". . .and on the 12th I always wear the sash my father wore."


Well, actually, no. I don't. And my father, God rest his soul, didn't either. My family digs with the other foot entirely. But it is July the 12th, marching day "up the north", i.e., in Northern Ireland. I was going to post something about it here but in the end I can't. It got too depressing. There isn't a non-polemical essay on the web -- or at least I could find one in the first quarter of an hour of searching. And that's enough.

Visit here instead. The uillean pipes don't lend themselves to marching at all. Sure they don't.