Podcasts of the Stories of Archibald McIlroy
The Auld Meetin'-Hoose Green
The Ulster Scots Broadcast Fund has launched a new audio podcast series - The Auld Meetin'-Hoose Green - which dramatises the joys and hardships of life in a small Ulster Scots community in the late 19th century.
The sixteen episodes are based on a collection of short stories by a Ballyclare writer, Archibald McIlroy, set in a fictionalised version of his home village. He mixed humour and deep affection for his community with keen insights into human nature and the impact of social changes and the Industrial Revolution in mid and late 19th century Ulster. Much of the inspiration for his portraits of village life came from stories he heard from his grandfather, as well as his own childhood memories.
McIlroy's narration is in English but he uses vernacular Ulster Scots for the lively exchanges between his characters.
McIlroy emigrated to Canada but met a tragic end on a visit back to Ireland in 1915. He was a passenger on the ocean liner, Lusitania and died, with more than one thousand others, when it was torpedoed in the Atlantic by a German U-Boat.
The Auld Meetin'-Hoose Green 16-part podcast series, with an introduction and bonus episode about the author, is available on www.buzzsprout.com/2376001 and on all major podcast platforms.
It is a Yamal NI Production and is also available on their podcast page at www.yamal.co.uk/podcasts/.
If you want to read more about the life of Archibald McIlroy the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland has published a booklet ‘Archibald McIlroy (1859-1915) Ulster Scots Storyteller, Businessman and Churchman’ which you can order online from the Society’s website at www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com.