Tulloch Inverness Highland Games Website

The Origins of the Inverness, Scotland Highland Games

While the Inverness Highland Games started in their present form in 1897, the date of the first Games has been lost forever.  All we know is that the Inverness Courier reported on the 27^th of September 1821 the Colonel Alastair Ranaldson MacDonnell, 15^th Laird of Clanronald and Glengarry was collecting subscriptions to revive the Inverness Highland Games.

     The Inverness Highland  Games Today

Games were indeed held at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness on the 1^st and 2^nd of October 1822 but the loss of the venue in 1823, it was turned into a racecourse, meant the end of the plans to revive the Games as an annual event until 1897.

The Inverness Highland Games today are the best attended in the North of Scotland.  With crowds of between 4000-6000 enjoying a major traditional Highland event that has something for everybody.

The highlight of the day is of course the ever-popular ‘Tossing of the Caber’.  The 16 foot plus caber weighs more than a man and it is a feat of enormous skill as well as extraordinary strength to hurl the caber so it turns over and lands in the required 12 o’clock position.  However, for many athletes the most enjoyable event of the day is the ‘Great Putt of the Inverness Stone’.  Weighing some 10kg (22lbs.), it is it’s awkward size and shape, rather than it’s weight that creates a light –hearted finale to the day.  The rules dictate that all athletes taking part must wear the traditional kilt which, rather than a sporran, is accompanied by a weight belt in today’s Games.

The Inverness Games has a tradition of  trying to include something new every year and has now grown to include Piping Competitions, Dancing Competitions, Cycling Competitions, a Highland Craft Fair, a Children’s Fun Fair, Tug of War, and a Massed Pipe Band.  This year there will be an Aerobatics Display and a 150 foot high and 300 yard long Terror Slide for Charity as well as many Royal Air Force displays including a visit by a sea king helicopter.

Thanks to the piping competitions there is music throughout the day.  In addition to the pipes, the Pipe Band responsible for making the arrival of the Provost of Inverness (who acts as Chieftain of the Games) will also be performing vigorously throughout the afternoon in order to wake up any spectators basking in the sun.

Unique to Inverness there are also our Mini Highland Games, which was featured on BBC’s Blue Peter.   An all day event Have-a-Go session which allows children to use specially made foam cabers and shots, the Mini Highland Games is a hugely popular attraction that gets more popular with every passing year and is developing the champions of tomorrow.