If one looks at Scotland from a certain perspective, it is completely possible to identify two distinct worlds co-existing under one Alban sky. A close reading of north Britain human history reveals about 1,300 post-Roman years of a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, dynamic melting pot of Gaelic, Pict, Norse, Briton and finally Anglo Saxons and Normans. Rich, diverse, cultural intersection. So long as your village wasn’t burned, but even then … every century has one or two of its own challenges.

Eventually, however, history runs into an 18^th century nation that has been steadily reduced to a bi-cultural, bi-lingual majority/minority society that even today hosts a societal element that prefers to reduce cultural diversity even further. An onlooker can see a Scotland that has been assimilated and strained of its former native cultural richness in such a way as to yield only two distinct products. Gaelic. Not Gaelic.

Sadly, Gaelic is the only non-Anglo culture that heavily influenced Scotland throughout history that actually persists as a vibrant human community in Scotland, natively speaking it’s own language. That is a tremendous achievement. Today’s Gaelic community in Scotland is remarkable for its tenacity in the face of an astoundingly backward opposition to Gaelic language speakers’ rights.

Now, hop across the pond. In the United States we find the Scottish diaspora suffering the same unbalanced and troublesome cultural pattern. Today’s Scottish American heritage tradition developed in the 19^th and 20^th centuries largely without contribution from scholarly Gaelic study and increasingly outside of native Gaelic culture including language.

In the United States, genuine understanding of Gaelic immigrant history and culture simply does not exist as the history is almost entirely yet to be written. What an awful – but real – state of affairs: Scottish Americans do not yet have access to resources necessary to understand and appreciate the reality of our distinct Gaelic heritage and identity. And we have largely lost our language, despite the thousands of Gaels who emigrated here living and speaking Gaelic when they arrived. What we can see of the culture is awesomeness. There is so much more yet to reveal.

In light of the lack of Gaelic influence, it isn’t surprising that it has been effectively argued that the Scottish diaspora is the world’s leading brand ambassador for the classic Scottish image of romanticized Tartanry and military Highlandism. That is not the sin. This is the sin: Contrary Gaelic intrusions into the popular story lines are usually discouraged as being political or, boring, or quaint, or worse yet, absolutely useless and of no interest, as Gaelic is often misunderstood to be a dead end that was properly deposited in the unrecoverable past ages ago.

My Gaelic immigrant ancestor came to America in 1776 from Inverness. He was almost certainly bilingual, speaking at least Scottish Gaelic and English, possibly Scots and likely other languages as well. Many like him came here as Gaels with Gaelic families that were left behind in Scotia. Once in North America, Gaelic immigrants spawned families each of which now number in the multi-hundreds, if not thousands in some cases. Sadly, we descendants have largely been reduced to blandly monolingual Scottish Americans, speaking English only – because that is what Americans are supposed to do.

So how should I approach today’s tartan clad, country dancing, claymore swinging Scottish heritage tradition that is so unlike my own actual Gaelic heritage? Simply stated, the Scottish heritage celebrated today is not a celebration of my culture. In many ways, it is a celebration of the marginalization of my culture.

The trend is this: studies have found that those who have become deeply interested in their real Gaelic heritage simply do not mix, by and large, with the highland games and Burns Supper crowd which is where so many people go to learn about and celebrate a Scottish heritage that is new to them. Two Scotlands; two Diasporas.

Today’s active mainstream Scottish Americans understand and celebrate a snapshot of Scotland. A slice only, and too much of it just simply made up or terribly misinformed but understood to be real and perpetuated. The Scottish American community could easily be moving to change, adapt, innovate and update to integrate new scholarship and to support new research as well as to aggressively support and encourage Gaelic language learners. A strong Gaelic American movement could help that to happen.

The truth is, the mainstream stuff is not selling very well to most Scottish Americans, especially the very savvy younger ones. On the other hand, the Outlander stuff is attractive, not in small part because it portrays Gaelic language and culture in a primary, accurate and unromanticized form. And Jamie Fraser.

The active and interested Scottish American heritage community is aging and by all indications it is not growing. As a leader in that community I used to be quite concerned about the internally acknowledged fact that younger people aren’t buying it as much as they need to. Young folks are staying away from what can often be a rigid unwelcoming sometimes nonsensical Scottish American world in droves. Oh the hand wringing.

The good news is, I no longer care so much about that part of the Scottish American world that is rigid, unwelcoming, and nonsensical, because there is an awesome true Gaelic heritage scurrying about in the wings and ready to explode with new awareness and youthful vitality. This is where Gaels’ work should focus. It is not antithetical to the Scottish clan heritage but it is not satisfied with Anglo-centrism or fantasy.

