PORTLAND, Maine — Football has the Super Bowl, baseball the World Series, and bagpipes have the World Pipe Band Championships.
“The Worlds,” as they’re known, have been held in their present form since the 1940s, and recently the first band from Maine ever to enter the competition traveled to Glasgow, Scotland, to blow the pipes and bang the drums. There was no shortage of competition. More than 220 bands participated from Scotland, Ireland, England, Australia and New Zealand, but also from places that are not considered bagpipes hotbeds, among them Oman, Malaysia and Zimbabwe.
So how did the Maine entrant—the Claddagh Mhor Pipe Band—make out in Glasgow? Quite respectably for musicians not raised in the Scottish Highlands on a diet of haggis and single malt whisky. Watch our interview to find out more about their experience at the Worlds and to hear their music.