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Ulster pipe bands are among the best in the world, as confirmed by the results at the various championship contests at home and overseas over the summer.Forty-four bands from Northern Ireland had a significant presence alongside the several hundred other bands at the annual World Pipe Band Championships at Glasgow Green in Scotland on Saturday August 12 and they came away with a number of notable awards. |
The North/South Ministerial Council attended the Ulster-Scots Agency's first ever summer schools held recently in Ballyroney, Banbridge and Newry.
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by Vanessa Wilson, Director of Culture, Ulster-Scots Agency |
Mark Thompson, Ulster-Scots Agency chairman with Co Antrim based gospel group the Calderwood Sisters who performed at the Greyabbey event in July. |
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Richard Hare, a graduate from a university in computing, has taken a step back in time by starting up a kilt-making business.
His enterprise is situated on the busy Castlereagh Road, in East Belfast, a district with a long established history of kilt-making. Richard believes the business will flourish and behind his enthusiasm lies two generations of experience in hand-sewn kilt production. His grandmother Annie was a well-known dress-maker and tailor. Fifty years ago she was approached to take-up kilt-making. At that time there were many pipe bands in and around Belfast. Today, Richard carries on this family tradition and he is keen to source as many of the materials that he needs locally. His black belts, which go with the kilts, are manufactured by a saddler in Co Down. Richard has set-up a web-site to promote his new business venture, www.rhkilts.co.uk, and he has received orders from across the United Kingdom. He has been asked to supply kilts in Robertson "Red" for Exeter City pipe band, a request that brought back family memories because Annie made kilts for the same Exeter pipe band 30 years ago.
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