Bathgate Games Results

A warm sunny day at this small games west of Edinburgh. Pictured above are Gordon McCready and Graham Drummond winners of the ceol mor and strathspey and reel respectively. Piob 1 Gordon McCready, Battle of the Pass of Crieff 2 Callum Beaumont, Lament for Ronald MacDonald of Morar 3 Jonathan Greenlees, Lament for Donald Duaghal MacKay Judges: A Frater, T Speirs March 1 Matt Wilson 2 William Rowe 3 Gordon McCready 4…

A Look Back at Early 2018 Outdoor Pipe Band Competitions

By Alistair Aitken OBE, former RSPBA Adjudicator and not MacStig! Now that the RSPBA’s 2018 outdoor pipe band competition programme is in full swing I have been asked to give general views about some of the contest venues and observations about results etc., with a historical slant where possible.   The outdoor season started with a bang with five outdoor competitions over the same weekend – Dunbar and Bangor (Northern Ireland)…

Ceol Mor Concert Tickets Available/ AG Judges/ Blair Atholl Gathering

Tickets for the eagerly anticipated concert of ceol mor to be held in Edinburgh this August are now on sale via the Fringe Festival Box Office priced £10. The date is Sunday, August 12, at 7pm. The venue is the newly refurbished, 200-seat St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh. The concert is expected to finish around 9.30pm and there will be a small reception afterwards. Click here to reserve your briefs for what…

PP Ed’s Blog: Glasgow Pic/ Mary MacLeod/ Beattie Collection/ Games News/ NI President’s Charity

My comments on the Lament for Mary MacLeod (see British Championships 2018 – Grade 1 Review) may have baffled some non-piobaireachd players in the pipe band world but you can listen to the whole 12 minute or so tune here (scroll down the page a bit) played by maestro Donald MacPherson and you might get an idea of what I was talking about. To pick and mix ‘tuney’ sections of ceol…

British Pipe Band Championships 2018 – Review of Grade 2

Some say his birls are legend, or maybe just leg end, others that he knows more about crop circles than the band variety….all we know is he’s called MacStig… Cometh the hour, cometh the band, although my spell check almost had ‘comets’… some of these bands are just like that – flashes of brightness and close to the edge. Adjudicators on duty for Grade 2 were Messrs Semple, Worrall, Mordaunt…