Piping Press

Tom Anderson, from Paisley, Scotland, was posted to Dublin by his employer in the late 1960s and he was engaged by the St. Patrick’s Donaghmore Pipe Band to become their Pipe Major and tutor. He had been the Pipe Major of the Renfrew, later British Caledonian Airways, Pipe Band. Whilst in Ireland he became All Ireland (1971 and 1978) and Ulster (1980) Solo Piping Champion. For a short time before…

I am a member of a club. It’s been closed by the lockdown. The committee has asked that members pay their subscriptions anyway. The club needs the money to tide it over this difficult period. Otherwise it might go under. I don’t want that to happen. I can afford to contribute. I’ve paid up. The RSPBA have now made the same request to their member bands and they too should…

This year, due to the pandemic, the sound of the Highland bagpipe did not reverberate through the walls of Eden Court Theatre, Inverness. The Northern Meeting competition, which is really the foremost in piping, did not take place as scheduled. And with various newspaper reports telling of the theatre’s financial woes, we are now concerned for next year too. Eden Court has been the home of the ‘Meetings’ for a…

Last week’s story on the sorry demise of the Piping Times prompted quite a response from readers, writes the Editor. One suggested we make an offer for it (20 years ago maybe), and regular correspondent Ken Rogers from Calgary penned: ‘I read the submission regarding the final edition of the Piping Times fading into history. ‘For me, I retained 34 copies of the magazine of which you were the editor, …

In 1951 the SPBA NI Branch came into existence and while the majority of competing bands in Northern Ireland had joined it, St Patrick’s along with most of the bands from the Cookstown, Dungannon and Omagh areas, remained with the Northern Ireland Band Association. In 1951 the band won Grade 4 at the Cookstown Young Farmers Club contest at Loughery Grounds, Cookstown. The band must have joined the SPBA NI…