Gaelic in the Family

I would like to say thank you to the Council’s previous blog writer Brendan Ahern for interviewing me in his last post, as well as the kind introduction. I am happy to be contributing to this blog for the remainder of my time working for Comhairle na Gàidhlig.

While continuing on the topic of people who are contributing to the revitalization of Gaelic language and culture in Nova Scotia, I decided to meet with Crìsdean and Ròs Cuimean last week to interview them about their involvement with Gaelic language and culture in the community, as well as in their home.

During the interview Crìsdean and Ròs shared with me how they first started learning Gaelic, “we were planning our wedding and we wanted to incorporate Gaelic culture into our ceremony to respect our heritage.” After researching Gaelic culture and different ways they could incorporate it into their wedding, they decided to start Gaelic classes at Sgoil Ghàidhlig an Àrd-bhaile (which is coincidentally where I first started my own Gaelic learning journey, and met Crìsdean and Ròs myself!).

The couple both have connections to Gaelic; Ròs herself was born in Glasgow, Scotland (she has lived in Canada since she was nine years old) and recalls being exposed to Gaelic from a young age. “We had Gaelic programming on our TV but there was often no interest from those around us, and it was usually viewed in a negative way. Gaelic was not passed through the family either.” She continued to say that even though there was little interest in Gaelic, the language was literally all around them and that “there were words in Scotland that we used all the time, but didn’t realize they were actually Gaelic". Crìsdean also shared that his roots were Gaelic (as well as Welsh and Irish), and that he also felt a strong interest in exploring his roots.

After taking classes at Sgoil Ghàidhlig an Àrd-bhaile, Crìsdean and Ròs began to incorporate Gaelic culture into their everyday life. The couple explained to me that they began speaking the Gaelic they had learned to their sons Keegan (17 years), Aonghas (2 years), and now hope to continue speaking and teaching Gaelic to their newest family addition, Lachlann (1 month old).

“Gaelic is very much an everyday part of life for our family” says Crìsdean. “In fact, it is the first language (including English) for Aonghas, who picks up Gaelic very quickly from us and has full comprehension.” Crìsdean further explained that “Aonghas has been exposed to Gaelic from birth and we use as much Gaelic as we can everyday with our whole family.”

The couple also takes part in step dancing and singing which they both teach to their children and include in their daily activities; Crìsdean has even been learning the fiddle. The children are also exposed to Gaelic through their favorite television shows. Ròs shared that “Aonghas watches Gaelic cartoons everyday on BBC Alba such as Peppa Pig, Rupert, Padraig Post and many more.”

In addition to music, dance, and singing in the home, Ròs does traditional weaving and spinning using fleece from local farms as well as local and Scottish plants for dye, all using a traditional spinning wheel and looms (one of which is estimated to be about 200 years old). She explained that “plants from different areas even an hour away will give a different color”, and also that “in Scotland different colored dyes from plants are associated with different areas geographically.” All of these things make traditional weaving unique to the area it is crafted in.

Outside of their home Crìsdean and Ròs enjoy attending as many Gaelic events as they can within the community, such as millings, ceilidhs, and much more. They strongly believe that supporting and sharing Gaelic culture through the community is just as important as in the home. Ròs explained that while growing up in Scotland even your neighbors were called “Auntie”, and that the concept of family is so closely tied to community. The couple further explained that “sharing language and culture is what makes us Gaels” and that “the concept of family is more than just a last name, it is also a community, it is people sharing a language and culture.”

It is wonderful to see a family working together to help keep these Gaelic traditions alive through language, music, as well as arts and crafts in the home and community. Crìsdean and Ròs hope to continue attending community events, they also hope to continue their Gaelic language studies and plan to be entirely fluent in Gaelic. Through writing, speaking, and listening they hope to bring Gaelic into their home and pass it onto their children, so that they too can help contribute to the future of Gaelic in Nova Scotia.

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Introducing Laura Màrr

Well my friends, it’s time for me to say goodbye. This job with the Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia has been outstanding, but it’s time to move on and make room for the new. Her name is Laura Màrr, and she’s going to be taking over this blog and all of the social media work that we do at Comhairle Na Gàidhlig. You might have already met her. She’s been with us since April and has attended a number of events already.

“It’s been such a positive experience. I loved visiting the Celtic Collection at St.FX, and the milling frolic at the Central Library during Gaelic Awareness month. I’m really looking forward to taking more trips to Cape Breton and going to more events across the province as they happen throughout the summer. I really look forward to just traveling around the province and being involved. I like having a constant change of scenery.”

She certainly does. Laura has been all over the shop. “My parents are from different places in Nova Scotia and my father had a business that required us to move around a lot.”

She’s lived in Halifax, the Valley and a few other places in the province. Those early experiences of travelling throughout the province have played a part in her current interest and engagement in Gaelic culture. “I started to do some research into my family history and I found out that I had connections to this culture and language existing right here in my own backyard. It’s such a large piece of the cultural mosaic.”

Today Laura is completing a degree in Anthropology with a double minor in Classical and Irish studies at the university of St. Mary’s. Laura has also studied Scottish Gaelic at SMU through the Irish studies department. It was through this department that Laura was able to spend a semester studying Irish Gaelic in the Gaeltahct of Connemara, after which time she stayed across the pond to travel extensively throughout Ireland and Scotland. She has also been taking Scottish Gaelic classes at Sgoil Ghàidhlig an Àrd-bhaile in Halifax.

“I study mostly linguistic and socio-cultural anthropology. Linguistic anthropology is linguistics with a cultural element to it; it is the study of how language influences social life, the study of people and their language. And socio-cultural anthropology is everything to do with the inter-play between culture and people. I find that the linguistic and socio-cultural aspects of my studies are really tying in well with the language revitalization efforts that are going on here in Nova Scotia. I love the way that my work with the Council is bringing me into direct contact with my studies.”

Laura is also a classically trained cellist who can also be heard playing guitar and providing some vocals in her band, Ulvesang. With such a diverse background encompassing both personal and academic interest in the language and culture, travel experience, and artistic influences, I had to ask Laura what readers might expect from our blog once she takes it over.

“I would really like to surround myself with people who are involved in the arts and music. To learn more about what they do and add a musical/cultural/artistic aspect to the blog. Also, highlighting the success stories of the people who are revitalizing Gaelic language and culture in Nova Scotia—even if it’s not directly through language and through the other cultural aspects like music and art. It’s gong to be great to pick up this blog and continue working on it with a focus on these cultural areas.”

