difference between a creuben and a crubeen.

Sunday 03 May 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 5 - Sunday 3rd May 2009

Charlie has a crack with Mark Carmichael, who enjoys writing warm-hearted gospel songs with an Ulster Scots flavour.  Mark tells Charlie: A wes called thaiveless an hannless, an as lazy as sheugh waa'er at times, an then you were called quare an good.  And after their talk about the hamely tongue, Mark has a surprise for Charlie that involves one of his own verses.

Sunday 26 April 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 4 - Sunday 26th April 2009

Kist drops by the Ullans Speakers Group in Ballymoney, where Charlie Reynolds hears from Gary Blair and Anne Smyth about the Group's plans for a new office in the town.  Alan Wright, Codie Murray and John Murray join in the crack; Elizabeth McLeister sings an auld favourite, and when Charlie Gillen hears some of the group are suffering with the cold, he reads them his Ode to a Snottery Nose.

Sunday 19 April 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 3 - Sunday 19th April 2009

Tracey Gillen has news of a festival in Sixmilecross to celebrate W F Marshall, the bard of Tyrone; Kist drops by "The Boat Factory", a new play for young yins, as it goes down the slipway at Cregagh Primary School, while Charlie Gillen goes "Up in Smoke".

Sunday 12 April 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 2 - Sunday 12th April 2009

Willie Cromie is at the Ards Arts Centre to help his auld freen Wilbert MaGill celebrate the launch of a new book of poems and memories. Wilbert delights the company with a reading from his book "Aboot tha Airds", and the Twa Wulls, McAvoy and Cromie, gae a wheen mair laughs tae yin an aa forby.

Sunday 05 April 2009

SERIES 20 Programme 1 - Sunday 5th April 2009

Wilson Burgess calls to kailye with the Knox brothers of Aghadowey; reads his verse where Traditions Meet, and hears how a Belfast school makes a big noise when a new instrument is unveiled.