Farewell to Mark Wringe
We’re saying farewell to Mark Wringe, one of our Gaelic lecturers, who is retiring today (Friday 28 August) after nearly 30 years of teaching at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.
Mark started working with us on St Patrick’s Day, 17 March 1997. He had taught at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig before then: a few years on Short Courses, and also a semester in 1995/96, while he was on sabbatical from his role at the University of Galway. He was employed to write and deliver An Cùrsa Comais, a Gaelic immersion course on the College campus in Sleat, working alongside Murdo MacLeod and Dr Iain MacPherson.
An Cùrsa Comais began in the 1998/99 academic year, with a small group learning in one room in Àrainn Ostaig. Mark has been in charge of our BA (Hons) Gaelic Language and Culture since it was accredited among UHI’s initial offering of degree courses, and he also took over as Course Leader of BA (Hons) Gaelic with Development when Dr Gillian Munro became Principal of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.
Mark was also involved in setting up An Cùrsa Inntrigidh, a distance learning course that would offer people the chance to learn Gaelic over the phone through Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, wherever they were in the world. This was the first Gaelic course of its kind when it was launched in 2000 as a standalone Sabhal Mòr Ostaig qualification (it wasn’t created as an SQA-accredited course, as the staff wanted the freedom to teach exactly what they wanted to teach). Students on the course would learn via telephone classes, using CDs to complete listening exercises. The recordings for the CDs were done in a small studio in Breakish, and they would send the CDs and coursework out to students in the post.
An Cùrsa Inntrigidh ended up being such a success that it won a CILT European Award for Languages in 2004. The knowledge gained from An Cùrsa Inntrigidh was a great help when launching our online Short Courses, as well as with the creation of An Cùrsa Adhartais, a distance-learning course at the same level as An Cùrsa Comais. That same experience of running distance-learning courses for many years meant that when the Covid lockdown came in 2020, it was a lot easier for Sabhal Mòr Ostaig staff to deal with the move to online learning, compared with staff at other universities who might not have been as familiar with teaching both face-to-face and online.
The biggest thing Mark has noticed about Sabhal Mòr Ostaig over the years is how much it has grown; not just in its size, but in its status and reputation as well. In Mark’s opinion, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’ principals and leadership are largely to thank for this, by employing the best teaching staff and experts to deliver an exceptional Gaelic education to our students, providing a hugely importance service to the Gaelic world.
As well as his teaching work, Mark’s impact on the Gaelic world can be seen through the work he did with the Ceartas group in the early 1980s, campaigning for recognition and respect for the Gaelic language. There weren’t any Gaelic road signs at that time, and so Mark and others in the group would go out and edit the English signs.
When he first heard about Sir Iain Noble’s plans to build a Gaelic college in the Isle of Skye, Mark couldn’t see how it would even work, let alone last. He didn’t think Sabhal Mòr Ostaig would be successful at all, but looking back on it now, he is “as happy as can be that [he] was completely wrong”!
Mark will be greatly missed, and we would all like to say a huge thank you to him for all his work for Sabhal Mòr Ostaig’s students over the years. Best wishes, Mark, and many thanks for 30 years of service towards Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and the Gaelic language.