Today’s Anglo-Scottish tradition may be a valid cultural and heritage expression. It is a tradition of fairly recent birth. It doesn’t celebrate my Scottish heritage; it shuns or is indifferent to Gaelic heritage. Accepting it is like asking someone of Lakota Sioux ancestry to be satisfied describing themselves as an “early American”. It simply is not in my DNA.

For today’s Gael, congeniality with the dominant Scottish tradition is one thing; celebration of it is yet another. Everyone is free to choose. But continuing to allow today’s form of Scottish heritage to overshadow and prevent further understanding of Gaelic heritage is a third thing altogether and comes with very negative consequences for Scottish cultural celebration. The solution is more focus and initiative on Gaelic culture and language – Gaelic heritage.

Here is what is in my DNA: Gaelic history and heritage. Despite it being overshadowed and largely forgotten for so long, Gaelic culture in America is not gone. Further, the historical and cultural resources necessary to recover and reclaim Gaelic American history, culture and language are available and bursting with new information – much of it written in Gaelic. We can do this.

It is critical to understand that for my family and many others, the loss of Gaelic culture happened on our side of the Atlantic. People came to British North America and then the United States as Gaels but the culture failed to make it past the first two or three generations here. It is completely appropriate that I be interested in – not to mention a bit disturbed by – the loss of our family’s Gaelic culture particularly because it happened here, and not so very long ago.

Now as much as ever, Americans who have Gaelic ancestry should be delighted to understand themselves as Gaelic Americans. We should see and hear that term more and more often. In addition to or exclusive of Scottish American identity. And it’s not a bad idea for me and other Gaelic-Americans to spend time and interest in reconnecting with our Gaelic past. And supporting Gaelic language and culture revitalization initiatives that will help us give those young cousins who come after us a better understanding of their Gaelic heritage and identity.

Get Your Gaelic On!

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I don’t think there is anywhere on earth that can compete with it, it’s a magical place.

Walking in the Rain near Tyndrum

Last week we packed up our camper van and began our journey North-West. We decided to take a two day rest stop on the way by Tyndrum. This scattering of houses on the road north is a popular stop; the West Highland Way has it’s halfway point here and the famous Green Welly stop has become an institution for those travelling along this way. We drove through blazing sunshine all the way and within minutes of arriving the skies darkened over and rain began to fall… typical!

Never mind though, the Real Food Cafe in Tyndrum which serves the best fish and chips in the highlands was a short walk from our camping spot and we spent our free day taking a walk up through the woods to explore the path to Ben Lui.

With the van batteries charged and ready to cope with a few days of rough camping we set off for Arisaig. The journey to this remote part of the North-West highlands is like a history lesson in tarmac. From Tyndrum the road climbs up towards Rannoch Moor and then into Glencoe. Several miles of twisting road opens out at Fort William, a sprawling highland town that was once part of the government’s ‘quieting’ of the highlands but is now an economic and tourist hub for the area. Breaking away from the main route to Inverness you venture into a Jacobite story book; The Glenfinnan monument where Charles Edward Stuart raised the standard and lit the blue touch paper of the rebellion of 1745 and just a few miles further on Loch Nan Uamh where the Jacobite adventure both began and ended on mainland Scotland.

A Picnic Spot at Loch Eilt

On the way we found a quiet lay by to stop for a short picnic. Loch Eilt is a beautiful location and one that might be familiar with Harry Potter fans. A small island in the loch featured as the site of Dumbledore’s grave. There are even more obvious links to the boy wizard on this route too of course, the Glenfinnan viaduct made famous in the second movie and you are almost guaranteed to spot the steam train that takes tourists from Fort William to Mallaig at some point – the train that doubled for the Hogwarts Express.

By the afternoon we had left the main road and we were bumping up and down over the twisting beach road to the site of Arisaig Games.

The Beaches by Arisaig

As locations go Arisaig has one of the best for a highland games you could imagine. From the back of the field you can look over stunning beaches to the Cuillins of Skye and the island of Eigg. This is a useful feature; when the island of Eigg disappears as it often does its time to find shelter!

With every campsite in the area full (and there are many of them) we were fortunate to be allowed to camp on the corner of the games area. ScotClans would be running a stand at the games a few days later. For now though we had a very interesting engagement to attend, the Clanranald barbecue.

On the map Castle Tioram looks like a short hop, even faster by boat but a twisting route along single track roads. Our ageing camper van struggled valiantly over the difficult terrain and after a bone shaking last few miles we arrived at the castle, well not quite the castle but the mainland across from it. Tioram sits on a tidal island and is cut off for a few hours at high tide, unfortunately the tide was coming in so ourselves and many guests had to take off socks and shoes to wade across to the island. in time several boats arrived with more guests and others were ferried over as the gathering began.

