John Hewitt was an inspirational champion of the written and spoken word of his native province. His work as poet, critic and book collector delighted in the textures of local speech and was instrumental in the rediscovery of numerous poets whose bardship had fallen into sad neglect.
His visionary enthusiasm for the forgotten generations of ‘rhyming weavers’ rekindled public interest in the Ulster-Scots poetic and linguistic tradition and awakened hope in the power of our indigenous languages, once better appreciated, to heal differences and integrate communities.
This exhibition, created by the Ulster University and the Ulster-Scots Agency, will celebrate the creative verve and humanity of these poets, whose ancestral voices inspired and guided Hewitt, and whose townlands today still earn their name in song.
All the Hewitt images are under copyright and displayed with permission of the John Hewitt Estate