Corriechoillie’s Welcome To The Northern Meeting march

I’ve known this tune since forever, it seems. It has been heard at many Scots sessions in Edinburgh on and off over the past 40 years. It’s a 2/4 pipe march.

http://www.northern-meeting.org/

I assume it relates to The Northern Meeting of Pipers.

The Northern Meeting Park still exists up there and is host to Inverness Hog many Party.
When I was young, there were also Northern Meeting Rooms in the town centre.

This tune’s full title is “Corriechoillie’s Welcome to the 49th Northern Meeting”, the Northern Meeting being A Piping Competition in Inverness, -still one of the top Piping contests. This “Corriechoillie”was a piping enthusiast, and the son of the famous and very wealthy West Coast cattle/sheep drover, John Cameron (from Corriechoillie, Lochaber, -hence the nickname), who used the drovers trail from Kyle of Lochalsh down to the Falkirk sales. A great character - stories of this legendary sheep & cattle man can be found by ‘googling’ him + drover etc.

This tune I found on a sheet of paper inherited in 2019 from Ceilidh accordionist and composer, Charlie Jemmet from Christchurch, New Zealand. It was in a bracket for the dance “Polka Puissant”.
The tunes were:
1. This unnamed tune
2. McKenzie Highlanders
3. Sweet Maid of Glendaruel
4. Teribus

This set seems to be based of Jimmy Shand’s set 8 on his recording, “The Last Ten Years”.
https://thesession.org/recordings/5637
However this recording has The Glengarry Quickstep in there instead of this yet to be identified tune.

The chording.
|:d|“D”A>B Ad|“Em”e>d “A7”BA|“D”d>e fa|“A7”fe ef|“D”A>B Ad|“Em”e>d “A7”BA|“D”d>e “A7”fa|“D”fd d:|
g|“D”a>f df|“Em”e>d “A7”BA|“D”d>e fa|“A7”fe ef|“D”a>f df|“Em”e>d “A7”BA|“D”d>e “A7”fa|“D”fd dg|
|“D”a>f df|“Em”e>d “A7”BA|“D”d>e fa|“A7”fe ef|“D”A>B Ad|“Em”e>d “A7”BA|“D”d>e “A7”fa|“D”fd d|]

“Corriechoillie’s Welcome to the Northern Meeting”.

Though we pipers think of The Northern Meeting as a piping competition, that aspect was a later addition.

The Northern Meeting began in 1788 as a social gathering including a Ball which is still an important feature.

As it went along things were added like hunting and horse racing.

A Highland Games was added in 1835 and continued until 1939.

In 1841 an “exhibition of piping and Highland dancing” was added.

It wasn’t until 1849 that the Gold Medal piping competition became part of the Meeting.

By far the biggest-selling Highland piping album of all time, Farewell To The Greys (1972) features the following medley:

The Back O’ Bennachie
The Drunken Piper
The 72nd’s Farewell to Aberdeen (N. Mathieson)
Corriechollie (William Ross)
My Love She’s But a Lassie Yet (Robert Burns)
Rantin‘ Rovin’ Robin (Robert Burns)

“A Highland Games was added in 1835 and continued until 1939”

The Inverness Highland Games(Not the original organisation) returned to The Northern Meeting Park for a few years fairly recently but is now back in Bught Park. I thought the NMP was a more homely and cosier location and it was also closer to the town centre.

As I mentioned above, events were also held in The Northern Meeting Rooms which was situated on the corner of Church Street and Baron Taylor’s Street. I think I may have been there for some afternoon event as a boy which involved tea and cakes etc but that’s all I remember.

The correct title is Corriechoillie’s 43rd Welcome To The Northern Meeting. Corriechoillie was a big landowner of the late 19th century and therefore by the standards of the day eminently qualified to judge the most prestigious piping competitions. It must be said that Wille Ross was a master of the art of gamesmanship, and presenting a judge with a personally written tune - and a fine one at that - can’t have gone down too badly, I suspect.