Ian Adamson

Ian Adamson
Ian Adamson OBE
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Belfast East
In office
25 June 1998 – 26 November 2003
Preceded by New Creation
Succeeded by Michael Copeland
Personal details
Born 1944 (age 66–67)
Political party Ulster Unionist Party

Cllr Ian Adamson OBE (born 1944) is a former Lord Mayor of Belfast. He is a member of the Ulster Unionist Party and is a retired medical doctor.

A serving Councillor on Belfast City Council from 1989 until 2011, Adamson was Lord Mayor in 1996.

He studied at Bangor Grammar School then Queen's University Belfast becoming a registrar in pediatrics at the Royal Victoria Hospital for Sick Children and the Ulster Hospital.

He speaks ten languages, including Scots, Lakota Sioux and Swahili.[1] He is founder Chair of The Ulster-Scots Language Society, and remains a Vice-President. In liaison with Professor Robert Gregg in 1992, he founded the Ulster-Scots (Ullans) Academy.

He is the author of several books on subjects such as folk poetry, history and religion. He is the author of The Cruthin (1974), laying claims to Ulster descent from a pre-Gaelic people in Ireland. He also wrote The Identity of Ulster (1982), and other works dealing with the ethnology of a group of pre-Celtic settlers in Ulster whose mentality is said to pervade the modern province.

He is President of Belfast Civic Trust, founder Chair of The Somme Association, founder Secretary of the Farset Youth and Community Development, Belfast. Dr Adamson is also a former member of the Boards of many other local public sector and voluntary organisations, including The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Ulster Museum, The Titanic Trust, The Eastern Health and Social Services Board, The Ultach Trust and a serving Brother, Venerable Order of Saint John.

Works

  • Cruthin: The Ancient Kindred, (Newtownards: Nosmada 1974) ISBN 0-9503461-0-1
  • Dalaradia, Kingdom of the Cruthin, ISBN 0-948868-26-0
  • Identity of Ulster: The Land, the Language and the People, (Belfast : Pretani 1982, 2nd edn. 1987) ISBN 0-948868-04-X
  • Bangor, Light of the world, (Bangor: Fairview Press 1979) ISBN 0-948868-06-6
  • [ed.,] Sir Samuel Ferguson, Congal ([q. pub.] 1980)
  • The Battle of Moira, (Newtownards: Nosmada 1980)
  • Ulster People: Ancient, Medieval and Modern, (Bangor: Pretani Press 1991) ISBN 0-948868-13-9
  • 1690: William and the Boyne, (1995)

See also David Hume, David McDowell, eds., Cuchulain: The Lost Legend (Belfast 1994).

References

Northern Ireland Assembly
Preceded by
New creation
MLA for Belfast East
1998 - 2003
Succeeded by
Michael Copeland
Political offices
Preceded by
Eric Smyth
Lord Mayor of Belfast
1996 - 97
Succeeded by
Alban Maginness
Preceded by
Christopher Stalford
High Sheriff of Belfast
2011–present
Incumbent