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!