A Heirskip Loast

Charlie Reynolds (Chairlie "Tha Poocher" Rannals) is not only a confident native speaker of the North Antrim variety of Ulster-Scots, but he has been an active researcher, writer and supporter of the Language Movement since the early 1990s, if not before. His first collection of Ulster-Scots poetry was published by the Ulster-Scots Language Society 20 years ago - as the second volume in the "Ulster-Scots Living Writers" series - Mae Granfeyther's Tunge, (Ullans Press, 2002). This new, extended volume contains additional poems and prose pieces. "A HEIRSKIP LOAST: Ulster-Scots Rhymes frae North Antrim": Charlie Reynolds' second collection of Ulster-Scots Rhymes reveals his enduring passion for the language, traditions, history and culture of the grass-roots Ulster-Scots community in his 'hame' country between Benvarden and Armoy in North Antrim. As he reflects with dismay on the increasingly rapid erosion of the language and 'heirskip' (heritage) that was the norm in his grandparents' generation, he turns nostalgia into a celebratory record of Ulster-Scots as a 'leevin language' as well as a 'hamely tongue'