11/14/2023 0 Comments North carolina highland games![]() The webmaster can provide contact information about particular pipers or bands upon request. Included is information about North Carolina highland games, festivals and competitions, a listing of Scottish societies and organizations within the state, vendors of piping supplies, and piping and drumming schools that have operated in NC in the last fifty years. While this site focuses on the history of bagpipe bands in North Carolina, I hope it will be of value to anyone with an interest in piping. ![]() It can also share news of emerging bands. A website can continuously add historical information about all North Carolina bands. Pipe bands will continue to form while others fade away so an article written today would only catch the state of piping at one moment in time. Many of these no longer exist and I fear if their histories are not recorded somewhere, the bands may be hard to trace in another generation. My plan for years has been to do a follow up article, describing the numerous bands which have sprung up since 1971. Each of these events continue the legacy between the Scotch-Irish tradition and western North Carolina history.In 1971, an article by Herbert Poole entitled “Piping in the Carolinas” was published in The State magazine describing five bagpipe bands in North and South Carolina. ![]() The second-largest Highland Games event remains the Loch Norman Highland Games that occur at Lake Norman, North Carolina. The Flora MacDonald Highland Games started in 1976 in Red Springs, North Carolina, and several years later, the Waxhaw Scottish Games was founded by Ulster Scots. The Grandfather Mountain Games are not the only Scotch-Irish festivals held in North Carolina. The annual Grandfather Mountain Highland. According to the mission of the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games Inc., one of the most important aspects of the event is “to foster and restore interest in traditional dancing, piping, drumming, athletic achievement, music and Gaelic culture” (Our Mission). Festive bagpipes, astounding athletes and tons of tartans are set to converge next month in western North Carolina. The festival opens with a torch lighting event with games, concerts, and dancing events occurring throughout the second full weekend of July. The games have become a four-day event held at MacRae Meadows at Grandfather Mountain. William Powell claims that the present Grandfather Mountain Highland Games has grown into “the largest “clan gathering” in the world, with well over 100 represented each year” (p. MacDonald wished to recreate the same festival he had witnessed in Scotland so he aligned with Agnes Morton, who had also become acquainted with the Connecticut Highland Games, and they started the first Highland Games at Grandfather Mountain on August 15, 1956. He was greatly impressed by the Braemar Highland Gathering. Several years earlier, MacDonald had visited Scotland in 1954. MacDonald, a decent of the Cape Fear Highland Scots, were responsible for creating the Grandfather Highland Mountain Games in 1956. Yet, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Highland Games emerged once again in the North Carolina mountains.Īgnes Morton, a Linville native, and Donald F. Known as “Scotch Fairs,” these events were outlawed by the North Carolina General Assembly in the 1870s because of concerns over the gambling and drunken festivities that often occurred at the fairs. Some of the first Highland Games emerged in the Cape Fear areas of Ellerbe and Laurel Hill in the sixteenth century. The Highland Games focus on clan gathering where those of a certain Scottish lineage reunite to compete against different families and clans. Some of the games include tossing large objects such as poles, hammers, and wheels as well as dancing, bagpipe playing, and other events. Powell, today’s Highland Games and cultural events “are the offshoot of ancient Celtic tests of strength and fitness, as well as competitive activities that later took place at cattle fairs, or “trysts,” in Scotland” (p. One such tradition is that of the Highland Games.Īccording to historian William S. Numerous Scottish immigrants moved and settled the North Carolina colony and due to the large influx of this cultural group many traditions remain there today. Up until to the nineteenth century, North Carolina was the most prominent area of settlement for Highland Scots.
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