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Hi, guys.

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Today I want to talk to you about ICH,
intangible cultural heritage.

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It's a very unfortunate term.

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Intangible cultural heritage -
what does that mean?

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In French it translates
as "immaterial heritage,"

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but is it immaterial?

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Well, yes, but no.

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I prefer to call it living culture
or dynamic traditions.

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Now, my interest in ICH,
I think came from my childhood.

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I grew up in a bilingual home,
so my mother would speak Irish to me,

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but the rest of the family spoke English,

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so as a child, I was aware
of different cultures and traditions.

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This was no help to me, though, in 1992,

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when I met my future German mother-in-law.

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She didn't speak English,
and I didn't speak German.

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Imagine not being on speaking terms
with your mother-in-law.

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I think most of you
are too young for that,

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but believe you me,

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not being able to speak
to your German mother-in-law

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is an incredibly difficult experience.

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And I soon realized that there is
much more differences between us,

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even though we're near neighbors,
in European terms,

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than simply language.

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Later on, when I went to work in Germany,

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I found even more problems.

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Um, marking time is one issue.

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If I make an appointment
with you at 10:30,

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that is the time I expect you to turn up.

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However, in Germany,

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if you make an appointment
with someone for halb zehn,

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they will actually turn up
an hour earlier.

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We mark time in terms
of time that is gone past;

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they mark time in terms
of time that is to come.

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My German husband and myself
often disagree on colors.

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I come from a land that is often described
as having 40 shades of green,

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and actually, in Irish Gaelic,
we have two words for green:

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we have "glas" and we have "uaine."

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Now, glas is for a chilly morning,
a gray horse, green grass,

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but we would use uaine for a bus.

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Now, you say to me,

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"What's the difference between 
the green bus and the green grass?"

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Well, actually, it's very hard
to translate into English,

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but I suppose the best I could say
is grass grows, therefore grass is glas;

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a bus does not grow,
therefore the bus is uaine.

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So,

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many cultures have many different
languages, expressions, traditions -

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all part of intangible
cultural heritage, or ICH.

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Now, you may have seen
in last week's newspapers

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how it has been discovered
with the new thesaurus

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that there are 421 words
in Scots for snow.

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That actually surprises me a bit.

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If you said to me
it was 421 words for rain,

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I would expect that.

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But apparently, the Scots
beat the Inuit for words for snow.

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The Inuit are supposed to have
50 words for snow,

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but actually that has since
been described as a hoax.

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Okay, so what is the value of that?

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Well, I think the value of that is huge.

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First of all, local languages
reflect the local biodiversity.

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They also create a sense
of belonging and social cohesion,

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but also there's a whole
industry about Scots.

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You can buy Gruffalo in Scots;
you can buy loads of books in Scots.

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You know yourselves,
you can buy tea towels,

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you can buy cups,
you can buy baby T-shirts -

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all expressing the words in Scots.

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So there's a whole economic industry
going on here as well.

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Now, oral traditions and expressions
are just one part of ICH,

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but there are many others.

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Performing arts is another,

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and here I put up a picture

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of what we would call
one of our local folk stars, Gary West.

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Now, Gary West is one of the many people

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that have played in
the Celtic Connection festivals,

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which happens every January in Glasgow.

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Now, the Celtic Connections
festival started in 1994,

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and since then, it has grown
year after year after year,

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and a study in 2007 found

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that for every pound
invested in this festival,

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31 pounds came back,

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so ICH has strong economic potential.

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Performing arts is another example of ICH.

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I don't know how many of you have enjoyed
the Beltane Festival like I did,

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but Beltane is one of the many rituals
and social practices and festivals

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that takes place in Scotland every year.

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Now, rituals, social
practices, and festivals

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are another very important part of ICH.

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And what are they good for?

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They're good for the economy.

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Think of all the tourists
that come to see Beltane.

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They're good for our
mental health and well-being.

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I mean, consider how good
you feel at a fire festival.

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Basically, Beltane is a fire festival.

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They're also good for tourism
and mixing with the locals

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and marking the seasons,
so they create a sense of environment.

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I think one of the most underestimated
contributions Scotland makes to ICH

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is in terms of knowledge and practices
concerning the universe.

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And I just take as an example, John Muir.

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Now, John Muir was born in Dunbar,
but spent a lot of time in America,

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and there he is known
as the "Father of National Parks,"

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because John Muir had a vision for nature,

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a vision that we should all
enjoy our leisure in nature,

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that we should all feel good in nature,

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and that nature should be
available to everybody.

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Well, it's not just about nature
and mental health and well-being;

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it's also about the economy.

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So, we now have a new John Muir Way,

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a 130-mile-long route which is bound
to bring in the nature tourists.

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Traditional skills is also
a very important part of ICH,

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and I would like to
point to just one example.

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In the photograph here,
we have basket-making,

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but the example I would like to point to

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is a special example to me
which is in government,

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and it's called the GalGael Trust.

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And the GalGael Trust
was set up in the '90s

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with a desire to give people
who had been marginalized

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or people who find life challenging,

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a new aim in life.

