May I Introduce… Me!

27Aug07

I never know if I write too much or too little for these things, but here we go…

My name’s Scott De Buitléir – I’m 21 years old and I live in my hometown of Dublin, Ireland.

Now, unless you’re Irish, it’s very unlikely that you would have ever heard of or seen the surname, De Buitléir, before. [Before I go on, it's pronouced 'deh but-layer'.] It’s the Irish Gaelic equivalent of the English surname, Butler. Both ‘Butler’ and ‘De Buitléir’ derive from the Norman French surname ‘de Bouteiller,’ and it doesn’t take a PhD in Linguistics to see that the Gaelic version has remained more loyal to the original.

I’m currently in my final year in University College Dublin, studying for a BA degree in Irish (also known as ‘Irish Gaelic’) and Welsh. Although my mother tongue is English (or to be more precise, Hiberno-English), I am fluent in Irish and I’m quite passionate about the language. My own opinion is that while English is an excellant language to have to communicate with the rest of the world, the ability to speak Irish is my main way of expressing my nationality – a kind of cultural passport, if you like. In general, however, I have a great interest in languages and linguistics; I also speak French, Danish and Welsh, while I also try my hand at other languages from time to time.

Another passion of mine is writing. I love creative writing, and I currently have 3 literary projects – two novellas in English and a play in Irish – that I intend to finish by the end of the year. I also write for an Irish magazine called Nós* as well as writing poetry, although primarily in Irish. In September ‘08, my poetry was featured in the new collection of Irish-language literature entitled “Blaiseadh Pinn” (meaning ‘a taste of the pen’), brought out by Cois Life Publishing and Scríbhneoirí Úra na Gaeilge, a writer’s group that I’ve been involved with since it was founded in 2007. My poetry blog can be viewed by clicking here.

I’m an openly gay man, and I came out by the time I was 17 (although I started the process at 15!). I started going to a gay youth group based in Dublin called BeLonGTo when I was 16, and it gave me a lot of confidence, especially with other guys. I stopped going to the group when I was able to get into niteclubs at the age of 18 (which is also the legal age for drinking in Ireland), and I used to go out on the Dublin gay scene, but recently I’ve lost interest in it. I’m more likely to spend my free time with my boyfriend or my friends in other places around the city.

Finally, I’ve worked in the media (mainly radio) since I was 15 years old, and I’ve recently started working for the Irish national broadcaster, RTÉ, as a radio presenter (or a ‘radio host’ as North Americans call them). The show that I host is called “The Cosmo,” and is aimed at the LGBT community in Ireland. It’s broadcast every Wednesday evening from 8pm GMT on RTÉ Pulse, one of RTÉ’s new DAB radio stations. The station can be heard online at http://www.rte.ie/digitalradio/pulse, and you can visit the show’s official blog by clicking here.

…so, that’s about all I can think of writing about myself! Hope you enjoy my blog.

Scott x

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