Game of Thrones

George R R Martin is an American author and is best-known for his epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which is said to be inspired by the War of the Roses and Ivanhoe.  The first book in the series, Game of Thrones, was published in 1996 and it is now being made into a pilot television film for HBO Productions.

Work on the pilot film, which stars Sean Bean, is currently underway at the National Trust property at Castleward in county Down.  HBO will evaluate the pilot and then make a decision on whether to proceed with a full ten-part series. 

This morning I visited Castleward, along with Rick Hill and Richard Williams of Northern Ireland Screen, to see the film in production.  It was extremely interesting to be on the set and to see how some of the buildings had been turned into a medieval castle.

Northern Ireland Screen, which is one of my department's arms-length bodies, provided funding to secure the pilot film for Northern Ireland which has the potential to put around £10m into the local economy.  This shows the potential for us to develop our creative industries, including film-making.

The co-producer of the film, Mark Huffam, was born in Northern Ireland and educated at Campbell College.  He has been in the film industry for over 24 years and his credits include Saving Private Ryan and Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Northern Ireland Affairs Committee

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster was in Belfast on  27 October to consider broadcasting in the province.  The committee was chaired in his inimitable style by Sir Patrick Cormack MP and those present included two Ulster MPs, Iris Robinson and David Simpson.

In a session which lasted about two and a half hours they put their questions to Peter Johnston, Northern Ireland controller of the BBC, Michael Wilson, the managing director of UTV, and Stuart Cosgrove, head of nations and regions at Channel 4.

The session was held in the Senate Chamber at Stormont and I was able to get a DVD of the proceedings, which I watched last night.  Many of the key issues for Northern Ireland were addressed, including local television production in Northern Ireland, the cultural balance of local broadcasting and the representation of Northern Ireland on television programmes seen in Great Britain.

David Simpson asked some important questions about the imbalance between the broadcasting of Ulster-Scots language and culture and Irish language and culture.  He also said that someone in the BBC had told him there was an anti-unionist bias in the BBC.  Peter Johnston said the balance of Irish and Ulster-Scots was appropriate and he denied there was an anti-unionist bias.

A visitor from Nova Scotia

Today I met Brian Doherty, who was visiting Northern Ireland in connection with his work with the International Fund for Ireland, on which he represents the government of Canada.  Brian was originally from county Tyrone but set off around the world with his band Barley Bree and settled in Nova Scotia about 25 years ago.  The band eventually broke up but he still performs as one half of the duo Evans & Doherty.  In addition to this he has some business interests and is also president of Music Nova Scotia.  It was useful to hear about the music industry in Canada and the approach of Music Nova Scotia to the development and promotion of the music industry.

During the meeting mention was made of the historic connections between Ulster and Nova Scotia and there are indeed many of them.  Here are just a few.

In 1760 a group of Ulster-Scots from Londonderry in New Hampshire settled in Colchester County, Nova Scotia, and called their new home Londonderry too.  They were joined by a party of Ulstermen who arrived in Halifax from Belfast in 1761, brought over by Colonel Alexander McNutt. The colony grew and prospered and in time they peopled Truro, Onslow and many neighbouring towns.

St Paul's Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was founded in 1749 and is the oldest Protestant church in Canada.  With the arrival of an Ulsterman Charles Inglis as the first Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia and the first colonial bishop in 1787, Saint Paul’s Church in Halifax was made a cathedral.

In St Paul’s churchyard there is a plain slab that commemorates a famous Ulster solider, Major-General Robert Ross (1766-1814) of Rostrevor, who fought in the American War of 1812. This is the soldier commemorated by an obelisk in Rostrevor.

One of the most famous Nova Scotian political families was named Archibald.  The first of the Canadian branch of the family was David Archibald who emigrated from Londonderry and settled in Truro, Nova Scotia, in 1762. He was a Presbyterian elder and the first Member of Parliament for Truro in 1766.

In Halifax County there is an Antrim, which was settled in 1850 by the McMichaels, Kerrs, McMillens, McDowells and Moores, all from Ulster.  They had set out from county Antrim for the United States of America but diverted to Halifax because of the American civil war.

