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Celebration knows no borders. As Celtic Life International senior writer Michelle Brunet explains, Highland Games and

Celtic Festivals are now all over the map

The Global Jamboree

62 August, 2015

In 1981, Dr. Douglas Edmunds orga-nized a World Highland Games Cham-pionships in Lagos, Nigeria. “It was amazing,” recalls the 71 year-old

over the phone from his home in Glasgow, Scotland. “We had guys like Bill Kazmaier from America, Geoff Capes from England, Dave Harrington from Canada, and a lo-cal Nigerian - Christopher Okonkwo - who had competed at the Munich Olympics in 1972. The festival chieftain was the Nige-rian Minister for Sport, and the Nigerian Police Pipe Band performed. It was a real jamboree!”

Edmunds attended his first Highland games when he was 17. Since then, the “Godfather of Strongman” - and former two-time world caber champion - has com-peted in hundreds of Games.

“When I turned professional, that was the greatest thing I ever did,” he reminisc-es. “It opened up the international field,

and I competed in America, Australia, Swe-den - all sorts of places.” Along with the Nigerian gathering, Ed-munds has coordinated similar events in Scotland, Northern Ireland, England, Ice-land, Finland, Holland, Canada and Zam-bia. He has also just finished writing an-other book, The Warrior Breed, which ex-plores the history of Highland games.

“The games have become a global phenomenon...we have all these people with strange sounding names competing

today - it’s wonderful.”

Sure enough, Highland games are now, literally, all over the map. The In-ternational Highland Games Federation (IHGF) is currently affiliated with 26 coun-tries, including India, Chile, Singapore, Greece, Georgia, and Germany, with more expected to jump on board in the years ahead. “It has really caught on,” says Francis Brebner, who founded the IHGF in 2001 to organize and sanction international cham-pionships for both amateur and profes-sional participants. “In the past few years it has been amazing to witness countries like Hungary, Romania and Croatia adopt-ing the games. These people now see the event as real tests of strength, skill and en-durance.” Originally from Peterhead, Scotland, Brebner himself competed in Highland games professionally for 18 years. Trav-

elling has been a highlight for the seven-time world caber champion and two-time world record holder. “After arriving in the town of Wipu, New Zealand, I felt as if I was in heaven,” he notes of one of his favourite competi-tion spots. “I remember walking through the town and talking with all the shop own-ers and finding out they were all descen-dants of Scottish emigrants.” The IHGF is an ever-evolving entity, regularly picking up new members. The Scottish Highland Games Brazil joined the federation earlier this year. “It began with some classmates who discovered this competition on the inter-net and decided to make an amateur ver-sion at our school,” says Daniel Schreiner, one of the South American festival’s orga-nizers. “It is a unique event in Brazil, and it’s something people wait all year to par-ticipate in.”

The gathering’s fifth edition takes place this July in Esteio, Rio Grande do Sul, with an agenda that includes hammer throw, caber toss, broadsword dance, Braemar stone put, and backhold wrestling. A me-dieval festival and Scottish cuisine are also on tap. “I love the group games, such as the tug of war,” smiles Schreiner. “The crowd always goes crazy cheering.” Cheering crowds are also part of the soundtrack for Switzerland’s Appowila Highland Games, a festival born from one man’s fascination with Scottish culture. Martin “Mac” Tshirren, president of the event, says he fell in love with Scotland on his first of seven visits to the country. On one trip, he invited his closest friends to come along. Over beers at Biddy Mul-ligans pub in Edinburgh, the Swiss trav-ellers founded the Appowila Association, which hosted its first Highland games in the town of Abtwil, Switzerland, in the fall of 2009.

Dr. Douglas Edmunds

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“Biddy Mulligans has become a place of pilgrimage,” explains Tshirren. “Each time an Appowila member is travelling to Scotland, he has to drink at least one pint at the table where the group and games were founded.”

