The first Language Village since the onset of the pandemic took place at the Virginia Scottish Games and Festival (VSGF) and it was a great weekend. We thank VSGF for co-sponsoring the Language Village with us and look forward to next year. (Many thanks to Tim Thompson, advanced student and Board of Trustees member, for the photos.)

The Language Village crew invites you to take a peek.

It was an honor to have fiddler and singer Seán Heely lead one of our Gaelic Song sessions.

 

 

 

Scott Morrison, our Head of School,
leads the Gaelic language class (left)
and the Gaelic poetry session (right).

 

 

 

 

Robert Bingham, faculty and Board of Trustees, leads a Gaelc song session for families.

 

 

 

 

One of our advanced students, Máta Dziennik (with his staff), also leads a Gaelic song session for families.

The crowds were great and appreciative. They even came in the rain to our workshops.

Spontaneous happenings! Seán Heely in the music tent for some impromtu harping as Maraji Gwynallen, village Harper and Board of Trustees member, looks on. (left) To the right, kids gather for a game of Shut the Box in Gaelic.

 

Give a listen to the waulking session!

 

And we say farewell to a beautiful site for another year!

The second episode in Sgoil Gàidhlig Bhaile an Taigh Mhóir‘s Facing Our History – The North American Gael series, Culloden, Colonialism, and Capitalism is now available as a podcast. You can listen to the podcast on our website here.

You can also find us streaming on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, TuneIn+Alexa, & Podcast Addict

In this episode, we welcome Dr. Matthew Dziennik, Associate Professor at the U. S. Naval Academy. Dr. Dziennik argues that only by understanding the overlap between colonialism and capitalism, and the importance of economic stratification, can the historical changes seen in Gaelic Scotland be properly understood.  At its heart, this presentation suggests that historical change in Gaelic Scotland cannot be distilled down to simple explanations of cultural suppression. It was, instead, the imposition of market capitalism, with complex interactions between political, social, and economic change, that did the most to transform the Scottish Gàidhealtachd. Colonialism and capitalism were mutually supportive aspects of British policy in Scotland and the wider empire.

Give a listen to this episode and join us for future episodes. Each program will be in the medium of English to reach the widest audience, but will have some Gaelic woven into the program – a taste of Gaelic if you will.

There is an assumption at the foundation of this project: That if we better understand our own Scottish Gaelic history and our own experience of oppression and colonization, the responses of our ancestors to those conditions in their own words, and how that historical experience and the narratives that grew from it have shaped today, we can not only better revitalize our own language and culture but be better allies with those who suffered from the same process.

Tha sinn an dòchas gun tig sibh còmhla rinn air an turas seo.
We hope you will join on this journey.

Thig don Bhaile Chànain aig Geamannan is Fèis Albannach Virginia!
Come to the Language Village at the Virginia Scottish Games & Festival

4 – 5 September
at the Great Meadow in The Plains, Virginia
Check it all out here!

Join us for Scottish Gaelic poetry, song,
games, and language lessons!
Immerse yourself in the beauty of the Gaelic language

LANGUAGE VILLAGE SCHEDULE

Saturday, 4 September 2021
10:00 am – 10:45 am – Gaelic Song session with Seán Heely – Learn a Gaelic song
11:00 am – 11:30 am – Introduction to Gaelic Language
1:00 pm – 1:30 pm – Gaelic Poetry session
4:30 pm – 5:00 pm – Waulking Song Session

Sunday, 5 September 2021
10:00 am – 10:30 am – Gaelic Song session
11:00 am – Noon – Gaelic Children’s Program – Songs and Games
1:00 pm – 1:30 pm -Introduction to the Gaelic Language
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm – Waulking Song Session

Games, music, and displays throughout the day both days!

The Language Village will be an interactive, engaging space where Gàidhlig is being spoken, people are being introduced to the language, and everyone can take part in singing, learning, and other activities. We will run a variety of language activities throughout the festival designed to appeal to children as well as adults, including sessions on Gaelic poetry, Gaelic song, and introductory Gaelic classes, plus a participatory waulking song session, displays, an area for games and other activities, and impromptu poetry, music, and conversation.

Nach tig thu?
Please come! We’d love to see you, learn with you, and celebrate with you there.

A bheil thu air a bhith ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig?
Is urrainn dhuinn cuideachadh.

Have you wanted to learn Gaelic?
We can help.

