A 360° video series immersing you in the world of Ulster’s Rhyming Weavers – Ulster-Scots poets who flourished over the 18th & 19th Centuries. This episode, filmed on and around Scrabo Hill in Newtownards, is about George Francis Savage Armstrong, a 19th century writer who loved the North Down and Ards Peninsula area. His mother grew up near Ballyhalbert on the Ards Peninsula and spoke in her authentic Ulster-Scots tongue. It was primarily the memories she shared of this time which inspired George’s interest in the area, its history, people and storytelling. He gathered up many local tales and verses and crafted them into a collection of 92 songs and poems – Ballads of Down, published when he was 56 years old. Enjoy a reading of “MacAnanty, Fairy King Of Scrabo Hill”. The name ‘Scrabo’ means rough or scraggy and at one time there would have been a small community living on the hill with their cattle. According to legend, their king was John MacAnanty. By the time when George was writing, the hill here at Scrabo was being defaced and quarried away for the purposes of modern civilisation. In the poem, you’ll hear the repeated lament ‘Och-a-nee’ which is a sorrowful sound. George pictures the little fairy folk in their red caps, no longer able to dance and enjoy their music as the mechanical diggers and engines destroy their peaceful home. Produced with the support of Northern Ireland Screen’s Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund, the series has been filmed using a 360° camera. You can use your mouse (or a VR headset) to look all around you. For best experience, watch using a desktop, laptop, tablet or VR headset.