Guests Arrive by Boat

In my time I’ve met a lot of clans folk from the highlands and the lowlands, I’ve passed the time of day with many a clan chief but the Clanranald MacDonalds are from a mould that was broken a long time ago. They are welcoming, gracious but absolutely bonkers! Refreshing, hedonistic and above all great fun to be around.

under the presence of the magnificent castle a marquee had been erected. with the sun starting to go down I was keen to explore around the castle and was rewarded with some great shots in the fading light. Tioram is a fantastic ruin but still well preserved in its structural integrity, so much so that restoring the castle would not be impossible or prohibitively expensive. Imagine being the first to spend a night there in a wind and watertight dwelling in nearly 300 years!

Castle Tioram

The night soon fell and the tide once again revealed the sandy causeway back to the mainland and guests began to drift away, Fortunately for us our home for the night was just a short walk as we made use of the fact we had brought the camper van and spent the night in the small car park. While helping to clear up and taking back the camping chairs we had loaned for the night Amanda and I had discovered a large unsmoked cigar tucked in the cup holder. With the kids safely tucked in we stole an hour sharing a cigar and watching the last of the light fade behind the castle. We felt like a couple of naughty kids!

The next day we took a stroll along the beach and helped take down the marquee on the island before retracing our bone shaking journey back to Arisaig. There was more work to do here with another marquee to erect but in no time all was nearly ready for the games.

Arisaig Games

The wonderful thing about small highland games is the way they involve the community, everyone and his dog lends a hand and things may look chaotic but this is very deceptive. There is a method in the madness and in no time everything comes together. ScotClans had been asked here to take part in a new venture for these games, to provide an area that was more focussed on ancestry and heritage. With our experience of Grandfather Mountain Games we decided to replicate much of what COSCA does there and provide assistance tracing peoples clan roots. We also set up a small stall of clan merchandise in the hope that a few sales would at least cover our fuel costs.

The ScotClans Stand, Somewhere in There

The few hours we had there were well spent and the stand was busy right up to the end of the day. We had erected a large world map and invited visitors to place a sticker where they had come from. by the and of the day our map had stickers from Canada to Samoa and many interesting and unusual places in between. It was incredible to imagine how people from so many far flung lands had all descended on this little field beside a beach in the highlands of Scotland and for us it was a symbol of just how far our great Scottish Diaspora have travelled from these shores.

Hopefully our experiment worked and in a few months time we will be replicating this at Cowal Gathering at Dunoon. Our next stop though will be Killin games in a few day time as guests of Clan MacNab.

If you happen to be in that part of Perthshire please drop in and say hello.

To see more photos from our trip please visit our Flikr Gallery

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Scotland’s original strongman, Donald Dinnie (1837–1916).

Organisers of the Aboyne Highland Games have issued a plea for help tracking down an elusive Highland Games competitor. The strongman is one of the only known people in the world to complete a historic Highland Games event, described by some as the ‘holy grail’ of weightlifting.

Slovakian muscleman Peter Puszer, a competitive weightlifter who also holds the title of the strongest man in Slovakia, was last known to be working in an Aberdeen hotel kitchen. The 5ft 7ins, 300lbs champion is one of the only people in the world to have successfully completed the Dinnie Stones challenge at last years Scottish Stones of Strength World Challenge. Organisers of the games have since been unable to track him down.

The Dinnie Stones, or Stanes, are named after Donald Dinnie, who is said to be one of the world’s greatest strongmen with 20 Highland Games championships to his name. He was a founding member of the Aboyne Games in 1867 and is famed for carrying the stones more than four metres over Potarch Bridge near Aboyne. Dinnie has been recognised as the 19th century’s greatest athlete with a career spanning over 50 years.

Games chairman Ian Scott said: “We know that Peter Puszer has been successful in carrying the stones unassisted in the past and we would like to invite him to do the same again at the Aboyne Highland Games this year to see if he is still up to the challenge.

“We know that he used to work in a kitchen at an Aberdeen hotel, so someone must know where he is now.

“I would like to urge anyone with information about his whereabouts to please get in touch so that we can extend to him the invitation.”

Anyone who can help trace Mr Puszer is asked to get in touch with organisers via the Aboyne Highland Games Facebook page.

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This year the competitors had to toss a much heavier 18ft long pole, taken from a spruce tree felled in a Perthshire wood. The object of the caber toss is to flip the pole so that it lands directly opposite the competitor at a ’12 o’clock’ position and not, as is widely believed, simply to throw it the longest distance.

Heavy Events organiser Raymond McIntosh said the old pole presented no challenge. “The local guys from Highland Perthshire found it too easy because their standard has improved dramatically in the last ten years. Pretty much all of them tossed it last year and you don’t want that.”

President of the Highland Games  Association Jim Brown said that while the weight of a caber is important, the length is the essential thing to sort out real caber tossers. “Really strong men who are not caber tossers prefer shorter, heavy cabers because it’s only them who can lift them. But the real caber tossers have tremendous style and speed and get a tremendous lift on the caber. It’s really is an art which is not always amongst the strong men.”

