Drum Heritage parade
This is just a snippet of a bit of Irish life: a charity walk from the centre of Athlone town to Drum (a small village in the environs) happened this past weekend.
What is interesting about this is the presence of one of Athlone’s bagpipers. The Athlone army brigade has a regiment of bagpipers that often make an appearance as a group or singly at parades, events (like weddings . . . or charity walks). Bagpipes are NOT an Irish instrument, despite what some folks may think; they are Scottish. The Scotts and Irish are pretty friendly though, I don’t think they mind us using them.
I’m not sure how far back the presence of a pipes in Irish music goes, but the Uilleann pipes would be the Irish bagpipe. So, why isn’t there an Uilleann pipe regiment? Possibly because Uilleann pipes are hard to march with? Got me.
The golden harp on the green flag in the picture above . . . I’m not sure about. The harp is, of course, a symbol of this fair country, but I don’t know if the flag has any regional significance.
Anyway, fair play to the folks from Drum!
By Seán | Permalink
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About the Green Flag: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ie-green.html
Basically, it’s a traditional flag for Ireland as a whole, dating from the 18/19th century Nationalist movements.
As for the pipes, no one’s really sure where they come from (there are hints that they may have existed in Ancient Greece in 400 BC), but their arrival in the British Isles is almost certainly due to Roman influence. So, no need to fight between Scots and Irish - neither can claim the things as theirs anyways!