 

In the last six months my time working with Comhairle na Gàidhlig  has given me a much greater appreciation for what that means—to be a “Nova Scotian.” This job has allowed me to met so many wonderful, interesting, intelligent and hilarious people who are constant reminder that what we have here in Nova Scotia is a living culture on the rise.

I’ve had the opportunity to travel to places and events that I would have completely missed out on: The Gaelic College up in Cape Breton, where I spent a weekend learning and laughing with Cailean Dòmhnullach, Daibhidh MacFhraingm and Goiridh Dòmhnullach. The CASNA conference at StFX where I met men and women who are pushing the boundaries of current Gaelic and Celtic scholarship. The Growing a Creative Economy Conference in Membertou, Cape Breton where men and women with diverse backgrounds shared ideas and models for building sustainable and joyful lives right here in the province and the powerful role that culture can play in that endeavor.

For years now this Gaelic experience has been happening in my backyard and I’m so happy to have finally joined in the fun.

Laura, you’re up! J

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Where we're heading

Hello everyone! Last week Comhairle na Gaidhlig shared the news about a teacher’s meeting in Antigonish Nova Scotia. The purpose for this gathering of Gaelic educators was to start compiling materials to be added into a resource guide for the Department of Education’s new curriculum. If you didn’t know already let me be the first to tell you that Gaelic is going to be incorporated into every grade level and every subject.

The Nova Scotia curriculum is going through enormous changes. The four heritage cultures, Acadian, African Nova Scotian, Mi’kmaq and Gaelic, are taking center stage. To have the Gaelic community and culture be included on something like this is a huge win. The number of people who have expressed their excitement and support for the work that is being done on the new curriculum has been so heartening. There are also a lot of questions. And that’s what this blog post is going to be about. Hopefully, providing you with more information about what has been happening in our schools and what is coming down the road.

To help explain, I spoke with Tonya Lundrigan Fry, president of the Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia and host/facilitator for last week’s meeting in Antigonish.

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INTERVIEWER What is the history behind the new curriculum?

TONYA About a year ago the Department of Education approached the Gaelic Council and informed us that they were developing a new curriculum for all of Nova Scotia. In a nut-shell, Gaelic, Mi’kmaq, Acadian, & African Nova Scotian, are being incorporated into the learning outcomes at every grade level and every subject being taught in Nova Scotia. Teachers will have the ability to use cultural aspects of all four heritage cultures to inform and teach their students, emphasising the historic cultures that have developed and shaped our province.

Of course, this initiative requires a lot of resources. The Mi’kmaq resource guide was developed last summer. The Acadian resource guide has been in place for quite some time now, through their own School Board’s support. The African Nova Scotian community is working with the Department of Education on the development of a Resource Guide too. All three of these cultural groups have been well-represented on the school boards. When the Department of Education approached us it was to ask for our help in compiling the data to support the Gaelic resource guide.

Over the last 10 years there has been a curriculum in place for Gaelic in the schools of Nova Scotia to support grade 3 and 4 cultural Gaelic learning and Grade 11 social studies programs. Some schools have also adopted a Gaelic language program because the demand in their communities was so great. So the resources have been in place for quite some time, and over the years those resources have been added to and modified. Those are extremely valuable resources and the new curriculum is going to create a huge demand for them. Teachers in Nova Scotia are going to want help with Gaelic cultural connections for the purpose of learning for themselves and their students.

INTERVIEWR So teachers who have not previously been engaged with Gaelic language and culture will now be incorporating it into their lessons?

TONYA Absolutely, and what we’re doing right now is trying to provide them with the resources that they’ll need to represent the culture appropriately, and who better to supply the resources than those in the community who are already teachers, and that includes those in public school, in university and those that are teaching in the community?

INTERVIEWER The curriculum is being introduced in phases. When was the first phase introduced?

TONYA The New curriculum for grades primary to grade 3 was released in September 2015, as part of the Department of Education’s efforts to improve the provincial school curriculum and it was released without a Gaelic recourse guide. Not that they are entering into the next phase which will include higher grade levels, teachers are going to be asking for more help with Gaelic cultural learning: ‘How am I going to teach children about numbers in Gaelic if I don’t know them myself? How am I going to be able to inform children about the Gaelic identity and way of life—the way they value the community elders, the way they revere nature, the blessings for the moon, for the harvest, for the meal, for the family? How can we share that?’ Well that’s where we come in.

Comhairle na Gaidhlig is taking the lead role in coordinating the collection of these learning resources. It’s taken quite a few months to pull all of this together. Last Friday was the first time we were able to get all the Gaelic culture and language school and community teachers together to share with us their best practices. We shared ideas and started collecting their recourses. We have framework and a proposed delivery approach for the Department of Education.

INTERVIEWER Has is been a long process of lobbying and advocating for Gaelic to be incorporated into something like this?

TONYA Very long. Over 10 years. And all of those that have gone before us have contributed to where we are now. For example, there has been a group that as led by the Office of Gaelic affairs meeting in Mulgrave every quarter for the last year and a half. They have made great strides and gave the Gaelic Council more doffer required for our own lobbying and advocating work. Teachers have been similarly engaged for a long time now, and we have had school-boards and teacher’s unions working toward the same goal. We’ve also had representation at the universities—hence we were able to see StFX offer Gaelic as a teachable to students working toward their Bachelor of Education degrees.

INTERVIEWER What do you think has changed over the last ten years that has brought Gaelic from being not on the radar as a heritage language in Nova Scotia to now where it is on the government’s new curriculum?

TONYA It has build momentum over time. People’s awareness has increased. We have put a lot of 

emphases on sharing Gaelic language as part of a culture and identity. We’re not just trying to preserve language, we want to heighten people’s awareness of their own culture and ancestry. A lot of people know that they’re from Scotland, but they may not realise that their Scottish ancestors came with their own language. So, valuing not just the language, but the identity that goes with it.

I also think that the work of other cultural groups has assisted our own efforts. The Acadian community is very strong in terms of their awareness, development and engagement in being recognized as a leading culture in the province. I would also say that the Mi’kmaq have had a longer and harder battle than we have, but they’re about 10 years ahead of us in their cultural awareness and community development around education, and the African Nova Scotian community is on track with us in terms of representing their culture and identity and what it has brought to the development of the Nova Scotian identity.

