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Overcast Old Westbury Gardens takes on a Scottish flavor when it hosts the Long Island Scottish Festival and Highland Games
Savoring summer's end with a highland fling
If the dog days of summer are wearing you down, try some fun and games – Scottish style – when Old Westbury Gardens opens its lush grounds to the Long Island Scottish Festival and Highland Games this weekend. It’s certainly not necessary to be Scottish to enjoy this annual end-of-summer revelry, co-hosted, as always, by Long Island’s Clan MacDuff.
This year’s festival, a perennial favorite among Scots and non-Scots alike for over 50 years, is a two-day event, filling Old Westbury Gardens with the sights ands sounds of piping, colorful kilts, and many activities, Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 25 and 26.
With bagpipes, caber tossing and highland dancing – along with a myriad of entertainment and assorted revelry for lads and lasses of all ages, the Scottish Festival and Games is always one of the standouts of the season at Old Westbury Gardens. There’s plenty of action to involve everyone, including competitions, entertainment, and Scottish treats to enjoy.
It is believed that the games were begun by the ancient highland chieftains to help them select the strongest men for their armies. Those ancient traditions continue today in the form of caber tossing, Putting the Stone, Putting the Sheaf, and arm wrestling competitions, solo piping and drumming.
“The Long Island Scottish Festival is such a special event, that it would likely be popular if held just about anywhere in our area,” said Old Westbury Gardens spokesman Vince Kish. “But hosting it at a venue as beautiful as Old Westbury Gardens makes it all the more appealing. When the Clan MacDuff first came here in 1977, they knew they had found their home. And they’ve been back every year since.”
The festival enables Clan McDuff to promote Scottish history and culture on Long Island. It’s one of many similar events held throughout the nation and internationally. How the games began is unknown, since the tradition predates recorded history. According to www.ScottishGames.org, the first modern games were held in 1819 at the Perthshire estate of Lord Gwydir in Scotland, and the games featured very similar events to today’s.
