Liam Logan

Liam Logan is one of Northern Ireland's leading Ulster Scots enthusiasts and commentators who has made a significant contribution to the recent interest in the language as a native speaker, broadcaster, journalist and writer.
Originally a native of Galdanagh, a townland of Dunloy, in the northern part of County Antrim, (the Hame o the Hamely Tongue, a phrase he originally coined for the BBC programme "A Kist o Wurds"), although he has been resident in Bangor, County Down for many years. Liam was educated at St. Joseph's Primary School, Dunloy and St MacNissi's College, Garron Tower. He holds an MBA from the University of Ulster. Employed in the National Health Service since the mid-1970s, Liam worked as Senior Planning Officer for the North and West Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. He was seconded to the [Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure] from 2007 until 2008 to head the Secretariat of the Ulster Scots Academy Implementation Group.
In 2009, Liam retired from public service to concentrate on his language consultancy work with the Language Diversity Project and is involved with a number of film and television projects currently in development. Additionally, Liam has provided voiceovers for websites as well as interactive media located at Ballymena Town Hall Museum, Civic and Arts Centre.

Journalism and broadcasting

A native speaker of Ulster Scots, Logan has written for the News Letter’s monthly Ulster Scots supplement. Since 2003, he has also been a part of Radio Ulster’s flagship Ulster Scots programme A Kist o Wurds both as a contributor and as presenter as well as contributing to other BBC NI programmes. He has been involved in a number of national television projects for the BBC and TG4 about Ulster Scots. In addition, Liam has contributed to the BBC’s World Service and a number of productions on BBC4 Digital.

Voices Project

The Voices Project was designed to capture a snapshot of the many ways people speak across the British Isles in the early 21st century. The core of the project was the recording of 1,000 voices across the UK. Liam Logan was one of the participants in the Ulster Scots section of the project. The Voices recordings have been deposited in the British Library Sound Archive for public access, reference and research, with appropriate Ulster recording kept at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

Language Diversity Project

The Language Diversity Project,[1] established in 2009 and developed in conjunction with Dr. Ian Malcolm runs language diversity workshops all across Northern Ireland.

Logan's comments on Ulster Scots

Liam believes that "Ulster Scots and Irish have a significant role to play in bringing communities together and play a very important part of our shared heritage. Ulster Scots is the link between Irish, Scots Gaelic, Scots and English and he feels that these links should be strengthened and further developed." "There are opportunities for the development of links to tourism and the Ulster Scots diaspora in the many parts of the world where the influence and importance of Ulster Scots is recognised. There is also tremendous scope for developing links to the academic world in Scotland and Ireland, both in linguistic and cultural terms."

Politics

Liam Logan is currently chair of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) North Down Branch and has unsuccessfully contested local council, Northern Ireland Assembly and Parliamentary elections in North Down for the SDLP. He contested the Parliamentary election in 2005, polling 1009 votes (3.1%) but this dropped to 680 votes (2.0%) at the 2010 general election and he did not stand in 2015.

Publications

Logan wrote a column about Ulster Scots for the Belfast Newsletter for a number of years and a collection of these columns ( "A Word of Ulster Scots" ) was published by the Ulster Scots Agency in 2010 (Hardback ISBN 978-0-9562352-9-9 and paperback ISBN 978-0-9562352-8-2).