The Martha’s Vineyard Scottish Society held its 30th annual Burns Nicht Supper at the Harbor View Hotel in Edgartown on Saturday. The event mirrors the night in 1796 when his friends gathered to pay tribute to Scottish bard Robert Burns’ memory through music, traditional toasts, and a keynote address. Dinner included favorites such as finnan haddie, chicken in heather, and, of course, haggis.
This year’s auction and raffle raised more than $3,000 for the society’s scholarship fund, $1,000 more than last year.
While usual bagpipers Tony Peak, Jamie Douglas, and James Joyce weren’t available that evening, the Scottish Society recruited pipe major Sheldon Hamblin from the Highland Light Scottish Pipe Band on Cape Cod. Founding director and past president of the Martha’s Vineyard Scottish Society Duncan MacDonald was honored this year with her photograph on the cover of the auction/raffle program.
Below, Edgartown poet laureate Steve Ewing shares a poem he wrote for the occasion.
T’was a Braw Bricht Moonlicht Nicht
Men dressed up like ladies
women tartan sharp
Pipe major leads the haggis
made up of cheap sheep parts
Where whisky flows like water
fresh as Highland streams
The pipes they screech and holler
songs rise in Scottish dreams
In the dead night of winter
we toast our Rabbie Burns
The Bard of our sweet homeland
where Highland hearts return
A tiny rugged country
full of feisty stubborn folk
Where freedom rang out proudly
before this country woke
The night is bright with music
old songs lift to the skies
Auld Lang Syne Loch Lomond
the bagpipe howls and cries
We wind down with a blessing
Gaelic is our native tongue
We bless our bonny homeland
where freedom’s bell first rung
Tho sure as Scots have scattered
around our wider world
We sing of peace for all mankind
and pray this song is heard