Scutching the Past by Randall Stephen Hall

Scutching the Past.

By Randall Stephen Hall.

Link to song . . . https://soundcloud.com/randall-stephen-hall/scuttarish-28-11-14

“SCUTTARISH” is a word that you may not have heard . . . yet.

It’s a form of shorthand I use to describe myself. I’ve settled upon it recently

And not without some thought, for I found that to use the terms “Irish or Scots”,

was not accurate enough. So I just came up with this fusion of words, of Scots and Irish.

In some way it seems so simple . . . Though, I imagine, that most people, those with very set opinions (like dried concrete), would just dismiss the term completely.

I found I couldn’t use the term “Scots Irish” because I’m not an American. Though I have Scots Irish relations in Philadelphia. Relations of mine, with roots in Kilraughts, Ballymoney and Ballyclare, Co. Antrim.

But there has been more to this process than meets the eye. My process/experience has involved “SCUTCHING” my thoughts. Taking a stick to them and beating the living daylights out of them, to clean out the impurities and waste material, the things that would prevent direct thinking. All that stuff which still holds us back here in “the province”, so familiar with the process of scutching in the linen industry. Flax is first pulled, and stooked,  rippled, retted (soaked), broken, scotched (scutched) with a scotching knife, in amongst the fibres, removing and pulling away what remains. Hackling follows (being pulled through nails) before spinning can take place. Followed by weaving and bleaching, for linen is naturally a light tan colour. A colour I really like . . .

To hell with white sugar, white bread and white linen.

You could argue that the period of the troubles, from 1969-1998 and then beyond to now, has been our Great Scutching. Our very fibre and being has gone through a form of torment to cast out these mis-beliefs that got us involved in the conflict in the first place. We have been “Rhetted Out” but not completely. The process continues . . . We cannot be woven like the linen we are until we are spun together. The threads of ourselves wound around each other creating a bond that cannot be broken. A stronger collective thread.

The process is a magical one, a spiritual one and one involving the breaking down of the imagined self. The destruction of tarnished ambitions. For these things, older and some more recent are only imagined and constructed by the ego. So, the “SCUTT” in SCUTTARISH is very much derived from that process, involving a clearing out of the things that would block, impare or damage the potential transformation . . .

I was singing this song “SCUTTARISH” last night in the Sunflower Folk Club 27.11.14. Union Street Belfast, not far from the Belfast Telegraph and the Central Library. Many of the buildings there, (still owned by families and rented out to shops and business’s through the generations) date to a time when the Linen Industry was very important to our economy in Ulster. A very different time indeed. When keeping your head down and fitting in was paramount to survival. When belonging and the need to belong poured men, especially men, into all sorts of organizations like molten metal in a mould. Made them fit into whatever shaped box of necessity they found themselves in, be it job, role, provider, parent, Mother, Father, Child, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Immigrant, Orange man, Hibernian, Mason, Church elder, Priest, Minister, Politician, Teacher, Soldier, Freedom Fighter, Factory Worker, or Para-Military. (I’m sure I’ve left some important grouping out).

All these roles diverted men, (especially men of that time), from considering who they were as “individuals”. (They still do . . .) Combined with a great shortage of the kind of information that enables us to now, look at the past with hindsight, a sense of perspective and a healthy cynicism.

So much of the thinking in the 1880’s was based on the desire for an industrial future

in Ulster, while being happy to forget our folklore, our country customs, varied languages and dialects, our more fluid and mixed cultures and a different sense of “Irish/Scottishness”. Luckily we still speak Hiberno-English here. That’s something we all share up the Shankill and up the Falls. English based on Irish grammar. Something we would rarely think about. It’s just there within us all to this day.

(You’ll have noticed that the term “British” hasn’t appeared in this article as it isn’t that relevant to what I am talking about or the context. That’s for another time as I carry a British passport. (But what’s in a name ? It’s just a name, a label, an abstract thing. It isn’t real . . .) Do any of us see that?

I’ll hopefully focus in on my British-ness in another piece but for the time being this article is just looking at “here”, not London, Manchester or Edinburgh.

And now my wee song . . . “SCUTTARISH” . . .

SCUTTARISH.

By Randall Stephen Hall.

Oh here’s my hand, held out to you.

Oh here’s my hand, I just have two.

Oh here’s my hand

I hold it up.

It catches love, just like a cup.

The red and yellow, I call it buis.

Just like the gorse, come bloom with me.

The red of love, the red of war.

Put it away, and close the door.

Chorus.

Oh SCUTTARISH, that’s what I am.

A mix of many, so many men.

Oh SCUTTARISH, I am your friend.

Oh SCUTTARISH, with my red hands.

The red and white, Saint Patrick’s Cross.

Columba came, he came to us.

He crossed the waves, he crossed the sea.

Oh bring your love, bring it to me.

Chorus.

End.