Orangeism in Canada can be traced back to 1799 when a military Orange lodge was operating in the town of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first non-military lodge in Nova Scotia was established in Halifax in 1845 and was called Roden Lodge after the Earl of Roden. By 1872 there were 55 Orange lodges in Nova Scotia.

Much attention is focused on the Ulster influence in America but there was also a powerful Ulster influence in most of the provinces of Canada.

An 'ice-cream poke' in Millisle

The Holywood actress Kiera Chaplin was born in Belfast on 1 July 1982.  She is the daughter of Eugene Chaplin and his last wife Oona O'Neill and a granddaughter of the famous actor and comedian Charlie Chaplin. 

According to an article in Sunday Life (1 November 2009), Kiera Chaplin 'fondly remembers holidays in Millisle and the 'pokie man' who sold her ice creams.'

This reference to the 'pokie man', the man who sold ice-cream pokes or cones, caught my attention.  The word 'poke' is a good Ulster-Scots word and many Ulster children have bought their 'ice-cream poke' from the 'poke man' in the 'poke van'.

I remember as a boy being on holiday in England and going into an ice-cream shop where I asked for a 'poke'.  The man behind the counter looked at me in confusion and it took some time for me to explain what I wanted.  However I did not encounter the same problem when I was on holiday in Scotland, because the word is found in Scots as well as Ulster-Scots.  The word poke can also be used for a small paper bag for sweets or chips.

Keira Chaplin, who has starred in a number of films, as well as the television series Baywatch, has happy memories of an 'ice-cream poke' in Millisle and so do many other Ulsterfolk.

Low use of Irish in Irish courts

According to the Irish Language Commissioner in the Irish Republic, Sean O Cuirreain, some 71 languages were used in Irish courts last year but Irish did not even make the top 10!

The official figures provided by the Courts Service showed that the total bill for translation in more than 70 languages was in the region of 2 million euro but the cost of interpreting in Irish was less than 2,000 euro in 2006 and fell again in 2007 to 1,012 euro.

'These figures speak for themselves,' said Mr O Cuirreain.  'In some cases interpretation is not required where the judge and other participants are fluent in Irish but the percentage of such cases in negligible on an annual basis and in a national context.'

Altogether more than 10,000 requests were made to the Courts Service for interpreters for the 71 different languages but only a handful of these were for Irish.  Polish topped the list, while interpreters for Romanian, Lithuanian, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Latvian, Portuguese, French, Czech and Arabic were also requested.

The Irish Language Commissioner is to start a campaign to advise Irish speakers of their statutory rights and to counteract any perception of 'compulsory English' in legal affairs.  It will be interesting to see what difference this makes to the figures for the use of Irish in the courts in the Republic.

[Irish Times  28 October 2009]

New hockey pitch for Belfast Royal Academy

This afternoon I opened a new synthetic hockey pitch for Belfast Royal Academy at their grounds at Roughfort Road, Mallusk.  The construction of the pitch was co-funded by DCAL through Sport NI who contributed £245,000 towards the project.

Nelson McCausland, Dominic Walsh (Sport NI chair) and two hockey players

The project provides the north Belfast school with the latest facilities accredited by the Federation of International Hockey and is one of many projects, across Northern Ireland, to improve our sports infrastructure.  Our priorities for sport are about places, participation and performance:

1. Places - the provision of better facilities, or places for sport

2. Participation - better facilities will encourage more participation

3. Performance - better facilities will assist our athletes to improve their performance and reach their utmost potential

As a former pupil of the school it was particularly good to open the new facility and I was joined at the opening by the chairman of Sport NI, Dominic Walsh, another former pupil, and headmaster Moore Dickson.

Ulster athlete's double gold for Britain

Ulster-born athlete Wendy Houvenaghel, who comes from Upperlands in county Londonderry, struck gold twice at the weekend in the UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Manchester.  She won gold in the individual pursuit and was also in the winning team in the team pursuit.

Wendy, whose maiden name was McClean and who was educated at Rainey Endowed School in Magherafelt, won a silver medal in the individual pursuit at the Olympic Games in Beijing and she is preparing for the 2012 Olympics in London.  However her ambition of winning a gold medal in the individual event could be thwarted by proposed changes to the Olympic schedule which would remove the individual pursuit altogether.

We will have to wait to see how the situation is sorted out but in the meantime Wendy is clearly the best in the world after winning her World Cup gold.