Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping 1745-1945

Pulling together what is known of eighteenth-century West Highland piping and pipers, Gibson presents a new interpretation of the decline of Gaelic piping and a new view of Gaelic society prior to the Highland diaspora. Refuting widely accepted opinions that after Culloden pipes and pipers were effectively banned in Scotland by the Disarming Act of 1746, Gibson reveals that traditional dance bagpiping continued to at least the mid-nineteenth century. He argues that the dramatic depopulation of the Highlands in the nineteenth century was one of the main reasons for the decline of piping. Following the path of Scottish emigrants, Gibson traces the history of bagpiping in the New World and uncovers examples of late eighteenth-century traditional bagpiping and dance in Gaelic Cape Breton, arguing that these anachronistic cultural forms provide a vital link to the vanished folk music and culture of the Scottish Highlanders.