A Murray on my father's side; a McDonald on my mother's, I'm not exactly a f∅orGhael. Like any Northerner, the familial link with Scotland is there, barely hidden. My grandfather, Paddy Murray, was born in Dunlewey in the Donegal Gaeltacht at the beginning of the last century. He, like many of his generation, was an economic migrant who took the boat across to Scotland and worked the land as a seasonal worker.

According to family lore, my grandfather was pursued by his mother all the way to Larne, she begging him not to go. He went, though, and spent the first World War travelling Scotland and working, a ghost among the native Scots, a man trying to avoid the killing-fields of France.

My grandfather Paddy was no different to many of his generation. Scotland, if not exactly the land of milk and honey, promised work which Donegal never did. Yet other forces were at work. The Donegal writer Seamus Mac Grianna has written of his experiences in Scotland - they did not just bring back money; they also brought back poetry; the poetry of Robbie Burns.

Ironic, then, that those native speakers (monoglot for the greater part) were the last community in Ireland to learn and recite the great man's work as part of their cultural rituals. Even more ironic too when you think of the attempts of some to polarise language in the North - Irish for the Papists; "Ulster"-Scots for the Prods.

Scotland has also wrought changes to my mother's family, the McDonalds. Go far enough back and the McDonalds were in fact McDonnells. The to-ing and fro-ing across the Sea of Moyle washed away one name and replaced it with another. My mother visited Glencoe, scene of an infamous massacre of McDonalds by Campbells, and came back enraged. Until then, we had borne the Campbells no ill.

Learning Irish at secondary school, we were told of fishermen from the Donegal Gaeltacht talking Irish to their Scottish cousins over the radio, Gaeilge and Gαidhlig melting in the air over the cold Atlantic.

Two communities belonging to different states communicating in a common language, older than any flag. What did they speak about? The weather, no doubt, fishing and, perhaps, families.

That familial link of language still holds strong. Leabhar M≥r na Gαidhlig (The Great Book of Gaelic) is a major project, led by Scotland's Proiseact nan Ealan/the Gaelic Arts Agency, which seeks to reforge the link. The £200,000 project began as a simple conversation between the poet Theo Dorgan and Malcolm MacLean, then director of the Gaelic Arts Agency.

Taking the Book of Kells (reputedly begun on the island of Iona) as their model, Leabhar M≥r is a modern attempt to recreate a past glory and, hopefully, sow the seed for future ones.

Fifteen poets from Ireland and 15 from Scotland writing in Irish and Gaidhlig have been commissioned to provide one of their own poems and to nominate another 70 poems for inclusion. The resulting collection will then be illustrated by 100 individual artists. They in turn will be helped by calligraphers to integrate selected lines of poetry into the images. The paper to be used will be hand-made with different surfaces, including light sensitive surfaces, to allow a range of expression through different media.

On Midsummer's Day 2002, exhibitions of 100 individual artworks will open in small galleries in the Western Isles of Scotland and on Irish islands yet to be decided. The art-work will tour for at least two years.

Larger galleries in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast will display the entire Leabhar M≥r. It is also hoped that the exhibition will tour the United States, Canada and Europe. When all is told and done, more than 150 artists, from visual to the written word, will have contributed to what is being billed as "a celebration of contemporary Celtic culture". Among the poets from Ireland are Nuala N∅ Dhomhnaill, Michael Davitt, Biddy Jenkinson, Mβire Mhac an tSaoi and Liam ╙ Muirthile.

The Scottish clan includes Meg Bateman, Catriona Montgomery, Derick S. Thomson and Rody Gorman (who, though Irish by birth, writes in Gαidhlig).

At the tour's completion, the individual works of art will be bound into an actual Great Book and each page will be bound in goatskin (as with the Book of Kells). A presentation case, made of timber from the Wood of Hallaig on the island of Rasaay, birthplace of the poet Sorely MacLean, will be prepared and the Great Book will then go on permanent display. The aim is that it will be "a lasting symbol of creative renewal and a celebration of the Gaelic heritage that continues to link the islands of Britain and Ireland as we enter the new millennium".

In addition, Canongate will publish three versions of the work: a special limited edition featuring full-page, full-colour illustrations of the artwork, and a paperback and hardback copy containing full-colour illustrations, the poems, translations and biographical notes. Every Gaelic-medium school in Scotland and Ireland will be given a copy. An educational programme will include an audio CD, radio programmes, a film documentary and an education pack for schools which explores geography, history, language, arts and culture.

As one of the invited poets, I confess to having spent many a sleepless night fretting over which offerings I should submit. Giving a voice to the silent and indeed anonymous poets from past centuries was, in fact, easy enough. I just chose two poems I liked.

How can any one individual - or indeed any 30 individuals - hope to give voice to their tradition with only 70 poems? If we all plump for what we like best, it should give some flavour, was my rationale.

Selecting my own poem was much more difficult. What to choose - or indeed, should I compose a new one? I've had work anthologised before (though not that often) and freely admit to a great feeling of accomplishment on receiving permission slips. To be granted space in an anthology should be no little matter; you're deemed part of the canon; worthy of attention.

Yet being confronted with a transient school collection is nothing compared to having an invitation to Leabhar M≥r na Gαidhlig drop through the letter box. Flattering? Yes. But, equally, terrifying. A sense that the wee poems are about to be buried alive in this great artistic mausoleum.

Which is exactly what it's not supposed to be. The purpose of the Great Book is imaginative, an attempt to spark an interest in a language (and I'm deliberately using a singular form here) and give it an added impetus. Yet, given that I'm not a native speaker, I had certain reservations as to my suitability to be "a lasting symbol of creative renewal and a celebration of the Gaelic heritage".

I learnt Irish at school in Belfast and in the Donegal Gaeltacht of Ranafast. I continue to learn it from books. I listen to good native speakers on Raidi≤ na Gaeltachta, their speech pouring forth like treacle, and quiver in shame and envy. I don't have the academic's clinical approach to speech and pronounce, too often, slender rs as broad.

I'm a journalist. Intelligibility, clarity, brevity are my guiding principles and, as a result, the language I use, week in, week out, aims at that. It's thin and blunt and avoids unnecessary adjectives and, occasionally, my grammar falls between Standard Irish, dialect and ignorance. I don't know enough Irish to speak for the language. In short, I'm a mule, neither donkey nor horse - caught between two linguistic worlds.

Still, I suppose even mules need to believe they can be race horses once in a while.