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AN CLIATH CLIS |
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August 2003 An Cliath Clis has been fairly busy this past year. Along with the usual milling frolics and workshops, we had an opportunity to take part in the making of DRUM!, a Brookes Diamond Production. Thanks to Mary Jane Lamond and Jacques Gautreau for thinking of An Cliath Clis for the "work" scene. We had a fantastic time and enjoyed immensely participating in something so unusual and interesting. Watch for this TV special to be aired on CBC this fall. September 14, 2002, we sang a few songs at the Middleton Highland Games. Sonny agus Cher sang their now famous "Tha Thu Agam Babe" as well. Trish Bruce is the organizer of this event. The Middleton Highland Games will be held September 13 this year. On November 9, in Granville Ferry in the Annapolis Valley, I conducted a workshop on milling songs and the milling tradition. I had a small turnout, but everyone was enthusiastic about milling the cloth and trying out the choruses I taught in the workshop. On Februrary 13, Betty Lord had a Gaidhlig gathering in New Glasgow. This was something new for Betty and we all agreed it went well, with lots of music, an opportunity to converse in Gaidhlig, good food, and a milling frolic. We heard some new songs, which is always nice. Thanks, Betty, for inviting us. On April 26, a few members of An Cliath Clis headed for the Valley again. There's a number of people in that area who would like to see more Gaidhlig events in the Valley. In this instance, An Cliath Clis had a length of Shetland wool woven for us to waulk. Ken Nye generously wove this wool for us and we jumped at the chance to help with the waulking. By the way, this is the third waulking that we've done.This was a very long piece of cloth. I tried my hand at the weaving for a few minutes. It wasn't easy to get a good rhythm, but I think with practice I could have gotten the hang of it. It was fun to try.The cloth was 47 feet long and 33 1/2 inches wide when we started the waulking. We needed three long tables to hold it all, and there was still some spilling over each end. A couple of hours later, we had 44 feet 8 inches in length, and 29 1/2 inches in width. We didn't want to shrink the cloth anymore than that, as Ken wanted a piece to make some clothing. So, we had 44 feet of freshly milled Shetland wool. What to do with all this?I decided to sell tickets on the cloth, and later on figure out what to do with the money. The draw was held at the Highland Village concert in Iona on August 2. Three hundred and eleven dollars in tickets were sold. Elinor Clark, Jessica's sister won the cloth. I hope she makes a few nice blankets from it. I would like to see them if she does! Thanks so much to all the people who bought and sold tickets for An Cliath Clis. It's greatly appreciated. Throughout May there were the usual Gaidhlig events for Gaelic Awareness Month. I didn't get to the Iona Feis this year, but I heard good things about it. I'm looking forward to learning the new songs that were taught.Throughout the year, there were Gaidhlig classes at CNIB in Halifax. Once these were finished for the year, Neil and Mary Ann Mac Lean kindly offered their house for a few evenings, for anyone that wished to keep the classes going, mainly for Gaidhlig conversation. This was a good idea, and we all thank Neil and Mary Ann for doing this. The Halifax Gaelic society held its concert on May 23. This was a fun event with piping, fiddling, step dancing, a milling frolic, and a stunning amount of food and drink. Mac Fingan (Lewis Mac Kinnon's band) and Patricia Murray were the special guests. Lots of Gaidhlig songs there! By the way, Patricia Murray was the featured artist in Celtic Heritage magazine for the month, and that's well deserved.I also want to mention here, that the Shunpiking staff did an excellent job with the May Gaidhlig supplement, Mac Talla. It's evident they spent a great deal of time and energy putting this edition together, collecting stories and information from Gaidhlig speakers in the area. Check it out! It's free!! The Department of Celtic Studies at St FX held a Gaelic Immersion Weekend on May 30 to June 1. It was well organized and imformative. It's at events like these where I realize how much I have yet to learn about Gaidhlig, and it can be intimidating and frustrating at times. However, I always welcome those opportunities to learn, even if I come home and remember only one or two bits of imformation. This summer I decided to do something a bit different. I held a Gaelic Games Day at my house on June 21. I had hoped for more people, but it turned out to be a perfect number for the Games. It might have been slightly more difficult with more people involved. We began with Millopoly (a play on Monopoly). This game was played like Monopoly, only most of the questions are related to the milling tradition. This game was a lot of fun and some of Calum's trivia questions were pretty tricky. Much thanks to Calum for his craftsmanship in making the Millipoly board.We then moved on to Jeopardy in Gaelic. This was played the same as regular Jeopardy with all answers in gaidhlig in the form of a question. It wasn't always easy to remember to answer in Gaelic, let alone as a question. It could be frustrating when you blurted the answer in English, and then realized you gave the answer away to the other team.The third game was Dealbhonary (Pictionary). This was a hoot to play. Some of the drawings! I should have taken pictures of some of those drawings! In this game a team member picked a card, had to draw the word, and the answer had to be shouted out in Gaelic. It was so much fun to watch. I only wish I could have played the Games myself, but it wouldn't have been very fair since I knew all the answers. An Cliath Clis provided the prizes, some of which were pretty silly (including Neil's hat), and some of which were quite nice.Thanks to Calum, who took time to help with the organizing, coming up with questions, making the Millopoly board, and general support. Thanks also to everyone who brought food. When the Games were over, we had a short milling frolic outside. It was aborted fairly quickly, as the black flies and mosquitos were pretty bad. August 2nd was Highland Village Day in Iona. An Cliath Clis sang three songs. Judith sang a new milling song and this was one we hadn't practiced very much, and we were a little nervous about singing it. It sounded fine and we had quite a few compliments on our performance from people in the audience. I guess they couldn't see the blanket hanging off the ends of the table. The Highland Village had only one table instead of the usual two. The other one was full of earwigs and our blanket was far too long for one table. It was buched up and falling all over the place, which made it rather awkward to mill properly. On September 21 of this year An Cliath Clis will be demonstrating the milling tradition at a Queen Victoria Tea at the Fultz House Museum. Our performance will be from 12 to 2 pm.Well, that's all for now. Our CD is still in the works. The recording is finished and the tracks are in order. All that's left to do now is prepare the liner notes and the general design. Also, look for milling song sound bytes on the web site (one of these days).See you at the table, Mary "taigh-solas" Mac Lean
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