All those things working together have helped each other, either intentionally or inadvertently, and because the Department of Communities Culture and Heritage has put all of these communities together under their umbrella, we’re better able to boost historical cultural awareness. That awareness broadens the community and more people are becoming aware of their own Gaelic heritage as part of as a result of all that collaboration.

INTERVIEWER What is the next step for the Gaelic community in Nova Scotia and the Gaelic Council with regard to the curriculum?

TONYA The next step is to prove the data for a resource guise to the Department of Education before the next school term starts. The next level in the phase will be for grades 4 to 6. We need to be prepared for a lot of teachers asking questions and looking for guidance from individuals within our community. They will be looking for resources and support. We’re going to have to build those resources.

If anyone in the Gaelic community has any learning resources that they would like to contribute we’re still open to receiving them until July 7^th. After that we’re going to proceed with development of the reference guide materials for the Department of Education. Community members can forward their material to our email address, comhairlenagaidhlig@gmail.com), and we will thank them for their contribution. We can’t guarantee that everything will be in there. Right now we’re just building the frame-work and attaching all the recommended best practices. It’s on a volunteer basis that we’ve come together to do this. We all did a really good job last Friday. We have begun to scratch the, but there is still more to do.

INTERVIEWER Finally, what is your favorite Gaelic word of Phrase?

TONYA My favorite prase is “S’math dh’fhaicinn!” / “It’s good to see you!

” 

What We Have

In the fall of 2006, after I graduated high school I left Nova Scotia and worked at a restaurant in Banff Alberta. In the dining room hung a painting of a prairie land-scape. Golden wheat stretching back and back to a dark wall on the horizon that represented the Rocky Mountains. At least, I can be 90% sure that was what the artist had in mind when she painted it. I say 90 % because when I looked at the painting I didn’t always see golden wheat and mountains. Sometimes, and especially at times when I would be feeling particularly home-sick, I would stare at this painting until the wheat became sand and the mountains turned into the Northumberland Strait. The sea-side environment that I felt the most attached to had been imprinted on my psyche to such a degree that this painting of an Albertan prairie had become my own personal Rorschach test.

 

The beach was a place that I would go to with my family in the summer, the place where I first played in waves that were taller than me, and the place where my friends and I would have bon-fires. That beach is just one aspect of my environment that called on me to come home—and that’s exactly what I did. It’s the very same thing that draws people from all over the world to come visit. I know I feel a lot of pride when I meet people visiting from America, Europe and indeed Alberta, who are here to enjoy “Canada’s ocean play-ground.”

It’s worthwhile to celebrate what we have here in this corner of the world. For example, every Summer Point Michaud beach in Richmond County hosts the annual surf classic—a fun event for people of all ages to come and play in the waves that break along that sandy bit of Cape Breton coastline. Another example, and one which perhaps many more of you are familiar with, is the Celtic Colours International Festival that takes place each October.

“We know what we have here. We cherish it. All of our events show off something that we celebrate here. We don’t put on this event so that tourists can come, we put on this event because this is what we do. This is how we celebrate life. This is how we celebrate culture.”

That quote was taken from a presentation that Dawn Beaton gave at the Conference for Growing a Creative Economy up in Membertou, Sydney last month. Dawn and I caught up after the conference and had a chat. Dawn is the Artistic Director of the Celtic Colours International Festival. She has been involved with the administration of the festival for six years--but a performer since the very first one—and like a lot of the people who I have talked to during my time with the Gaelic Council, Dawn’s introduction to Gaelic culture began at home.

“I’ve been very blessed to have had the family, and more specifically the grandparents that I’ve had. Growing up I would hear my grandparents speak to each other in Gaelic. My first segue into Gaelic culture was learning Gaelic songs and singing in the choir that Margie (Stanley) Beaton had set up when I was in grade 1. She had this little choir and we would meet after school and perform at the Inverness Manor and at some of the parish concerts.”

When Dawn graduated from high school she moved to Antigonish, Nova Scotia where she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration at St. Francis Xavier University. From there she moved to Halifax where she worked for 3 years with an accounting firm.

“I’m from Mabou, a small village. I got a degree in a bigger town, and then moved up to Halifax for 3 years. It took 3 years in Halifax to kind of say ‘okay this is not my path.” And so I ended up back home. Even a short move to Halifax was enough to give me the perspective to see how special the things that I already had were to me.”

The culture that Dawn grew up with and connects with has been valued highly by men and women from all over the world who travel long distances just to get a taste of it.

“Because of this job I meet a lot of people who come from away. And something I’ve heard a lot from many is that when they cross the Causeway they physically feel different. Something clicks, something changes.”

I asked Dawn how she and her team walk the line between an authentic representation of the culture that we work to preserve and perpetuate, and the almost exploitative staged cultural events that you might experience in a Disney park. Her answer was simple.

“When we’re not authentic, we lose. That has been the thought process for having this event. If the locals don’t go, then why are we doing it? What’s the point? We’ve had that at the core of everything we do. It’s been our mantra.”

The Celtic Colours International Festival is a showcase of what already exists in Cape Breton; a nine-day distillation of something that you can’t quite find anywhere else, and which some of us don’t fully appreciate until we’ve travelled away from it.

Gach Deagh Dùrachd! / Every Good Wish!

Dawn’s favorite word in Gaelic is: Uamhasach/Terribly

“I like the way it rolls of the tongue and you can really get that local accent in there. Folks who have never spoken a word of Gaelic in their life, might speak in a very Gaelic way with the same inflection and tones that this word emulates. So I like the way it reminds me of that.” 

A chat with Robert Dunbar, Nathaniel Harrington and Maggie Bonsey

Rob Dunbar has been back and forth across the Atlantic more times in the last two months than many of us have been in our entire lives. On April 2^nd he presented at the Dalhousie Gaelic Colloquium, and again on the 9^th up at the Gaelic College. This past weekend he was one among many scholars to gather in Antigonish Nova Scotia for the Celtic Studies Association of North America annual conference of 2016. He didn’t show the jet-lag though, and was kind enough to sit down with me during the scheduled lunch break last Saturday. I thought I was going to be attending this conference just to interview Dr. Dunbar, but after hearing the first two rounds of presentations I had to grab two others. Both Maggie Bonsey, graduate student at the University of Limerick, and Nathaniel Harrington, graduate student at the University of Toronto accepted my invitation and together the four of us all sat down to a have a chat. It was a fantastic opportunity to discover how these top-notch scholars first became interested in Gaelic language and culture, and also to hear their thoughts on language loss and revitalization.

