ULTACH Board

Chair: Séamus de Napier

Trustees: Ruairí Ó Bléine, Réamonn Ó Ciaráin, Seán Ó Coinn, Risteard Mac Gabhann, Sue McGeown, Robin Glendinning, Barry Kinghan and Orla Nig Ruairí.

ULTACH Staff

Aodán Mac Póilin, Director, Róise Ní Bhaoill, Deputy Director, Gordon McCoy, Development Officer, and Dáithí Mac Cába, Secretary.

Aodán Mac Póilin was born in Belfast and lives in the Shaws Road Irish-speaking community. He graduated from the New University of Ulster with a degree and M.Phil in Irish Studies. He is an ex-teacher and has been Director of ULTACH Trust since 1990.

He has been active in the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages and the Community Relations Council, and was chairman of the first Irish-medium school in Northern Ireland. He is currently on the boards of Cultures of Ireland, the Columba Initiative, Comhairle na Gaelscolaíochta (the Council for Irish-medium Education), the Broadcasting Council for Northern Ireland, Foras na Gaeilge (the cross-border Irish language implementation body), and the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast.

He has written and lectured extensively on various aspects of the Irish language, literature and culture. He has edited Styles of Belonging: the cultural identities of Ulster (1992), Ruined Pages, New Selected Poems of Padraic Fiacc (1994), The Irish Language in Northern Ireland (1997), and was a member of the editorial panel of The Great Book of Gaelic (2002).

Róise Ní Bhaoill was raised in the Donegal Gaeltacht, and began working with the Trust in 1990. She is a graduate of University College Dublin and has just completed an MA in Cultural Management with the University of Ulster. She has served on boards of The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum; the Raidió na Gaeltachta Authority, and was a member of the Culture and Identity Working Group, Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, and two committees of the Community Relations Council. She served as Secretary of both the Northern Ireland and United Kingdom Committees of the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages.

Róise currently serves as a Trustee of Iontaobhas na Gaelscolaíochta, which was set up to fund the development the Irish-medium education sector in NI, and is a board member of the Columba Initiative. She is also a member of the Policy Development Committee of the Community Relations Council, and is on the Advisory Panel of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She co-edited Gaelic-Medium Education Provision: Northern Ireland: the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man (2003), and authored The Irish Language in Education in Northern Ireland (2004). She writes the monthly learners' article Taisce Focal for the internet magazine BEO!.

Gordon McCoy is from Saintfield. He has a degree in Celtic and Social Anthropology and in 1997 he received a doctorate from Queen’s University, Belfast for his thesis on Protestant learners of Irish. He was active in two committees of the Community Relations Council; the Research and Resources Group and the Cultural Diversity Advisory Group. He is a board member of Foras na Gaeilge, the cross-border Irish language implementation body.

He co-edited Aithne na nGael/Gaelic Identites (2000), which compares the Gaelic worlds of Scotland and Ireland. He has written articles for academic journals on aspects of the Irish language movement, and on Protestant learners of the language, and publishes articles aimed at both academic and general audiences on themes related to culture and politics. He has taught many Irish classes and received a certificate in adult education from Queen's University Belfast in 2002. Gordon has been working with the Trust since 1997.