DUNEDIN, Fla. — Sure, there are restaurants and shops in downtown Dunedin, but seeing musicians playing bagpipes and drums in a local park is not an unusual sight either.
That’s because Dunedin marches to all things Scottish.
“It’s who we are and it goes all the way back to our history of how Dunedin was founded by two Scotsmen,” explains Dunedin Commissioner Jeff Gow. “It’s just so wonderful we can bring this uniqueness to the community and it really is an attractor.”
For drummer Eric MacNeill, it’s part of his Dunedin DNA.
“My grandfather was a bagpiper," MacNeill, a member of the city’s pipe band said. "My dad was a drummer. I’ve grown up around pipe bands my whole life and I just think playing in a pipe band is the coolest thing you can do."
Residents began piping up in earnest about the city’s Scottish heritage back in the late 1950s and now it’s definitely Dunedin’s thing.
The city’s Highland Games and Festival is Florida’s largest. Each spring it features all the Scottish “ing’s” — piping, dancing, drumming and tossing.
“People come from all over to our Highland Games; it’s like their Brigadoon,” Gow said.
The Dunedin Scottish Arts Foundation stages the festival each year. Money raised goes to support various programs including the city, middle and high school pipe bands. Music and dance scholarships also keep young people puffing and toe-tapping.
Since the most recent festival in April, the not-for-profit group has already donated $80,000 back into the community. That’s a lot of “kilts, bagpipes and Scottish Highland dancing uniforms, and registration fees,” MacNeill starts to list.
In Dunedin it’s okay to march to a different drum — as long as it’s Scottish.
10 Tampa Bay and our parent company TEGNA’s Foundation are happy to support the Dunedin Scottish Arts Foundation with a $2,000 grant.