INTERVIEWER How did you first become interested in Gaelic language and culture?

ROB It started off as a bit of curiosity. My grandparents and some of my aunts and uncles spoke it. I heard a bit of it growing up. So I was interested, but never really took an active interest.

Then I lived in Brazil for the better part of a year when I was 22-23. When I was there people were always asking me, “Where’d your family come from?” I knew a little bit, like the genealogies going all the way back to Scotland, but I really didn’t know anything about who those people were.

So that got me started wanting to learn a little bit of Gaelic. 

The language is interesting but it was the living song tradition and aspects of the oral tradition that were still surviving here in NS that really grabbed me, and that’s what kept me going and wanting to get up to a level of fluency. And meeting people, other learners and native speakers here and in TO. I had a level of fluency before I ever set foot in Scotland at least as an adult, so it was my experience here, both here in NS and in Toronto, that got me hooked.

NATHANIEL I’ve been interested in minority languages in general, and Celtic languages in particular, since I was about 9 or 10 because of the media that I was exposed to by my parents. Initially I was most interested in Welsh but sometime around the beginning of High school I started shifting toward Gaelic. Part of it had to do with the fact that my family is of Scottish origin despite my very English name. So Gaelic was vaguely on my radar.

I tried teaching myself on and off through high school, but I didn’t get that far along. So when I was doing my undergrad I finally said “no I’m actually going to commit to this”, and I enrolled in a distance course through Sol Mòr Ostaig. After I’d finished I was thinking about what my senior essay was going to be and I thought, “I want to do something with Gaelic stuff. Wouldn’t it be great if the university were to give me some money so I can go to Nova Scotia and poke around, do some research, and talk to people?”

MAGGIE I’m from Northern Arizona originally. I became fascinated with Scotland and highland culture and thought that I was going to go to Ireland and restore castles. I went to Berkley for my undergrad and enrolled in an Irish course as part of a requirement for a Celtic Studies, and that’s when I thought “okay maybe not castles, but Irish is wonderful!”

And so I kind of went head-first into language revitalization for Irish. My family is Jewish, I don’t have a Celtic connection. But my grandfather was a native Yiddish speaker and he didn’t pass that onto his children so I didn’t grow up with Yiddish. So I do have this, cultural memory of language loss and I don’t want to see that happen with Ireland.

INTERVIEWER In your view, what does language loss actually mean? And what are the consequences for the communities and people that experience it?

ROB I think we all have a tendency to abstract language from other things. This is language loss-but it’s not just language loss. It’s everything else that goes with the loss of a particular language though. The web of meaning, relationships, literature, personal histories.

When I did start learning Gaelic in the early 1990s I spent a lot of time here in Nova Scotia at various times in the year. There were many fewer older native speakers here now than there were at that time, and even at that time compared to 20 years before there was a huge reduction. And it was quite clear to me that it wasn’t just sadness at the death of a language that people were experiencing but everything else that goes along with that—a fundamental, constitutive part of personal identities. 

To me that was quite shocking. It showed me that once language goes how quickly all sorts of things are erased with it. That’s quite an unhealthy thing.

INTERVIEWER Speaking Gaelic outside of the classroom setting and identifying oneself as a Gael both require some emotional buy-in with the culture. In your view, what are the ways that we can foster that emotional connection between the language learner and the wider culture, both in school and in the community?

MAGGIE I feel like the best way to help these languages not to diminish further is just to normalize them. That's why I am working with Irish and Gaelic media for my PHD. Specifically, I’m looking at media produced in the last decade. There are cop shows in Irish, there’s a musical comedy in Irish, it’s amazing. The fact that these things are being well-received and that it’s a thing that is possible gives me a lot of hope. I know a lot of people who are watching a very popular Danish cop show that everyone is obsessed with right now. They’re watching it even thought it’s in Danish. If you can do a show like that in Danish, why can’t you do a show like that in Irish?

ROB Associating the language with local stories, stories that are close to people’s day to day lived experience is important. But as with anything, this way of thinking can become a bit of a trap when it becomes essentialist. When people start saying, “We want to learn our dialect”—well who are “we”? Does “we” include only people who have that genetic link? Certainly the family story was part of the reason why I got interested, but it wasn’t what kept me learning. Almost all of my cousins who have the same story as I do, and they are completely indifferent to the language and culture. Why should they count any more than interested people who love the language and value the culture but who have no genetic tie to it?

For me, I think engaging people in a meaningful way, and a way that is open and inclusive is what healthy communities are all about. When I lived in Brazil nobody cared that I was learning Portuguese, they didn’t care about my personal story, it was enough that I was participating. 

This is how we live our lives. We don’t live our lives by saying “is this person just like us?" "Do they have the same background?” That’s not a sign of a healthy community. Getting to a stage where our communities are healthy, means having a firm sense of self and tradition, but also being open. 

NATHANIEL The first step has to be to start valuing these communities for their own sake. This is another issue I have with the way people talk about language endangerment is that often times the way it gets framed especially for Western Anglophone audiences especially if they’re talking about indigenous languages in places like South America or wherever that a lot of the way it gets talked about is “we need to save these languages because indigenous people\s know a lot about the local bio diversity and imagine how much we can learn from them.” 

We need to start valuing these languages and communities for their own sake because they’re human beings who are inherently valuable and whose cultures and languages and traditions are valuable not because of what they can do for the rest of the world, but because of who they are and what they do for themselves.

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Maggie’s favorite word in Gaelic is Rance : It’s very colloquial, I’ve never heard it used by anyone other than my Irish Professor’s combination of Munster and Connacht Irish. It’s a dance word. As he described it to us, “ it’s a jangly dance word”.

Nathaniel’s favorite word in Gaelic is “tlachd”. I just like the sound of it. It means “comfort”.

Rob’s I’ll give you two: Laochan (little hero), because that’s what I tend to call some of my friends and my 8 year old. And the other one that I used to hear from one of my uncles when he greeted us and it was ghaolain’ (my dear little boy).

Gach deagh dhùrachd!

Last week Pat MacIsaack and I arranged to meet up and talk about how she first came to be interested in learning Gaelic. Pat keeps a busy schedule, but she was kind enough to give me 20 minutes of her lunch break from her job at The People’s Place Public Library in Antigonish where she works as a librarian.

So, how did you first get to be interested in learning Gaelic?

Well, I spent quite a bit of time in Jr. High looking after my grandmother. Sometimes she would have visitors over and they would only speak in Gaelic. Of course I didn’t know what they said. Except for, 

“cuppa tì”.

