Without question the most important event in the week leading up to the World Pipe Band Championships is the major pipe band contest staged each year on the Wednesday by Glasgow Skye Association Pipe Band. The concert, now held in Glasgow’s prestigious Royal Concert Hall, has showcased the biggest names in bands and invariably attracts a sell out crowd of 2,000+. The hall provides a spectacular backdrop for the bands…
Grateful to piping historian Keith Sanger for forwarding this letter from the Blair Castle archives. It is dated 1830 and is by Perthshire piper John McGregor. It mentions his (McGregor’s) winning the prize pipe and Angus MacKay (pictured above) coming second. MacKay is intimated as piper to the Duke of Gordon which is news to me. I understood that before royal service with Queen Victoria he was with the Laird…
Lurgan Park, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, once again came alive with the music of pipe bands when the prestigious All-Ireland Pipe Band Championships were held in the picturesque park for the first time on Saturday 1st July, write John Kelly and Andrew Cromie. The championships rotate each year between a venue in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It isnow in its 72nd year. It is one of the…
An important, good quality video of a recital given by the late Donald MacPherson has been saved from the waste bin thanks to the inquisitiveness and diligence of an Irish piper. The recital was given by Donald in the Crookhaven Hotel in County Cork in 1990. Introduced by local stalwart Noel O’Mahony, Donald gives a brilliant demonstration of ceol beag and ceol mor. His mastery of the instrument and its…
Saturday sees this important pipe band competition being held at Lurgan, Northern Ireland. Here our correspondent in the Province, John Kelly (left), RSPBANI Honorary Vice-President, takes a look back at the championship. John acknowledges that much of what is below has been compiled largely from an article by the late Fred Walker, former President of the Northern Ireland Branch of the RSPBA. The picture above is of the Field Marshal…
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