Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945

John Walker is a professor of Spanish studies at Queen’s University.

This painstaking study of two centuries of Gaelic bagpiping is much more
than a technical manual for specialists. The general reader will derive
both knowledge and pleasure from the author’s presentation of Scottish
history, culture, politics, and customs from the time of the Jacobite
rebellions, the defeat at Culloden (1745), and the Disarming Act (1746).
Gibson uses this date as a peg on which to hang his dissenting theory of
the alleged banning of pipes, pipers, and Highland dress after Culloden;
he argues that it was the depopulation of the Highlands in the 19th
century that caused the decline of Gaelic bagpiping.

The study is divided into four parts. Part 1 deals with the historical
roots of Jacobitism in the 18th century, the Disarming Act, the policing
of the Highlands after Culloden, and the aftermath of the Act and its
amendments. Part 2 is devoted to military piping in the 17th and 18th
centuries, both at home and abroad (for example, India and the American
Revolutionary War). Part 3 looks at the repertoire of civil and military
piping from 1750 to 1820, while Part 4 deals with tradition and change
in the Old and New Worlds. This solid history is interspersed with much
valuable information about cultural elements, including the highland
games, dancing, the role of the churches (Catholic and Presbyterian),
and the contribution of piping to everyday activities such as rowing,
harvesting, funerals, and weddings.

Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping is a scholarly work based on archival
research and personal interviews. The study is rounded out by four
appendixes (including the text of the Disarming Act), 72 pages of notes,
a 34-page bibliography, and a 20-page index.