Inverness Highland Games

After 72 years, the North of Scotland's biggest gathering is returning to its former home in Northern Meeting Park on the banks of the River Ness. With everything that you’d expect at a traditional Highland Games plus one of the biggest parades the Highlands has ever seen, the 2010 Inverness Highland Games is going to be an unmissable occasion for all the family. This year also sees the Highland Capital’s spectacular Armed Forces Day celebrations added to the programme.

Where do the Games originate from?

It is reported in numerous books and Highland games programmes, that King Malcolm III in the 11th century, summoned contestants to a foot race to the summit of Craig Choinnich (overlooking Braemar) in order to find the fastest runner in the land to be his royal messenger.

While many have claimed that this event is the origin of today's modern Highland games, the fact remains that a hill race is a hill race and Highland Games are something entirely different. Highland Games can best be defined as a wonderful collection of traditional Scottish activities all happening in the same place at the same time.

With the Heavy Events, Highland Dancing, Solo Piping, Track and Field Athletics and Massed Pipe Bands, the Games are a wonderful gift from the past that have given Scotland a unique cultural experience that is now being enjoyed at Games staged wherever Scots have settled all over the world.

Highland Games around the world

The Inverness Highland Games is twinned with the Triad Highland Games in Greensboro in the USA and the Waipu Highland Games in New Zealand and at midnight on 31 December 2008 they became the first 3 Games in history to compete by in a live intercontental Highland Games event thanks to gigantic screens and satellite transmission.

For more information on this year’s Inverness Gathering, see the Inverness Highland Games website.