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'Record-breaking' Mòd returns to Glasgow for Gaelic celebration

Jamie Calder
Getty Images Six young Highland dancers, dressed in blue, green or purple traditional dress, leap from the floor of a sports hall while competing in the Mòd.Getty Images
The Royal National Mòd, Scotland's annual celebration of Gaelic culture, returns to Glasgow this week

The Royal National Mòd is starting in Glasgow later, with organisers predicting the competition's 194th anniversary will prove to be a record-breaking year.

The annual celebration of Scots Gaelic culture, language and history, brings together thousands of acts and spectators from across the country.

More than 2,000 entries have been registered by people aiming to take part in some of the festival's 200 competitions, the highest total on record.

Alongside the official contests in areas such as bagpiping, Highland dancing and Gaelic literature, more than 80 fringe events are also running, offering educational sessions, ceilidhs and musical performances.

Royal National Mòd A piping band in green and purple kilts leads the procession of singers along a road in Fort WilliamRoyal National Mòd
The massed piping and choir procession (pictured last year in Fort William) will take place along Sauchiehall Street this year

A pop-up concert in Glasgow Central Station, a Gaelic DJ night in live-music bar Nice 'N' Sleazy, and a choir procession along Sauchiehall Street have also been organised.

Maggie Cunningham, chairwoman of An Comunn Gàidhealach, the organisation that organises the Mòd, said the event would be a place for young and old to come together to socialise, compete and celebrate.

Competitions will be held at venues like the National Piping Centre and Royal Concert Hall from Friday until 17 October.

About 10,000 people attended the previous competition, hosted in Fort William, according to the organisers, with a similar number expected this time.

This year will mark Glasgow's 13th time hosting the competition, the last coming in 2019.

It coincides with the 40th anniversary of Scotland's first Gaelic-medium education (GME) unit, which opened in Glasgow for the 1985-86 academic year.

The Mòd's opening concert, Ar Cànan's Ar Ceòl, will see past and present pupils of these Gaelic programmes perform at the Royal Concert Hall to celebrate the success of the policy and the campaigners who worked to secure it in the 1980s.

The night will set up this year's festival as a "celebration of what has come before and very much of what is to come," Cunningham said.

Dlù / Somhairle MacDonald In a promotional photograph, the five members of Dlù stand in a red and blue lit room wearing black and holding a commanding pose and stare at the camera. Dlù / Somhairle MacDonald
Gaelic band Dlù form a key part of this year's opening concert

Taking centre stage at the opening concert will be indy-trad fusion band Dlù, whose members largely met while at Glasgow's Gaelic schools.

"Without Gaelic Medium Education, there's absolutely no chance the band would exist today," Dlù's accordionist Zach Ronan said.

"It's all because of that atmosphere in [GME] that fostered that kind of bond that we now have. And it's still an absolutely instrumental part of the band."

The Mòd, he said, has always been an important pillar of his cultural calendar, having attended "so many" national competitions while at school.

"That's why we're just absolutely delighted to be such a big part of it this year," Ronan said.

"It's the first time we've ever been this involved."

As the band made its final preparations, Ronan said this year felt slightly different.

"There seems to be a real kind of hype about it," he said.

"I think even more so than 2019.

"I just think the added benefit of being in a big city like Glasgow, the biggest city in Scotland - that's always going to pull more people in than you would ever hope for."