Pipe Band in tiny boat 1905

[pancelticpiper]

It's at the end of this video, said to be the earliest Scottish wedding caught on movie film.

Wedding of the 4th Marquis of Bute in 1905 | Scotland on Screen

John Crichton-Stuart 4th Marquess of Bute married Augusta Bellingham on 6 July 1905.

The wedding was actually in Ireland, at Bellingham Castle in County Louth.

You can see the pipers standing at the side in the crowd playing as the Groom passes, then taking their pipes off their shoulders when the Bride passes accompanied by a singing Church choir.

[Billy Boy]

More pipers in tiny boats!!!

[Seán Donnelly]

The film could as easily be called ‘Ireland’s First Wedding Video’! I had seen newspaper accounts of the wedding, and had assumed that the Marquess of Bute had brought a piper or two with him; but he obviously did things on a grander scale. His family was immensely rich, mainly from his family’s coalfields in south Wales, where they built Cardiff Docks and restored Cardiff Castle. The Mayor of Cardiff and other members of the municipal government travelled to Dublin to present a congratulatory address in Welsh. Bute hired a steamer called the Princess Maud, and loaded household staff, carriages, etc., on it, and obviously hired a film company. Reports said that there were fourteen pipers in the band, and one also claimed that they were from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, but this may have been journalistic imagination. The Princess Maud anchored in Dundalk Bay off the fishing village of Annagassan, which is two or three miles from Castlebellingham, hence the arrival and departure by boat. The band is said to have played ‘Lord Bute’s March’ when the marquess arrived at the parish-church in Kilsaran, near Castlebellingham, and ‘Johnny Stuart's gone awa’’ as they were rowed out to the Princess Maud. Again, though, this was probably journalistic licence.

The choir was the Palestrina Choir from Dublin's Pro-Cathedral. It was founded by Edward Martin of Tullira Castle, co. Galway, a playwright and patron of the arts who was deeply involved in the Gaelic Revival. He was president of the Dublin Pipers' Club among many other similar posts, and presented the Martyn Cup for pipe-band competitions at the annual Oireachtas.

Pathé News recorded the 1932 wedding of Bute’s heir, the Earl of Dumfries, to a daughter of the Earl of Granard of Casteforbes, Newtown Forbes, co. Longford, but there are no pipers visible in the film as far as I can see.

[Jim Fogelman]

Did anyone else sing the title of the thread to the tune of “fat man in a little coat” that Chris Farley sings in Tommy Boy?

[pancelticpiper]

Reports said that there were fourteen pipers in the band, and one also claimed that they were from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders...

Thanks for all the background information!!

It's hard to see much of the pipe band's uniform, but it's clear that the sporrans don't match those of the 1st and 2nd Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.

However there were numerous Volunteer/Territorial Battalions in Scotland at that time with countless quirks to their uniforms, so it's possible that they were the 4th or 6th or whatever Battalion.

I think I can see white shirt collars sticking up above the top of the doublet collars on some of the pipers in the boat which would indicate civilians (civilian doublets usually had open lapels).

However a drummer can be seen wearing a military style doublet complete with the ornate shells of military drummers and a medal.

Note the Marquess is wearing his dirk on his left contrary to ordinary practice.



Argylls in the 1880s (the bugler is wearing the ornate trimmed doublet also worn by drummers)

[crow]

Too literal?