Iomain nam Ban – Scots Gaelic Women’s Team | |
29 June 2015 Iomain Cholmcille's newest project - Iomain nam Ban (our women's team) has been announced which organisers hope it will be as successful in promoting the use of Gaelic in shinty as the male equivalent. Special shinty training for women will be held in Lochaber High School, Fort William on Saturday 25 July 2015. The training will be open to speakers and learners of Gaelic from the age of 13 upwards. The training will be run through the medium of Gaelic and it is hoped that it will encourage the use of Gaelic amongst female shinty players. Iomain nam Ban is also being run with the hope that many of those training will be involved in the international Shinty / Hurling for Irish and Scots Gaelic speakers – Iomain Cholmcille. Although Iomain Cholmcille has held youth events as part of its competitions since its founding in 2007, this is the first time that a women’s competition would be involved. Catriona Gibb, who plays for Skye Camanachd, a team with a good number of Gaelic speakers, said, “My friend Kirstie and I were thinking one night about the number of Gaelic speaking women players there were and we saw the success the men were having with Iomain Cholmcille and we thought that it would be great for us to have a team too. You don’t need to be amazingly fluent to be involved just willing to speak Gaelic and have fun.” Eòghan Stewart, co-ordinator of Iomain Cholmcille (Alba) welcomed the new initiative. He said, “Cholmcille have provided us with funding to set up a women’s team and that has been a big help. This project has previously been a big confidence builder for many young men in using their Gaelic and we felt that there was a big gap for this in Gaelic in women’s sport. It is astonishing the effort and initiative that women show with regards to shinty and I’m sure we will see the exact thing when it comes to Gaelic. Iomain Cholmcille is a voluntary group and therefore when Catriona Gibb and Kirstie MacLeod came to us with the idea of a women’s team we were very happy to support it.” Iomain Cholmcille 8 is expected to be held in Donegal in October 2015. Cholmcille is an international body which aims to develop and strengthen links between Gaelic speakers in Ireland and Scotland. Eòghan hopes that the project can continue going from strength to strength for many years to come. Stewart added, “We realise that we need to develop players for a competition such as this so the training is open to players of high school age who might be too young to go to Ireland at this stage but in the future will play a vital role.” Iomain Cholmcille is famed for its social aspect as well and will begin at noon with training finishing at 4pm with a meal provided afterwards for all players. If there is anybody who cannot attend but would like to involved in the project in future please email iomaincholmcille@gmail.com or contact Catriona on 07833452847 or Eòghan on 07815183841. |