When did you first take a Gaelic language class?

In 1982 I was studying at StFX and there were Gaelic classes being offered at the town hall with Hector MacNiel. It was very informal. No body would write anything down and it was thoroughly enjoyable. Then after school I went away for a few years. I didn’t try to take Gaelic again until 1987. I signed up for classes with Katrina Parsons, but then there was a death in my family and so I couldn’t attend her class.

So, for a while my only access to Gaelic was through the Gaelic days at St.FX. I would take my kids there and there would be games and stuff like that. I also enrolled my daughter at the Gaelic college when she was in high school. But I wouldn’t be taking classes myself until just a couple of years ago. Mari Parle had moved to Antigonish, and a friend of mine had a son who was taking Gaelic classes with her. It turned out that Mari was also offering evening classes for the parents of her younger students. I didn’t have a child in her class but I said to myself, “I’m going to go to that!” and I dragged my friend with me too. I’ve been taking classes in Antigonish every since, first with Mari and now with Patrick.

Why has this been something that you want to follow through on?

Because it’s part of my heritage, it’s part of my culture, and its part of who I am. Also, when you learn about the reasons why your parents lost the Gaelic and how it wasn’t through choice--that it was taken away from them, then there’s more of an inclination to reclaim it.

How does that feel? The act of reclaiming it?

I’m having a ball! I find that with everyone taking the classes. When we meet each other we’re all enjoying it. And it’s not just the classes. There are gatherings where you get to hear story telling and songs. It’s good neighborly fun. For me there isn’t a sense of work when I learn Gaelic, it’s more of a 

sense of adventure.

That sense of fun and adventure that you have with Gaelic, what’s the goal of the adventure?

My goal is to become relatively fluent. I’d like to be able to use the words that I’ve learned more 

frequently and to speak with people on the street who also have some Gaelic. I also want to attend as many occasions where people who are Gaelic speakers can come together and reinforce each other.

Why do you think that’s important?

When I grew up you never heard anything but English. It’s lovely now in Antigonish because you hear so many other languages. The French have their culture and it’s wonderful to hear them speak French in the library. The same thing happens at the library with people from other countries and cultures. We are hearing other languages and Gaelic has a place just the same as all the others. It’s part of who we are. This is who we are.   

Any last thoughts?

I think that the people who do have more fluency in Gaelic should use it more in public. With each other and with everyone. If someone hands you a book, then you can say “tapadh leibh”. I think if a fluent speaker used the language more in public that would encourage the beginners and learners to do the same. 

Pat (front left) and the brave souls who made it to the Culloden Cairn on a very windy April 16.

The Visit

This week I took a drive up to Aberdeen in Inverness county, Cape Breton to pay a visit to the participants in A’Togail na Gàidhlig / Lifting the Gaelic. 13 Participants moved into the beautifully spacious house overlooking the Bras d'Or Lakes on April 4th, and there they will stay until April 29th. There is a small room off to the side of the kitchen where people are allowed to speak English. Everywhere else is Gaelic. Morning, noon and night. This small room was handy for conducting interviews with organizers Shay MacMullin and Emily MacDonald, and participants Bradley Murphy and Andrea Moore.

You would be wrong to assume that everyone participating in A’Togail na Gàdhlig had prior experience speaking Gaelic. In fact, participants' Gaelic fluency varied a lot. Some had taken Gaelic language classes 2-3-times / week as well as more intensive study at the Gaelic College, while others had as little as 2 or 3 Gaelic classes under their belt. Some even less than that.

Andrea Moore, is one of those participants who started the program as a relative beginner.
“I didn’t have very much Gaelic when I came so I’m pleased that my Gaelic is better than someone else’s now."-- Meaning mine :)

"We’ve had a ceilidh every Wednesday, so this is the third one. During the first one, I was hiding in a corner and I didn’t want to talk to anyone, because I didn’t know how to.  And now It’s nice to be able to invite people in, offer them some tea, have a little chat, and have it not be stressful.”

When I asked Andrea about the things that motivated her to undertake this immersion experience she had this to say:

“Gaelic is my heritage. Before Gaelic I had learned 7 languages. Of all of them that I’ve learned this is the one that’s meant the most.”

That desire to reach within themselves and connect with family roots was echoed by Bradley Murphy. Bradley is a musician who has recently returned to Cape Breton after living in Montreal.

“I always wanted to learn Gaelic because my grandmother spoke it, but she didn’t really pass it onto her kids. She only spoke it to her sisters when no one wanted the kids to know what they were talking about. Unfortunately, that stopped it from being passed on. However, they still lived a Gaelic life. When my grandmother passed away two years ago I felt that I missed something. There was a way of life that I was missing.”

Emily MacDonald, and Shay MacMullin both host/facilitate the event, and we talked about the motivation that makes people  juggle work, school, family and living commitments in order to pursue A’Togail na Gàdhlig.

 “I can’t speak for everyone in the group, but I know for some of the people in the group were born and raised in Cape Breton and they want to stay here. Gaelic is part of their culture and I think for them, getting the language ties a lot of those things together,” said Shay.

However, the Gaelic Immersion experience is not something that should only draw people with Gaelic ancestry. I asked Emily how she would promote this kind of experience to someone with no ancestral connections to the culture. Her response spoke to the benefits of being exposed to different cultures:

“When you learn about a new culture, you are learning more about yourself. It makes you think about who you are and where you came from. How are we similar and how are we different? It helps solidify who we are.”

By this point in the evening the sounds of the ceilidh taking place outside of the English room were becoming harder to ignore. You could hear tunes starting up and the rhythmic stamp of a step dance session starting to build steam. Underneath it all there was the happy sound of people talking and swapping stories. Before we left the English room to join the fun, Shay added one last thing:

“I don’t think I can emphasize enough the commitment that these people are making. We said on day one that we’re going to live like a family and people really are. It’s a really lovely and supportive group. People are really tuned into each other’s needs. We all cook together and clean together. We all contribute together. It’s a rare and beautiful opportunity.”

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Depth Perception

“I’ve had a very intense interest in Language since I was about 15 and it ended up serving me very well.”

Yes, indeed.

Patrick Yancey sat down with me this week. Patrick teaches an adult Gaelic immersion class here in Antigonish every Tuesday. He is not a native Gaelic speaker, but neither is he a native French, Spanish, Dutch or German speaker, and that hasn’t hindered him in his pursuit of speaking any of these languages. In fact, Patrick is currently the President of the association of translators and interpreters of NS and is certified to translate from French, Spanish, Dutch, and German into English. 

