Last Friday, a ceilidh took place at Castlebay Community school performed by pupils. Mrs MacNeil, the music teacher, organised this as there hasn’t been a ceilidh in the school in the last few years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pupils have been practicing over the course of the year to perform.  

During the week following up to the Mrs MacNeil has been taking pupils out of classes to perform. Aonghas has helped set up for the concert and has helped Mrs MacNeil doing sound checks and organising the performance area for the ceilidh on Friday. Senior pupils have been involved in organising the banner for the dance.  

Parents, tourists and pupils from St Andrews were watching pupils perform. The crowd was full fifteen minutes before the event had started. Some of the it started with the pipes then Charlotte sung the song for Ireland after that Guillem played the piano. After that Anna, Aithne and Sorcha performed on the fiddle, Maria played Solas on the piano was followed by Rachael and Julia playing the accordion and drums next up was Calum and Orla playing the piano, penultimately was Paddy’s leather brigade played by Anna, Laura, Scott, Seumas and Patricks. Lastly before the break was S1 Gaelic playing An Da Latha. 

During the break they were snacks and drinks for the performers and audience brought in the community. After the break more acts followed including pipes, Katie singing, Patrick and Seumas on the bagpipes and accordion, Sorcha MacDougall singing, Domhnall playing the piano, Rachael, Laura and Mairead playing the pipes, Erin Kearney followed on the piano the penultimate act was Charlotte singing a song and then finished with everyone playing Close to Home. Then the audience applauded the performance and the performers bowed.  

Quotes from the performers on the night: 

An anonymous player said, ‘they felt their performance was good.’ 

Another anonymous player said ‘they weren’t nervous about the performance because they had done all that jazz before.’ 

Another anonymous performer said that ‘it was really exciting.’ 

by Charlie and Calum (S3)