Registration is Open
for the 2021-22 Academic Year

Thigibh ann cuide ruinn!

A chairidean chóir,

Tha sinn an dòchas gu bheil samhradh àlainn agaibh uile. (We hope you are all having a lovely summer.)

Registration is now open for the 2021 – 2022 academic year. Classes start after Labor Day and run through June 2022. Sgoil Gàidhlig is dedicated to cultivating new Gaelic speakers using methods that honor and perpetuate Gaelic culture and language, and to make your pathway to Gaelic fluency enjoyable.

We have three inspiring teachers, a wide range of programs, and a host of fellow Gaelic learners to support your learning.

If you have wanted to learn Scottish Gaelic it’s a great time to take the step and join this growing Gaelic Learning Community. To get more information on learning with us, click here.

Slàinte mhòr agus a h-uile beannachd dhuibh.
Suas Leis a’ Ghàidhlig!

The first episode in Sgoil Gàidhlig Bhaile an Taigh Mhóir‘s Facing Our History – The North American Gael series, Bury My Heart at Culloden with Michael Newton, Ph.D., Director of the Hidden Glen Folk School of Scottish Highland Heritage, is now available as a podcast. You can listen to the podcast on our website here.

You can also find us currently streaming on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, TuneIn+Alexa, & Podcast Addict. In the next couple of weeks you will be able to access the podcast from Apple Podcasts. Each future episode will be converted into a podcast. Additional podcasts will be available to members of our Patreon site.

Give a listen to this episode and join us for future episodes. Each program will be in the medium of English to reach the widest audience, but will have some Gaelic woven into the program – a taste of Gaelic if you will.

There is an assumption at the foundation of this project: That if we better understand our own Scottish Gaelic history and our own experience of oppression and colonization, the responses of our ancestors to those conditions in their own words, and how that historical experience and the narratives that grew from it have shaped today, we can not only better revitalize our own language and culture but be better allies with those who suffered from the same process.  

Tha sinn an dòchas gun tig sibh còmhla rinn air an turas seo.
We hope you will join on this journey.

Sgoil Gàidhlig Bhaile an Taigh Mhóir 
is excited to announce the launch of
Facing Our History – The North American Gael

Facing Our History – The North American Gael is an online series of conversations, each of which will also be released as a podcast. The next session in this series, Culloden, Colonialism, and Capitalism, will be on Sunday, 11 July and will feature Dr. Matthew Dziennik, Associate Professor at the United States Naval Academy.

We live in a time when large numbers of people are struggling to apply a critical analysis to historical narratives, and take steps to reverse long standing and deeply embedded social injustices. Scholars have stressed that the English colonization of the Scottish Highlands and of Ireland provided a model for the colonization of North America: erosion of language and cultural practices, breaking up of traditional economies, transforming the relationship to land to that of private property, extracting resources from the land, the elimination of political and cultural sovereignty, and the creation of the idea of the dominated as an inferior people. Many of our ancestors arrived in North America as the result of warfare aimed at dominating and exploiting Gaelic lands and culture, victims of colonialism and imperialism, and the social and economic systems that emerged from colonialism. Some chose a path of continued resistance to the colonial enterprise and to the oppression of other peoples. Others chose the road of assimilating to the dominant society, and moved from colonized to colonizer.

Facing Our History is a process of learning and unlearning. Together, we will:

1. grapple with and understand the complex impacts of colonialism and imperialism on the Gaelic homelands, on the Gaelic experience of emigration, dispersal in the North American colonies, and in the societies that grew from those colonial foundations,
2. explore the responses of Scottish Gaelic people to colonization and empire, and
3. identify how we take actions that contribute to a future premised on justice.

The series will feature people doing truly groundbreaking work in this subject. We will review publications and speak with the authors. We will strip back layers of colonial ideology from our history and culture. We will explore aspects of the Gaelic tradition that help us develop an expanded sense of kinship. We will foster exchanges between Indigenous activists, Gaelic activists, Black activists, and others. We will record and disseminate the sessions. And we will be open to any avenues that the exploration takes us down.

If we better understand our own history and our own experience of oppression and colonization, and the responses of our ancestors to those conditions, we can not only better revitalize our own language and culture but be better allies with those who suffered from the same process.

Tha sinn an dòchas gun tig sibh còmhla rinn air an turas seo.
We hope you will join on this journey.