Scotland Takes Midtown: Tartan Day Parade Thrills Thousands

Thousands of Scots, other Celts, and the friends of both took to the streets of midtown on Saturday afternoon, April 5, for the 27th annual Tartan Day Parade. The event is the crown jewel of the Tartan Week celebration, which stretched to the next morning with an exuberant Highland Dancing competition in Battery Park.

Weather for the parade was aptly Scottish—chilly, with temps in the 40s and a light, misty rain—but this didn’t seem to bother anyone, as both men and boys in kilts, plus women and girls in skirts, seemed delighted to show a little leg, or more.

The route was a relatively short one, officially running up Sixth Avenue from 45th to 55th streets, with 44th and 45th streets between Fifth and Sixth avenues used as a staging area.

The Sixth Avenue side of Bryant Park near 42nd Street also came alive with the skirl of bagpipes and thwack of drummers warming up before the parade. This was especially interesting in that the morning’s polyglot “Hands Off” march protesting President Trump and Elon Musk began at 42nd Street on the Fifth Avenue side.

Despite being only a block apart, with a few exceptions on the Scots side, it doesn’t seem the groups intermingled much. The Scots, of course, had a more pressing, and celebratory purpose, but if the “Hands Off” crowd—which comprised both passionate individuals aggrieved by recent federal policy decisions, and other, more opportunistic groups who’ll protest almost anything—knew of Scotland’s long and tumultuous history with Trump, the real estate developer, they might have taken more interest.

Similarly, for a crowd that in aggregate was demonstrating in favor of effective democracy to ignore the immense contributions of Scottish culture to American democracy was unfortunate. Read Robert Burns, Walt Whitman, and Abraham Lincoln for starters and recall too that Gil Heron, the father of one of the great American poets and protest singers, Gil Scott-Heron, was the first black man to play for the Celtic Football Club of Glasgow.

The history of the Tartan parade is a bit more recent, dating to 1999 when actor Cliff Robertson was the first Grand Marshal of the event, organized by the National Tartan Day New York Committee.

Since then, it has grown into a week of Scottish-themed events, with this year’s Grand Marshal—his second go-round with this honor—being the irrepressible Emmy and Tony award-winning actor, writer, and presenter Alan Cumming. Born in Aberfeldy, Scotland, in 1965, Cumming became an American citizen in 2008, was Tartan Parade Grand Marshal for the first time in 2009, and married his partner and husband, illustrator Grant Shaffer, here in New York in 2012.

Given its relatively modest scale, the Tartan Parade’s line of march was a bit smaller than that of some other parades. What it lacked in sheer size and attention-seeking local politicians, it more than made up for in color, humor, vivacity, and the keening and droning of the pipes. Interestingly—and thrillingly for fans of co-ed music-making—there were many female pipers in the bands, the lasses in tartan plaid marching with quite a different step from the almost whole male bagpipe groups of Irish extraction.

If Gotham solons—including Mayor Adams and Beep Mark Levine— were notable by their absence, the Scots themselves weren’t so discourteous, with Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar; Scots Secretary Ian Murray; Scotland’s First Minister, John Swinney, and Holyrood Deputy Presiding Officer Annabelle Ewing all in attendance.

Said the First Minister, “Scottish history and heritage are celebrated the world over and woven into the fabric of the United States. I know it means a great deal to the millions of Americans with Scottish connections.”

Among the dozens of groups echoing these sentiments by their presence this Saturday were the U.S. Naval Academy Pipes & Drums; the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo; the New York Caledonian Club Pipe Band; NYC Reeling Scottish Country Dance Club; NYU Pipes and Drums; Daughters of Scotia; St. Brendan the Navigator Pipes and Drums; Renfrewshire School’s Pipe Band; Edinburgh Festival Fringe; Nessie & Friends, honoring Scotland’s favorite fictitious lake monster; Universities of Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Strathclyde, and St. Andrew’s; and the much-loved Celtic Canine Brigade—woof!