“Usually when I move to a new county I like to learn the local language, and I was a bit disappointed when I got here. Gaelic was pretty much gone compared to what it had been 100 years earlier. Then I found the adult language immersion group in town, and I met a professor Katrina Parsons who was nice enough to let me sit in on her classes.”

I asked Patrick about his experience of first learning Gaelic in Nova Scotia and how it has been different from his experience learning languages elsewhere.

“When you’re learning about Gaelic culture here, a lot of the time you’re also learning about things from the 1920s or earlier. There is a sense in which the culture was frozen a bit. That’s also false to say that it was “frozen”, because there’s still new words all the time being coined by natural native speakers and it is evolving, but when you’re learning about Gaelic you’re also learning a lot of old crafts and the old way of passing information along before radio and television. It’s very unfortunate that Gaelic was so artificially interrupted in its development and lost so many of its speakers. It’s unfortunate that this happened, but the side-effect is that it has carried a lot of its past into the future.”

Patrick continued.

“When people learn English, they are learning a completely modernized culture that in many senses has let go of its connection to the past. Whereas with Gaelic, there is certainly a sense in which those things are still around. So a Korean person who is learning English will learn about Pizza and Hollywood movies—typical things that an American, Canadian, British or Australian person might do—but in Gaelic culture you’re going to visit cèilidhs, have a cup of tea, tell a story, someone sings a song or does a dance, and all of these old style gatherings and ways of keeping community together.”

Like me, Patrick also spent time teaching English in South Korea. Unlike me, Patrick actually took the time to learn Korean. Looking back at that time, my one regret is not learning the local language. I learned enough to order food at a restaurant, or to give directions to a taxi driver. I spent most of my time with other Ex-Pats anyway, so when it came to learning a new language the thought that most often popped into my head was: “why bother?”

Patrick had the answer:.“Languages give you another perspective on the world. They have a vast array of ways to describe things, of concepts that do and do not apply [to one’s native language]. If you have two different ways of looking at the world, you can see it much more clearly, the same way that having two eyes gives you depth perception. To a linguist, seeing a language go out of existence is the same as seeing an animal go extinct. We lose a part of the richness of our heritage on earth, and we can’t get it back.”

Depth perception refers to the ability to perceive the world in 3-dimentions. The marginalization of our heritage languages, like Gaelic or Mi'kmaq, deprives us of the cues that we need to see deeper. What gets left for us to look at is an impoverished version of what used to be.

Asking a linguist what he appreciates the most about any language is like asking a historian to rank the event that they most wish they could travel back in time to bear witness to. It’s a long and fascinating conversation and well-beyond the scope of a single blog post. If you’re interested in learning about what makes Gaelic intriguing to the men and women who love language, then I strongly suggest that you take a class and see for yourself. However, if you’re lucky enough to sit down and chat with someone who is as knowledgeable and passionate about Gaelic language and culture as Patrick is, then please ask them to speak a little bit about some of the aspects of that culture which they feel strongly about. Culture is such a multi-faceted subject, and so you can bet that their answer will never be boring:

“You have the folk stories. One symbol I really like is the Lady of the Land. She appears the tale of Niall of the Nine Hostages. A man wants to become king. There is a haggard and hideous old woman who wants the man and his three brothers to give her a kiss. The first three say “no” but the third says “yes” and she turns into a beautiful woman. The lesson is that the king must accept the land as it is, and that a good king will create a good environment and make the land flourish, whereas a bad king will make the land poor. For the Gaels of that time, there was this almost magical belief that if the King was virtuous then that would be reflected in the land. And right now, with the environmental movement and climate change, a lot of people are coming to terms with the fact that this has become our modern struggle. We’re seeing that reflected in Gaelic tales from over 1000 years ago.”

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Patrick’s favorite word in Gaelic is: mac-meanmna / imagination (lit. son of mind/spirit)

Community Adhesive

Having earned his engineering degree, Kenneth MacKenzie was faced with a question that a lot of us have to make after finishing-up four years of university: what now? Or, if you're like me, and you have a degree in English and History, the question might be more like: what have I done? In either case, it's your move, and the "real world" is waiting. Kenneth's move? Return to Mabou.

"Basically my whole graduating class went to Alberta and I decided to move to CB with no job prospects and make a go at it."

I think I've said this before, but if I haven't please let me state clearly that up until recently I have not been engaged with the Gaelic community in Nova Scotia. I took some elective courses in Celtic Studies at StFX,  but my parents never made any kind of fuss about our own heritage. My next move after graduation was to get as far away from my home-town of Antigonish as I could get. If I had to tell people "what I am", I would say that I was "Canadian". It was only after I had been away for over a year that I started to miss Nova Scotia--not Canada, but Nova Scotia. That was when I started identifying more as "Nova Scotian'. But never has my feeling of group belonging gone any deeper than a very surface interpretation of what constitutes a "Nova Scotian." Kenneth's upbringing was quite different. He grew up with a sense of belonging to a group of people whose sustained culture is unique in the Canadian context.

"My parents raised us speaking Gaelic. They were heavily involved with teaching, promotion, culture, and getting things organized. Most of their friends were running in the same circles too."

Kenneth talked about how involvement in the Gaelic culture has been a sticking point for him and other young people who have decided to stay in the province.

"I think our economy in the rural areas are stronger for it [Gaelic culture]. A lot of the younger people who haven't gone away are heavily invested in it. That's interesting from a rural development vantage point. "

It seems to me that what we have here is a kind of community adhesive. What tends to get overlooked in a globalized mainstream culture is respected, valued, and preserved in Gaelic culture--things like: respecting elders, seanchas, and visiting your neighbor instead of watching Netflix. During the past 11 weeks I have been hearing first-hand accounts of how powerful this attraction can be, and Kenneth says that the number of people who want to be apart of it is growing. His explanation is two-fold:

"I think a lot of it relates to the teaching method. In the old days, if you wanted to learn Gaelic you would go to a class. But now there is greater emphasis on immersion learning. You get involved in a group of people who are really supportive and who are going to dances and parties and are learning about old skills, like gardening, or whatever you want to do."  

I just took my first Gaelic language class, and can attest to the fact that this method of immersion learning is much more enjoyable than the kind that I had for Elementary School French Immersion.