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They describe it as giving people a chisel
with which to carve out the future.

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And they particularly
focus on boat-building.

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Now, you may say,

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"What's the value
of traditional craftsmanship?"

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But as you know,
in this technological age,

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there is a great desire for people

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to purchase and engage
with traditional crafts.

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That's, of course,
also good for the environment

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because usually people like this
don't exploit local resources,

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but think about what they
can hand on for the next generation.

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Now, if all of that
hasn't convinced you yet

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that ICH is really important,

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I'd like to take a few more examples.

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You may say to me, "Yeah,
that's all old-fashioned stuff.

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It's all for old people;
it's nothing to do with me."

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But actually, it isn't.

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Many of the tradition bearers of ICH
are way ahead of us in technology.

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Consider, for example, the Samis.

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They, in the old days, would,
with their reindeer husbandry,

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would gather the reindeer on sleighs.

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Do they do that now? No.

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They use snow scooters.

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Or here, I have an example
of the Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut,

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a huge enterprise with casinos,
spas, golf courses -

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a huge industry.

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Now, that huge industry is owned
by one of the Native American people,

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who use the income from that
for their tribal reservations.

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So again, the economic dimension
of ICH is extremely important.

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Another example would be
the Amazon Indians who use Google Earth.

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Now, let me tell you how this happened.

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It happened very simply.

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One day, the local chief
went into an internet café.

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He saw Google Earth

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and quickly realized the potential
it would have for his people.

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So he invited Google Earth in,

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and they came,

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and they trained the tribespeople

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to make YouTubes of their elders
recording their stories,

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how to tag their stories,
and put them up on the internet.

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Later on, they came back,

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and they trained these people
how to use mobile phones

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because one of the problems
the Amazon Indians have

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is illegal logging or illegal
deforestation of their lands.

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So now what they do is,
if somebody's up to something,

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they take photographs
and put it up on Google Earth.

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So that is a perfect example

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of traditional wisdom
with modern technology.

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But of course, there's more.

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ICH, intangible cultural heritage,
is all about social inclusion,

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and here I have an example.

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I was with guests last Saturday night,
and they were telling me

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about this festival from Bengali
which celebrates the goddess Durga,

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and it's about gathering clay
from the homes of prostitutes

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to make the icon
of this goddess every year.

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All the activities around this festival

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place a very strong emphasis
on social inclusion.

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Another example I would like to take
is one called Art for India,

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and this was an initiative
which looked at traditional art forms

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and discovered they were dying,

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and they were dying - 
it was a bit of a catch-22 -

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they were dying, there was
no opportunities for artists to perform,

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there was no income coming from it,

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so they generated
a whole new revival of these arts,

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created opportunities for the artists
to showcase their art,

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and created networks.

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So here we've another example
of traditional crafts plus the economy -

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everybody gains.

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Now, if all that doesn't convince you
that ICH is worth being passionate about,

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I would like to turn finally
to the notion of ICH being used

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as a tool of reconciliation
or conflict amelioration.

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We're all familiar with examples
from ISIS recently,

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destroying heritage sites -
tangible heritage - as acts of war.

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Well, ICH can be harnessed
to ameliorate those acts of war.

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Um, here, um -

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another example of intangible heritage
that I should refer to first

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is the Mostar Bridge,

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which was really destroyed

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to destroy the memory
of peoples working together.

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In this case, it was
the Bosnians and the Croats.

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So destroy the tangible heritage,
destroy the memory.

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And of course, ICH is all about memory,

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and lots of wars are about memory
and about the past.

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The problem is that these wars

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are not necessarily
about the facts of the past;

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they are about
the interpretation of the past.

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And very often war is caused

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because different people
interpret the past differently,

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and they're often in conflict
with one another.

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And here's where ICH can come in,

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because ICH can be used to sit down,

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get people to talk about
their understandings of the past,

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and at least -

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even if one doesn't agree
with the other side -

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at least come into dialogue with them.

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A very good example of that
happened in Northern Ireland,

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where they called it
"healing through remembering,"

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and basically they set up
conversation workshops

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for people who had different and
conflicting interpretations of the past

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so that at least they
could come to an understanding

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of what the other side thought.

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And so it was with
great pleasure, actually,

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that I attended Derry / Londonderry

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celebrating its first
UK City of Culture in 2013.

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Hopefully you recognize
the character of Nessie here.

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This was a big pageant
about the character Columba,

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who in the past had divided communities
known as Columba or Colmcille,

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but with the UK City of Culture,

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they sat down,

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reconciled their memories,
told a new story -

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a new story which harnessed ICH,

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or intangible cultural heritage,

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to create a new common
shared heritage for the city

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with a view to economic benefit for all.

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So hopefully by now I've convinced you

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that ICH is something
worth thinking about.

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It's not just about the past;
it's about the future.

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It's about social inclusion.

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It's about the economy.

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It's about caring for our environment.

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It's about me; it's about you;

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it's about future generations.

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Go raibh maith agat.

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(Applause)