Céad Míle Fáilte!
Welcome to the home page of Dooagh Pipe Band, a bagpipe band from Achill Island on the west coast of Ireland.
News
Hope that you had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day!
The weather was fantastic and the parade was completed fully. The photos from 2008 are already available
at this link.
Photos from the Dance at Gielty's are
available now.
Click here for a map of the parade path.
I've been thinking of creating the forum again. It was very active but some posts and language got out of hand. Let's try it one more time and see how it goes. Click here for the forum.
Contribute Photos
If you have any photos of the Dooagh Pipe Band, send them to the site by email to photos at dooagh.com and include as much information as possible (for example, date of the photo, who is in it, who took it, etc).
Why the website?
Many generations of Achill's people have emigrated throughout the world.This website enables many of those people to keep in touch with one of Achill's most popular events, the St. Patrick's Day parade. There is also the interest in pipe bands that come from all over the world, judging from the variety of countries that look at this site. Welcome to you all and enjoy the site.
Background
Dooagh Pipe Band was founded on 17th of March 1947 with a membership of 11. Every year, without fail, the band has paraded on St. Patrick's Day even through years when the toll of emigration was heavy in the 1950's and 1960's.
Down the years, equipment and uniforms have been purchased with funds generated by outings, fundraising and donations from the people of Achill, both at home and abroad.
Activities
The band's year begins in mid-October when practise sessions start. This is held on a weekly basis on Saturday nights until the end of January. Then the practising begins in earnest with 3 or 4 sessions a week leading up to the highlight of the band's year - St. Patrick's Day. New Year's Eve is celebrated with a parade at midnight from Dooagh to Pollagh Church where the new year is welcomed in earnest.
The band attends around 15 functions each year. These range from football matches to weddings, festivals, horse shows and official openings of premises to name but a few.
Contact
Would you like to contact the band? Alan Gielty has kindly offered to receive email regarding questions about the band. You can email him at alangielty@eircom.net.
Ideas? Problems?
If you have any ideas, suggestions, wish to contribute new features for the site, notice incorrect information on the page or if photos do not load properly, please email me at paul@dooagh.com and I will resolve the problem.