Category: Reviews

Lochnell Intermediate Piping Championship Comment and Pictures

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This was a very successful day at Lochnell Castle, Argyll. The audience was quite an increase on last year and all were treated to a sumptuous lunch courtesy our host Lord Archie Cochrane. Overall winner with a first in March, Strathspey and Reel and a fourth in Piobaireachd was Ruairidh Brown, Dunblane. He is pictured above on his way to victory as the judges Derek Fraser, John Wilson and Willie…

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Lochnell Intermediate Piping Championship Results

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This prestigious contest for pipers aged under 22 was held on Saturday, October 22nd, at Lochnell Castle, Benderloch, Argyll. The overall champion piper with most points in the Piobaireachd and March, Strathspey & Reel sections was Ruairidh Brown. He is pictured above with overall trophy and the new William McCallum Snr. Trophy for MSR. In addirion he also received the Royal Scottish Pipers’ Society Bronze Medal and £200. The full…

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Nova Scotia Pipers Part 2 and Rory MacNeil, Piper to MacNeil of Barra

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A story collected in Cape Breton by Archibald MacKenzie and published in his ‘History of Christmas Island Parish‘ offers some additional information on the skill, strength and endurance of the little-known piper, Rory MacNeil. This story, collected in an area settled by people from Barra in the first few decades of the 19th century, describes one instance where the bagpipe was played by Rory to sound a distress call:  ‘The…

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Editor’s Notebook: John Ban MacKenzie Gravestone/ Rule Change after 214BB Success/ Lochryan Pipe Band Tutor Search

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Correspondent Duncan Watson has been in touch: ‘It might be of interest to add this to the bit re John Ban. The headstone is in the burial ground at Kinnetas which is up the hill from the village of Strathpeffer. ‘I have taken one or two people to the grave for some kind of inspirational visit. I have taken photographs of the headstone and of the one next to it which…

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Story on John Ban MacKenzie the Athlete and Reaction to Calum Fraser’s Article on Piobaireachd Performance

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Reader Dugald Macleod: This is a story my father Murdoch Macleod (1893 – 1964) had which involved John Ban MacKenzie: One August afternoon in 1822, the whole district of Kilmuir, Skye, was en fête. The occasion was the final reclaiming of thousands of acres of rich agricultural land by the draining to the sea of the expansive sheet of water known as St. Columba’s Loch. Notables from far and near…

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