Doon tha Wal Raa: Ulster-Scots Crack fae Ballywalter

Doon tha Wal Raa is a collection of stories, local history snapshots, poems, and letters; all written in Ulster-Scots by William Cromie, a fluent native speaker who also includes valuable observations on the distinctive character of the language itself in the Ards Peninsula.

Wullie Cromie was born in a cottage in Wal Raa (Well Road), Ballywalter, in 1936, and grew up in a world where everybody spoke Ulster-Scots, although to them it was just the way everybody talked. The Ulster-Scots stories recorded in this book were part of the wide repertoire that Wullie used ‘ad lib’ for his story-telling performances when he travelled the country for 30 years entertaining packed halls along with his Greba (Greyabbey) equivalent, Wull Muckleboy (Will McAvoy) – a duo that became local ‘stars’ known as the ‘Twa Wulls’.

In providing these Ulster-Scots yarns as written texts for the express purpose of this publication, Wullie Cromie has demonstated for a wider audience his special talent for capturing the living language, history and culture of the area he called hame.