Am Mòd Nàiseanta Rìoghail (The Royal National Mod) is Scotland's premier festival of the Gaelic language, arts and culture. It is held annually in October at a different location in Scotland – this October (2007) the event is being held in Fort William, while Falkirk will host Mod 2008.
The Mod is a competition-based festival that celebrates the Gaelic language and culture through music, dance, drama, arts and literature. It was first held in Oban in 1892, and since then has grown to become the second biggest festival in Scotland. As well as the Gaels who attend regularly, the Mod also attracts visitors and competitors from throughout the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the USA.
But there’s more to the Mod than competition. It also offers an opportunity for Gaels and non-Gaels to gather and renew old friendships – or forge new ones.  The pubs and hotels of the host town are always filled with live traditional music well into the early hours of the morning – and Falkirk 2008 will be no different. The local committee is now working to make sure the entertainment on offer is the best available.
Am Mòd Nàiseanta Rìoghail was formed as a Company Limited by Guarantee in 1999 and is a Registered Charity in Scotland (Charity No SCO2792).  The new company is responsible for all aspects of Mod organisation including administration, fundraising, promotion and sponsorship.

Supporters of the Royal National Mod
The support of organisations such as Caledonian MacBrayne, The Royal Bank of Scotland, The Royal Mail Group in Scotland, BBC Scotland and Black Bottle Whisky has helped to consolidate the status of the Royal National Mod.
The international dimension to the Mod continues to grow with the support of EventScotland while the leading Gaelic language promotion and development organisations in Scotland maintain their support. These include Bòrd na Gàidhlig, Comunn na Gàidhlig, the Gaelic Books Council, Pròiseact nan Ealan and Gaelic Media Services.

THE FALKIRK TRYSTS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE MOD

For the best part of two hundred years the town of Falkirk and the surrounding district was a regular port of call for thousands of Gaels from every corner of the Highlands and Islands.  From the early years of the 18th century Highland drovers brought their sturdy black kyloes south for sale to Lowland and English buyers on Redding Muir and by the 1760s these annual sales had eclipsed the great trysts at Crieff going on to become the greatest occasions of their kind in the world.  Each autumn the three trysts, on the second Tuesday of August, September and October attracted 50,000 head of cattle and sheep driven on the hoof along ancient drove roads over mountains, rivers and burns and frequently enduring perilous sea crossings in open boats and by swimming, roped together between islands.   Many hundreds of hardy drovers with their ponies and dogs came to Falkirk years after year and many stayed on to work on the harvest to supplement their wages.  

They came in peace of course to carry on a centuries-old trade but there were times when their journey to the district was on altogether more serious business.  In January 1746 the Highland army of Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, routed the Hanovarian redcoats of General Hawley on the south muir of the town in what proved to be their last victory in the long Jacobite wars, and the last time the famous Highland charge carried the day.   Men of fifteen major Highland clans occupied the town and district for eleven days before moving off to Stirling and the final march north to Culloden.  The folk of Falkirk feared the worst but a local legend tells us that the Highlanders found their way to the newly opened brewery of James Aitken in what became Newmarket Street and spent most of their time sampling the delights of Falkirk ale, leaving the terrified burghers in peace!

When the Rising was over and a measure of peace returned, the trade began to revive and the trysts resumed.  But the Disarming Acts which the Government had imposed on the Highlands created real difficulties for the drovers.   Among the regulations which banned gatherings, the speaking (and singing) of Gaelic and the playing of the pipes was a ban on carrying weapons.   For the drovers passing through dangerous places  - with a Macgregor behind every hill - this was too risky and so the Government was persuaded that for the sake of the economy the Act would be suspended for the duration of the droves and the trysts.  And from this relaxation came the revival of the musical celebrations which might be seen as the origins of the Mod itself.  No doubt the drovers at the end of their long and successful journeys would celebrate with a tune, a song and a dram or two.  Certainly in 1781 on 11th October at the tryst’s new site near Roughcastle  a great piping competition was organised with prizes offered by the Highland Society of London.  Thirteen pipers performed in the old Masonic Lodge in the Silver Row having first listened to a newly composed Gaelic poem recited by an aged bard.   The judges chose one Partick McGregor, piper to Henry Balnaves of Ardradour who won “a set of new pipes worth five guineas and forty merks of money.”  The prizes were presented two days later on the tryst ground following a procession from the town.    This competition was repeated in the following two years by which time the Disarming Acts had been repealed and in 1784 the event was moved to Edinburgh. 

On that last occasion in 1783 an interesting ‘performance’took place according to one commentator.  

“After listening to the Macan T’for reciting his annual Gaelic poem in praise of martial music and the prowess of the Caledonians” the winners of the first three year’s competitions went together to Falkirk Parish Churchyard and there “marched thrice round the tombs of the immortal heroes, Sir John Stewart, Sir John de Graham and Sir Robert Munro, playing the celebrated McCrimmon’s Lament in concert on their prize pipes”.    

The Gaels continued to come to Falkirk tryst for another hundred years.  Located by 1785 in its familiar site in Stenhousemuir it grew in size and importance until more   peaceful times, the arrival of the railways and the creation of breeds of cattle that were incapable of walking 200 miles changed the way in which the trade operated.  By the last decade of the 19th century it was all over and only the annual fun fair remained to remind local people of these phenomenal gatherings and the way in which two cultures were joined together all those years ago.

Ian Scott
May 2007

THE FALKIRK TARTAN

In 1934 a horde of almost 2000 silver Roman coins was discovered by workmen on the site now occupied by Tesco’s store. The coins were found in a clay vessel, together with a piece of cloth.

The cloth was woven in a checked pattern using two colours of natural wool, one dark brown and one a paler cream, and is widely believed to be the earliest example of tartan yet identified. Examination of the coins showed them to cover the reigns of several Emperors, the latest being dated 230 AD, and it has been suggested that they were part of a payment to local tribes to encourage them to keep the peace.

Both the coins and the “Falkirk Tartan” cloth are today in the care of the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The Falkirk District Tartan, which is the backdrop to this Mod 2008 website is alive with vibrant colour to reflect that part of Scotland as it is seen today. It was the winning entry in a public competition run by Falkirk Town Centre Management in the 1990's to create a new image for an area that is rising from the ashes of its former industrial glory.

The Colours

Brown - represents the dominant colour of the original cloth.

Blue - links Falkirk district with sea via the River Forth and the canals. It is also the colour of the Falkirk "Bairns".

Red - is the colour of the blast furnace flames from the Falkirk foundries.

Yellow - signifies wealth and prosperity.

Black - the black lines intersect on blue to show Falkirk at the crossroads of all roads through the region.