"I also think that there's a lot of interest in society in general right now in those old skills and in 
building community. Being more sustainable and independent. Gaelic interests goes straight along with that. Things like the Back to the Land movement, supporting local food, music and businesses, and trying to fix our own economies. I think the interest in Gaelic has been an extension of that."

As the methodology of teaching Gaelic continues to improve in the classroom, and society's growing (and perhaps necessary) interest in the things which Gaelic society has always valued continues to grow, I think it's possible that we will also start to see more and more young people saying, " ’S e Gàidheal a th’unnam", both at home and abroad. 

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Kenneth's favorite word in Gaelic is : Àrainn  / neighborhood

---

History in Higher Definition

Whenever we learn and read about history it becomes easy to forget that the historian we are engaging with has his or her own personal opinions about what is, and what is not, important to learn and read about. Learners should be aware of this, and teachers should account for the parts of history which might have been overlooked. You wouldn’t paint a mural of a Nova Scotian shore-line and leave out all the different shades of blue. Nor would you want to teach history and leave out a whole cultural group. The picture is incomplete, and perspective gets lost.

This week I had the pleasure of talking with Bernard Cameron. As a fan of history, I was excited to talk to someone who is a history teacher, and to ask him about how his deep knowledge of Gaelic culture and history has influenced the way he teaches youngsters about the past.

The story behind how Bernard became a teacher in Cape Breton is beyond the scope of this blog post. Sufficed to say it involved working in Alberta, four years studying at StFX, traversing the ocean and the hillsides of Skye, crossing paths with a billionaire merchant-knight of the realm and founder of Sol Mòr Ostaig, and teaching in the North West Territories before finally returning to his birthplace of Mabou, Cape Breton. Today Bernard teaches Gaelic core classes and social studies to students between grades 4 and 8. I had to ask him: how does his Gaelic perspective influence how he teaches history?

 “It spills over into it. Partially on purpose and partially not. Your points of reference change when you learn something like a new language.”

It’s hard to make students empathise with history. The countless men and women behind historical events are often relegated to statistics. The Gaelic perspective that Bernard brings to his classes adds fresh color to these historical events and brings the picture into sharper focus. For example, Bernard and I talked about how in he teaches students about World War 2 and the D-Day landings.   

“Gaelic language people left here as soldiers and wound up being in France, Holland and Normandy. And unfortunately a lot of those people were unable come home and pass the Gaelic onto their children.”

And Bernard doesn’t just bring that perspective to the classroom. He brought it to Normandy as well.

“A few years ago I got a chance to go on a trip to Normandy with some different teachers. We had a dinner with the local people who had been children when Canadian forces landed on Juno beach. At dinner I remember everyone was sitting at the table and they were all being really quiet. I said, ‘I think they want us to say grace,’ so our trip leader asked me if I would say it. I said ‘I’d be glad to, but I have one favor and it would be to say grace in Gaelic as well.’ So you have to seize your opportunities. It’s not just about pushing Gaelic onto people, it’s about reminding people that a lot of Gaelic soldiers came ashore and into these communities.”

Bernard seizes those opportunities with his students at Bayview Community School every day. That’s high definition history.

 Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Bernard’s favorite word in Gaelic is: teine sionnachain / will-o'-the-wisp

Eureka at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

If you are in Antigonish during Gaelic Awareness Month in May, then be sure to catch the Guest Lecture program at the Antigonish museum where Peter and Carol Anne MacKenzie will be sharing their experience in learning Gaelic here in Nova Scotia and beyond. I sat down with Peter earlier this week. In our conversation Peter expressed the kind of enthusiasm for Gaelic culture which I have heard echoed in everyone who is a part of it—an enthusiasm that comes from a connection with a part of ourselves that is fundamental to our history and identity, but which, for whatever reason, we have been unable to fully engage with.

“I always had a feeling, somewhere deep in me, that there was something about my family that I should know more about.”

Peter’s first opportunity for an in-depth exploration into that feeling came with a community Gaelic class in Antigonish. “My wife was on a cruise with her girlfriends at the time, and I saw an ad in town that asked to ‘come out and learn to speak Gaelic.’ When Carol Anne got home I was so excited to talk to her about it.  My exact words were: ‘I went to the community Gaelic class when you were gone, and I can’t remember ever feeling so immediately positive in knowing that what that guy in front of the class has is something that I want.’” Carol Anne signed up for the classes after that, and the two have been involved ever since.

“Since we became involved with learning the Gaelic we have never met such a group of people who are so approachable. Mairi Parr, Brian MacDonald, Patrick Yancey, Jeffery (Gioridh) MacDonald, and Louis MacKinnon have all gone out of their way to let us know where the opportunities are. They told us about classes in Pictou and Mabou and hooked us up with the Gaelic College where I spent 3 or 4 long weekends. It you show the interest, they circle around you. It’s just a phone call away.

Through a combination of their hard work and dedication to learning Gaelic, and the support of the Gaelic community Peter and Carol Anne spent the month of August studying at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye in 2015.

“That’s where my second eureka moment came,” says Peter. “Sitting over the sound of Sleat, looking toward the Highlands, listening to Gaelic songs playing somewhere in the background and being able to pick out enough of the songs to get the gist—realizing that 3 generations ago my people…that was their language.”

Since their return, both Peter and Carol Anne have continued to study Gaelic, and they hope to be in a position to teach Gaelic classes.

“It is my fervent hope that 3 years from now Carol Anne and I will be in a position to volunteer our time, at no cost, to teach people Gaelic.”

In this blog I have mentioned how Gaelic has never been a huge part of my life. My interest is primarily in the role that culture plays in our development. The more that I speak to people like Peter, the more I realize how little of the culture of my fore-fathers has influenced my life. I am an Ahern, a MacLeod and a Campbell, but my only association with those names comes from the Highland Games and St. Patrick’s Day. For the rest of the time, I am…what? I guess I’m Brendan from Nova Scotia, but what does it mean to be an “Ahern” or a “Campbell”?  

As I spoke with Peter I got to see what it looks like when we discover our deep roots and how sustaining that can be. As Peter said, “Family is important, and I want to get to know all of it. The extended family of all the Gaels.”

Updates on when and where to catch Peter and Carol Anne MacKenzie’s lecture will be posted on our calendar and on Facebook.

