Mar 2005

St Francis Pipe Band to lead the Moville St Patrick's Day Parade
By Stephan Joyce

Glasgow's close connections to Ireland will be renewed with a bang next week in Moville in County Donegal.

As part of their highly acclaimed St Patrick's Day Parade and Festivities, the enterprising Moville Festival Committee have secured the services of the world Famous St Francis Pipe Band, who will lead the parade through the town to the delight of the huge crowds who will flock there on the Irish national holiday.

The St Francis Band hails from our very own Gorbals and their invitation to represent Scotland in Moville next week came about through the hard work of a Scots resident in Moville, Wilma Bonner. Wilma in fact has a close family link with the Pipe Band, with two of her uncles being the first members of the band. One of them, her uncle James, died at 16 and the other was killed at Dunkirk during World war two - two tragic losses to the band's original founding members.

But the memory of the two original members lives on in the current Pipe Band musicians as they travel from Glasgow to Belfast and then on to Moville for the big day. With their world wide reputation and experience they will add a touch of real Scottish class to what is becoming one of Ireland's most talked about small town St Patrick's Day Parades.

So much so, that Moville has been getting rave reviews over recent years for all the work their
St Patrick's Day Committee, supporters and residents have been doing to help put the town back on the Irish cultural and tourist map.

As the streets of Moville echo to the Pipes and Drums of the Glasgow Band, and ' I belong to Glasgow' mingles with ' The Wearin O' The Green, ' a new chapter is being written in renewing the past links between Glasgow and Donegal when the Scotch Boats brought thousands of Glaswegians up the river Foyle past Moville to family and friends.

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