Mr Brown continued: “Cabers also dry out over the years if they are not looked after and lose their weight. A lot of games organisers put their cabers into a burn before the games to soak up the water and make them heavier.

“And a lot of cabers now are redundant telephone poles because they are treated and won’t dry out. A good larch pole is what you require because it’s a hard timber and will remain a caber for a lot more years than spruce which is a softer timber.”

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Repeated swearing is set to be outlawed during events such as the Tug O’ War

The Scottish Highland Games Association has for the first time published a universal Code of Conduct to be used by competitors and judges. The 15-page document aims to impose identical rules at more than 60 Highland games across Scotland, endeavouring to do away with an alternative form of events and disciplines.

One rule strictly forbids the removal of kilts during competition and states tug o’ war participants may swear only twice before being disqualified.

The guide also states: “The practice of throwing a light caber for distance is not tossing the caber. It should be discontinued.” Over centuries the discipline, which began as a way for clan chieftains to test their warriors, has evolved, with different Highland games issuing their own codes of conduct.

The code also enforces rules that participants must dress traditionally and preserve modesty, stating: “All competitors must appear and compete while wearing a kilt. No competitor will be permitted to dress or undress in the Games arena.”

Cyclists must “present a neat and tidy appearance”, while wrestlers “shall take hold where they please, subject to the following restrictions – the hair, flesh, ears, private parts or clothes”.

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The Cowal Highland Gathering

The Cowal Highland Gathering is one of the largest and most renowned Highland Games in the world, it has been running for over 100 years. It now attracts crowds of over 20,000 people. But now the future of these famous games hangs in the balance.

It has been stripped of it’s major pipe band status due to a lack of proper infrastructure.

Organisers of the event have decided to withdraw the Argyllshire event’s elite status with the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association (RSPBA) – which will see the number of bands performing at the event drop from around 130 to just 60. This will take effect after this year’s event, the last as one of the world’s leading piping competitions. Organisers say they were forced to make this decision by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association, who said that the event had “outgrown” the facilities at the event arena in Dunoon.

Gathering chairman Ronnie Cairns said: “The pipe band events have outgrown the venue we have and we have been told by the RSPBA that if Cowal was bidding for a major event for the first time today that we simply wouldn’t get it.

“We recognise that the increasing competitiveness of the event and numbers of bands attending were putting a strain on the space and resources we had available and that this was leading to unhappiness amongst some of the bands.

“It was a fait accompli – we were either turfed out or we worked with them. The RSPBA has made a commitment not to have another competition over the last weekend in August.

“It is a concern – we don’t know the number of bands we will get at the replacement competition, but we are looking at ways of encouraging bands to take part.”

Ian Embelton, chief executive of the RSPBA, said: “The decision was taken with the RSPBA branch members’ full support and the Association is committed to working with Cowal Highland Gathering Committee to ensure the continued success of this historic event which will still be held on the last Saturday in August.”

Local MSP Mike Russell is looking into why this has happened and is looking to the event oragnisers for answers saying the “international standing” of the event would be diminished and the tourism industry damaged by this surprise move.

Argyll and Bute Council said the downgrading of the event – worth £3.7 million to the economy in recent years – was “extremely bad news.”

In the official statement which announced the downgrading of the event on the RSPBA website said the changes were aimed at making the Gathering a more fun event for pipers. for full

See http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/music/news-and-features/cowal-highland-gathering-future-in-doubt-1-2754439 for full story

RSPBA Website: http://www.rspba.org/

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Map Key

A map pinpointing many of the Highland Games and Scottish events taking place this year across Scotland and North America.

If anyone out there thinks I’ve missed some, please feel free to let us know!

The post Map of 2012 Highland Games and Scottish Events – Updated for North America! appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.

There were a lot of events, ranging from the usual dancing, heavy events, and clan parade to a hill race from the games field to the top of a hill at the mouth of Glen Ogle and back. The winner of the race managed to finish in just 27 minutes and 5 seconds; a new record. It was impressive to see someone run up and down such a steep hill so quickly. I walked the same route earlier in the day to take some pictures and it almost killed me.

There was an excellent turnout from both Clan MacLaren and Clan MacGregor at the event, with clan members from all over the world present. Both had tents with stories and pieces of information about the clan outside them.

It was a great day for everyone, and hopefully we’ll be back next year.

Here are some pictures from the games – just click on the image to see a bigger version.

Loch Earn and the games

A piper competing

Front of the MacLarens in parade

MacGregor flag in parade

The Clan MacGregor tent

Clan MacLaren badge outside their tent

The games from above

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We’ve updated our Scottish Clan Events Map 2011 to now include Highland Games and events that are

happening across the USA and Canada.

If there any events that you know of that we’ve missed, feel free to leave us a comment with details,

and we’ll get it up on the map.

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Key to Events Map

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