The mother of Eilidh MacLeod has told how her world was torn apart by the Manchester Arena terrorist attack. Marion MacLeod told the public inquiry into the terror attack that she had arrived outside the venue to collect her 14-year-old daughter and her friend who had been to the Ariana […]
Bagpipe Brothers by Kerry Sheridan was published in paperback in 2006. It’s taken three attempts for me to finish it. There are two reasons for this: 1) given its subject matter – the four pipe band members, all firemen, who played at the funeral of every colleague who perished in […]
• Where are you from and how did you get into piping?Johannesburg, South Africa. I started learning the bagpipes when I was 12 years old. Rory Bellingan tutored me. I started playing because the secondary school that I chose to attend (Jeppe High School for Boys) had a band and […]
Three miles east of the town of Nairn lies the small village of Auldearn, the scene of a bloody struggle on the May 9, 1645 when Royalist forces under James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose fought with those of the Solemn League and Covenant (Covenanters) led by Sir John Hurry […]
1953-1954 By Jeannie Campbell MBE At the beginning of 1953, in an effort to extend the season, hoteliers in Oban asked the council to hold the Argyllshire Gathering a week later. However, the stewards of the Gathering decided against altering their arrangements.Competitors for the Open Piobaireachd in 1953 were required […]
Vickie Gray from Nova Scotia is a student of Margaret Dunn at the National Piping Centre (NPC). Last year, feeling ready to compete for the first time, the pottery maker who lives near the town of Lunenburg in the province’s south-west, joined the NPC’s Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers […]
Jeannie Campbell’s long-anticipated history of pipe bands has now been published. The book, Pipe Bands, which took the leading piping historian five years to compile, is now on sale, priced £30 (plus shipping). At 854 pages, the book is big. Included are chapters on the first civilian bands, juvenile bands, […]
The Pipers and Pipe Band Society of Ontario has announced that the George Sherriff Memorial Amateur Invitational Solo Piping Competition will be held in November. It will be held online. The contest did not take place in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This will be the 25th year of […]
Tullylagan (Gaelic: Tulaigh Lagáin) is a small townland1 located near Cookstown in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. In 1923, two years after the formation of Northern Ireland, a group of men from the local Ulster Special Constabulary formed the band. The founding members donated a small amount of their wages to […]
Enthusiasts of Scotland’s other piping tradition – the bellows-blown Lowland one – will gather in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels on October 30. The 2021 annual conference (the ‘collogue’) of the Lowland & Border Pipers’ Society (LBPS) will go ahead in person and will feature three guest speakers: James […]
