Gaelic lives . . . in South Africa. A school there has adopted a Gaelic motto to help promote harmony among its 1,000 multiracial pupils.
At the appropriately named Glen High in Pretoria, pupils compete in clans rather than houses, the school badge is a thistle from which its magazine also takes its title, and the prefects proudly disport themselves in Macdonald, Campbell, Gordon and Stewart tartan ties.
Headteacher Tony Wilcocks says the school turned to Gaelic for a suitably neutral motto. Bob Shirley, Gaelic expert and visiting lecturer at Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret College, reports: “He wanted a word which would mean respect, honour and esteem and I have advised him that the Gaelic word orram exactly fits the bill.”
The school will be able to add to its vocabulary when Wilcocks brings five pupils to Scotland for two weeks in May.