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Peter’s favorite Gaelic phrase is: Mo chù boidheach / My beautiful dog

Gaelic Sessions Going Strong

Starting on March 11^th and running to March 14^th the Gaelic College will be hosting its March-Break youth session. Colin MacDonald, director of Gaelic language classes at the college spoke to me about his history with the 78 year-old institution. He attended sessions like the up-coming March session when he was ten years old, and he played in the college pipe-band throughout his teens. He has also worked as tour guide for the Gaelic College museum during the summers. He has a long history with the college, and now Colin is positioned to welcome perhaps more than 100 young students, between the ages of 5 and 18, to Gaelic college where they will be immersed in Gaelic culture for three full days.

 The Gaelic College is an institution that provides expert knowledge and teaching on all these different aspects of Gaelic Culture and the students who go there are eager to soak up as much of that culture as they possibly can. Emma Boutilier was one of those students, and this week I spoke with her about her experience at the Gaelic College. 

 “I remember that I was too excited to be nervous. I had done sleep-away camps before. There were 

some people who had never had that experience before and were feeling a little bit nervous, but the Gaelic College is such a comfortable and friendly atmosphere that they didn’t feel that way for long.”

Now a student of English literature at the University of New Brunswick, Emma Boutilier first attended the Gaelic College summer session when she was fifteen. After that she went back twice more, once for the winter session and once again in the summer of 2010.

 “I really loved it. All my classes were either bag-piping or Gaelic language, and I would get to take one other course every time I went. Having the opportunity to learn new tunes and styles was fantastic. We had really great instructors like Mike Campbell. I learned a lot of new tunes, and styles like piobaireachd and stathspey.”

The students are all given the chance to perform what they have learned in a variety show at the end of the session.

The Gaelic College has not usually been open-year round. It opens its doors to students for weeks at a time, like for the up-coming March Session, and for groups that wish to rent out the facilities. However, as Colin MacDonald explained to me, the Gaelic College will soon be living up to its name. Students at Cape Breton University are now able to enroll in a four-week immersion program. 

This program earns the students six credits toward their CBU degrees, but are also transferrable to any university in Nova Scotia. It may not be long before the Gaelic College starts to offer year-round programming to anyone who wishes to take part in the on-going efforts to preserve and perpetuate Gaelic culture in Nova Scotia. 

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish!

Colin's favorite word in Gaelic is: Cànan / Language

School and Seanchas

Beth Anne MacEachen grew up in Howie Centre and her grandfather and great grand aunt lived together in North Sydney. Her weekly Sunday visits to their home exposed her to a language that she would hear mixed seamlessly with her native English—“tut tut  mo nàir’”.

Roy and Catherine MacEachen shared photo albums with Beth Anne and they told her the stories behind the old pictures. So much history and language preserved in the memory banks of two people who grew up during a time that is really not so distant, but may still feel like a world away. A visit with our elders may open a window to that world, and often we part the curtains completely unaware that the world which we look upon is also looking back at us.

Beth Anne went on to study Gaelic under Hector MacNeil at Cape Breton University.

"He took me under his wing in a pretty significant way" says Beth Anne, who explained how Hector helped her get into an exchange program to further her studies at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye, as well as driving her to the Gaelic College every day where he had helped Beth Anne get a job.

“He’s one of the main reasons, beside my grandfather and great-grand aunt, that I’m doing what I’m doing right now."

Today, Beth Anne teaches Gaelic Language classes at Citadel High School in down-town Halifax. She has 30 students in her Gaelic language class and there are 100 students currently taking Gaelic Studies. Citadel High School opened in 2007. The school has had a Gaelic grant from the Department of Educaiton (DoE) since it's opening, and in 2007 it was used to help fund a Gaelic club that met every day at lunch time. Melissa Shaw, a teacher at Citadel High School, ran the club with a few students. They would bring in educators and other community members to do language and music work-shops. In 2008 Beth had been working in Halifax for less than a year when she received a phone call asking her if she would want to teach Gaelic Language courses at Citadel High School.

“Of course I was definitely up for that!”

It’s fascinating to consider the ways in which culture influences our development. Formal education is one of many environmental pressures that shape who we are and where we are going. It teaches us how to write, how to add and subtract, and how to drive. More difficult to measure are those variables which we are exposed to in more causal settings. The music that our parents played around the house, or the family trips we would take to our grand parents' houses, or to the beach in the summer-time. How are they shaping us, and how will they inform our decisions further down the road? 

What is happening in schools across Nova Scotia is a synthesis of these two models of education. For Beth Anne MacEachen it was her great grand aunt Catherine and her grandfather Roy who opened the window. Now there are over 100 students at Citadel High School who are looking through the window for the first time.  

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish

Beth Anne's favorite word in Gaelic is Seanchas.

The Past Inside our Present

The lessons of history strike such a resonant chord when the figures of the past are our own family members. Once we learn those lessons our lives may take some unexpected turns.

For example: Kate Howley.

Kate Howley—whose maiden name was Beaton—was from Mabou. She did not learn to speak English until she went to school, where her mother-tongue of Gaelic was banned. For Anne Williams, this fact about her great-grandmother, Kate, was enough to start her on the path to learning more about the world that Kate belonged to.

“When I was a teenager, I remember asking my mother a lot of questions about her side of the family. She told me that her grandmother, was a native Gaelic Speaker, but she wasn’t allowed to speak it on school property. So, that really got me interested. I just wondered why Gaelic became this thing that was frowned upon, and I wanted to find out more about Gaelic being spoken today.”

Anne graduated from Dr. John Hugh Gillis Regional high school in Antigonish back in 2008. It was there at school where she first took a class in Gaelic studies. The school did not offer Gaelic Language classes, but her class did teach students a great deal of Gaelic history, and the teacher, Brian MacNeil, would often sprinkle his lessons with Gaelic phrases and words.

“I really enjoyed [the class], and then I discovered that I could study Celtic Studies in university, and it just kind of went on from there.”

It certainly has. During her four years studying Scottish and Irish Gaelic at St.FX Anne received a scholarship to study in Ireland, and after completing her undergrad she hopped across the pond once again to earn her master’s degree in Irish Gaelic from the University of Cambridge.

If Kate Howley could take a stroll through the hallways of today’s high-schools and hear the language of her household being spoken, what would she think? She would probably have a lot of questions about what has changed over the years. After-all, one year after her Great-grand daughter graduated high school, Dr. John Hugh Gillis Regional high school became one of many schools in Nova Scotia to offer Gaelic Language classes. And as for Anne’s achievements, I think it’s safe to say that Kate would be immensely proud. 

Gach deagh dhùrachd / Every good wish

Anne's favorite word in Gaelic is, gealach / moon.