An affiliate of the Scottish Highland Games Association, the Swiss society cur-rently has 138 members. Of the ten or so similar events in the country, the biennial Appowila is the biggest, attracting an esti-mated 16,000 visitors at their last games in 2013. Even more excitement is expected at this September’s gathering.

“We will be hosting the Swiss cham-pionships in piping and drumming, with three judges from the Royal Pipe Band Association of Scotland,” notes Tshirren. Other activities include a whisky tasting, a medieval market, pony rides for the kids, Irish folk music played by Serbian, Ger-man and Swiss bands, and heavy events featuring athletes from Norway, Scotland and Germany.

Like Highland games, Celtic festivals now enjoy world-wide popularity, with events happening in not-so-typical loca-tions like China, Barbados, Cuba, Poland, and Italy.

The Montelago Celtic Festival takes place in the Italian province of Macerata each August, attracting more than 20,000

attendees annually.“We had been pushing Celtic music

here for years,” says promoter Luciano Monceri who, along with co-founder Maurizio Serafini, started the gathering in 2003. “The festival was created as a chance to fuse traditional Irish songs with other genres.”

Perhaps poignantly, the event is lo-cated in an area that was devastated by an earthquake in 1997. “The festival has helped to rebuild and revitalize the econ-omy here, providing work for local people in restaurants, shops and so forth.”

Visitors from all over the world are in-vited to pitch their tents and enjoy three days of non-stop music. Monceri calls it a “small Woodstock” where “you can feel free, away from the usual stresses of ev-eryday life”.

“It is not just a music festival, though” he adds. “There are a lot of activities, in-cluding rugby, games, conferences, trek-king, a market, instruments and activities stages, a family village, and other goings-on pertaining to Celtic-European culture.”

Irish-themed gatherings aren’t the only ones celebrating Celtic heritage. Each spring, up to 150 organizations around the world celebrate Gouel Breizh, the annual Festival of Brittany.

This past May, approximately 2,500 people attended Breizh-related events in Ho Chi Minh City, Nha Trang and Hanoi, Vietnam. Organized by KBBV, the Breton Society in Vietnam, the festivities have been an annual occurrence since 2002.

“It is a yearly opportunity for Breton people living in Vietnam and friends of Brittany to meet, celebrate Breton culture, listen to Breton music, dance traditional dances and share our passion for all things Celtic,” says Mikael Gwilhom, the soci-ety’s president.

Gwilhom is also a member of the band Lang Dzu, a Breton-Vietnamese fusion folk band which performs regularly at the festival.

That cultural fusion also takes center-stage in South Africa, where Scottish dance competitions and tartan kilts hold fort alongside traditional African perfor-mances and military camouflage attire at the annual Highland games.

“For eight summers it has been the biggest event in the Midlands, attracting upwards of 4,000 people from all parts of the country,” says event manager Brendan Grealy.

Sadly, this year’s games have been postponed after a main sponsor pulled out in April. However, Grealy is hopeful the games will resume in 2016.

“It’s the ‘swirl of activity’ that I’ll miss most - the horses bringing out the VIPs to the main arena for the opening cer-emony...the crowd urging the teams on…the teams urging each other on…the vari-ous pipe bands coming onto the field for massed pipes and drums or separating themselves into groups to play amongst the crowd….I love the hustle ‘n’ bustle.”

Hustle ‘n’ bustle is also at play back at the Glasgow home of Dr. Douglas Ed-munds. Just two days before the Carmun-nock International Highland Games – an event he founded – his house is a flurry of activity.

“It’s just a small gathering,” he says modestly of the celebration, “but it attracts international competitors, and that makes for a great atmosphere.

“What we have this year, apart from the traditional heavy events, is a martial arts group doing a live fighting demon-stration. I’m trying to get back to the idea that the Games began from warrior tradi-tions.

Of course, there will be the usual dancing, music, and the participation of the local people. I love the sights, the sounds, the sensations…it’s always a real jamboree!”