Info on hobbies and people I work with

Organisations I do voluntary work for

Gaelic-L A list for people who wish to converse in Irish, Scots or Manx Gaelic. There is an FTP archive for the list including the C source for a program I wrote to tell the time in Scots Gaelic. You can see the program in action here although the time will be in GMT. The source in C is here.
An Comunn Gàidhealach I am currently the secretary of the Edinburgh Branch. Our next function will be in 7-9 March 97 (A Gaelic Learners Weekend) and a local Mod on 12th April 97.
Comann an Luchd-Ionnsachaidh "The voice of Gaelic learners", a charity which helps learners worldwide and publishes a range of materials including a bilingual quarterly magazine, tapes and books. I am an unpaid Director of CLI. CLI is pronounced "CLEE"

Singing

I like singing and sing in Gaelic, Scots and (with Voice House) in many other languages. We've made several recordings. Hear me sing some Gaelic Puirt a beul (music for dancing to) by downloading some of this puirt a beul I learnt from a Sìleas album. You need to download the .wav files, some are about 100K and the long one is about 400K.

Links to favourite organisations

The Adult Learning Project (ALP): ALP has about 200 students enrolled each term learning various aspects of Scots music, song, dance, politics, Gaelic, democracy etc. I go to the singing class and wrote an article on the Gaelic puirt a beul Mór a' Cheannaich for someone in a fiddle class who was learning the tune. I also sometimes go to Scottish stepdancing classes at ALP. Scottish stepdancing is similar to Irish stepdancing and is particularly popular in Nova Scotia.
An Ceathramh.: This is where Craig did the advanced Gaelic course in September 1995. They run courses for beginners and at two intermediate levels too. Mail them at anceathramh@mail.enterprise.net
The Edinburgh Fringe: Part of the world's biggest arts festival and a great place to hear live folk music.
Scots language: I'm a member of the Scots language society and really enjoy singing and reading in Scots. My favourite Scots book is one we were given to read at Dunblane High School and is Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. It is widely regarded as one of the finest pieces of Scottish literature written this century and forms the first part of a trilogy called "A Scots Quair". Funnily, although we were "taught" Scots through English and History courses at Dunblane High, Gaelic was not allowed to be on the curriculum, despite having a noted Gaelic poet as a teacher at the school (Alasdair MacInnes from Glencoe). I later met up with Alasdair on a Gaelic course in Essex. Funny how Gaelic can be taught in Essex but not in Perthshire.

Craig Cockburn
craig@scot.demon.co.uk