The loss of the Closkelt Grade 1 Pipe Band is a great blow to the RSPBANI Branch, the local pipe band community and, judging by the worldwide response to the announcement that they had folded, a wider community as well.
More importantly it is a major blow to the band’s leadership and committee who worked tirelessly to follow their dream to create a Grade 1 band. They achieved this in less than a decade: 2011 – 2019.
The band continued to enter the majority of Grade 1 contests in Northern Ireland often as the only competitor due to no opposition, while they attended most of the RSPBA’s Major championships.
On one weekend in August 2024, they played at the NI Champion of Champions contest in Newcastle, Co. Down, on the Saturday and then travelled to Perth to participate at the European Championships.
Their first two years of Grade 1 status was spent in Covid lockdown, however they made their long awaited debut at that level on Saturday 14th May 2022 when they finished second to Field Marshal Montgomery in the Ards & North Down Championships at Bangor City.
At the start of the 2025 season, they had their first outing at the Mid Ulster Championships when they competed against the newly promoted Ravara, putting on one of their best ever performances to claim the title.
Sadly, they missed a number of local contests in 2025 due to members being unavailable, and I suppose that set the scene for the situation that has now come about.
Grade 1 is the most difficult level to maintain a band in – especially when trying to compete against bands with substantially larger pipe corps.
Closkelt took on the challenge and put on many great performances and, on occasion, rightly or wrongly, felt that they may have been punished for their low numbers. I believe they could have recruited a larger pipe corps but were not prepared to compromise their standards.
The 2026 season is just over six months away and there is no guarantee that other bands won’t fall by the wayside before we hit the grass next May – but hopefully not.
Locally Closkelt’s demise will probably be most keenly felt by Ravara who would have anticipated and benefited from a season of friendly rivalry in 2026.
The Grade 1 Closkelt band may have dissolved however I am pleased to say that the piping tradition started by them some 87 years ago, in 1938, will continue.
Long time band member Robert Hanna paid tribute to the efforts of James Knox and David Chesney for their dedication and determination in putting Closkelt on the map.
He then advised that, having joined the band in 1962, he was still piping with the Closkelt Development Band, formed in 2019.
He was delighted to report that, ‘Our wee band has been enhanced this year by a fresh intake of new recruits and I am pleased to still help with tuition.
‘With the continued backing of our local community, hopefully Closkelt Pipe Band will continue, with the support of their local lodge, to play at events throughout the district.’
Through this band the Closkelt name will live on.
Kilberry Book of Ceòl Meadhonach – Middle Music – digital book
This book was compiled and edited by Captain John Campbell, Kilberry, and his more famous son Archibald.
Published in 1909, the year of Campbell senior’s death, the book is a compendium of old Gaelic airs and song tunes. Not piobaireachd but not the rigid slow march either.
There are 43 tunes each with an historical note and, as one would expect with a Kilberry production, an erudite Introduction viz:
‘The settings are the best that the editors have heard, or in the airs which they have adapted, the best that they could make. Where a song has no second part they have added what they consider an appropriate variation. Otherwise they have only diverged from the air as they have heard it sung when forced to do so by the exigencies of the pipe scale.’
