Eugene Scottish Festival report

Yesterday, I went to the Eugene Scottish Festival, held at a church very near my house. It was interesting and a good way to spend the afternoon. Let me tell you all about it.

I paid my $1 and three cans of food and entered the Festival grounds. The first thing I did was check out the food booths. There wasn't much to be had, and very little that was Scottish. There was shaved ice, iced tea, apple dumplings, bangers (sausages), hot dogs and drinks.

After checking that out, I made the rounds at the booths, located around the perimeter of the lawn.



Some of the booths were selling things, but most were informational booths about different Clans. I wasn't too interested in that, but I did enjoy seeing some of the items on display:



After seeing all the booths, I checked out what was going on in the 'kirk' itself. Inside the church was a little Scottish museum - cardboard displays of all things Scottish. I thought it was interesting. In another room, there was a gift shop selling teapots, glassware, and tartan everything. Outside of that, there was a children's area and the 'Ask a Scot' area:



Now that I had seen everything, it was time to see some entertainment! I watched some of the sword demonstration:



and later watched Tonn Nua. They are a local Celtic band, and I timed my visit to the Festival so that I could see them.



I thought they were very good. They were heavy on the percussive strings - guitar, banjo, octave mandolin, etc. - and played your typical Irish and Scottish reels and dance tunes. They are all young people, and don't seem to be particularly Irish or Scottish, which makes their musicianship all the more impressive.

After that, I wandered around a bit more, then grabbed a watermelon shaved ice before the bagpipe band came roaring in. I knew I wanted to stay to see some of that, and so I did:



The Sir James McDonald Pipe Band consists of young people from all over Oregon, boys and (as you see above) girls. I shot some photos of the band, took a bathroom break, and went home. I enjoyed my time at the Festival, and I'm sure I'll be back again some day.

I leave you with this:



You can see more pictures here, of course.