Ballycoan Part 2 – From Small Beginnings, A Decade of Dominance for the Band

Ballycoan were definitely on their way and the 1950s were to see a decade of unprecedented success for them, winning, as they did, the All Ireland Championship band title on no less than seven occasions and the drumming on six. Pictured above, P/M William Wood receives the All Ireland Senior Trophy in 1951. But before we get to that terrific run of success, let us firstly go back a few…

New Book of Music from Inveraray Piper Ross Miller/ Pipe Band Podcast Launched

Inveraray piper Ross Miller: I’m contacting Piping Press with the exciting news that my new tune book ‘The Roke Collection’ is now available to pre-order. The book is available to exclusively through my website until 31st March with the official release date of 30th April. Pre-order supporters will receive their copy prior to the release date. I have also made a video to celebrate one year of my album and the new release featuring…

The Famous Ballycoan, Northern Ireland’s Second Most Successful Pipe Band Ever

Ballycoan is a hamlet near the village of Purdysburn on the southern outskirts of Belfast. Despite its rural setting it supports both a flute band (formed in 1951) and a pipe band both of which are private organisations and, unusually, own their own band halls. Aside from the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band, which was formed just half a dozen miles further up the road outside Carryduff, the Ballycoan Pipe…

Tales from the Archives: Edinburgh Police Pipe Band/ Angus MacPherson at Inverness

From the Edinburgh Evening News 1970: ‘Police Pipe Band March to Success’….Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band have won the European [Pipe Band] Chanpionship. Since their formation about 78 years ago they have scored in the major piping competitions and were World Chanpions in 1897, 1919, 1950, 1954, 1963 and 1964. Their present Pipe Major is Iain McLeod and he deserves much of the credit for the outstanding success in recent…

Ronan’s Pictures Final Instalment: JB Robertson, Robert Meldrum, Donald MacLean, James Center

The final instalment today of enhanced piping pictures all courtesy Ronan Maguire former All Ireland Solo Piping Champion and currently a leading member of St Laurence O’Toole Pipe Band in Dublin. We are extremely grateful to Ronan for supplying the pictures and making them available for download to Piping Press readers. Use our Search facility to view and download earlier images in this series. Today we begin with P/M JB…