‘Burns’ Night’ celebrated with haggis, neeps and tatties by kilted crowd at Virginia Beer Museum

More than a hundred people, many dressed in Scottish plaid, jammed into the Virginia Beer Museum on historic Chester Street in downtown Front Royal Saturday night to celebrate the birthday of a far away and late-lamented Scottish poet, Robert Burns, who lived and died in the 18^th century.

Bagpipes skirled, poetry was read, tartan kilts were the dress of the evening, and a haggis – sheep’s entrails cooked in the animal’s stomach – was eaten (by some), along with neeps and tatties (mashed turnip and potatoes). All was washed down with “wee drams” of Scotch whiskey, accompanied by many a toast to the Bard of Scotland.

The perfect host and hostess, David Downes and his wife Redz, in tartan splendor. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini. (8925)

The event this year – owner David Downes launched the local Burns’ Night celebration in Front Royal three years ago – fell precisely on the poet’s birthday, January 25 (1759). A Scottish flag hanging outside the museum’s front entrance proclaimed the Burns night event.

From the official 6 p.m. start of the event, the crowd inside and out – a bonfire burned merrily in back of 16 Chester Street – was kept entertained by piper Sean Patrick while, between times, Eric Bartock, who claims no specific Scottish ancestry but provided the haggis, read the traditional Burns poem “Address to the Devil” to a more-or-less hushed audience, who were informed of Burns’ disdainful message to the Calvinists of his era. Bartok then presided over the presentation of the haggis by the sword-bearing Sloan Culver, and ceremoniously made the first cut.

Above, Beer Museum regular, Eric Bartock, reads “Address to the Devil” by Robert Burns near the formal opening of the celebration of Scottish ‘Bard’ Robert Burns’ 260th birthday; below, ‘Tickets, anyone?’ Special guest hostesses – Robert Burns was a known admirer of Scotland’s fairer sex – pull double duty in 50/50 raffle ticket sales.

Tribute was paid by Downes to several mini-dressed (tartans, of course!) young women who circulated in the crowd selling 50-50 raffle tickets and generally contributed an attractive side to the more sedate kilts of the menfolk.

Walter Mabe, the new chairman of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, dropped by and said a few words.

Among Burns’ best known “hits” is “Auld Lang Syne” published in 1788 and traditionally sung on New Year’s. was rendered last Saturday night by scores of lusty voices, during and following one of the “wee dram” toasts.

Above, the traditional Scottish haggis is ceremonially bagpiped from an upstairs dining area into the Virginia Beer Museum’s Burns’ George Washington Room, converted for the evening to the Robert Burns Room. Bagpiper Sean Patrick and ceremonial sword bearer Sloan Culver led the procession; as below Bartock brings the delicacy in for those with an adventuresome culinary streak.

Meanwhile, at local inns, pubs, and restaurants throughout the United States and most of the English-speaking world, people saluted the memory of this erstwhile Scot who penned 550 poems and songs throughout his relatively short life. The much loved “Rabbie” Burns died on January 1, 1796 at the age of 37.

He will never be forgotten.

The actual ‘Bard’, Robert Burns, at left in an 18th century print; to right, an actor ‘double’ several centuries later.

(Malcolm Barr Sr. of Rockland, who reported on this event along with Roger Bianchini – the latter noting the flow of Scotland in his maternal blood line – recalls covering a much more sedate, “posh” he called it, Burns’ night in Tynemouth, England, close to the Scottish border, in 1949. Downes’ event was Barr’s first Burns’ night celebration since that date 70 years ago, and he said it “brought back many memories” of his days as a teenage “cub” reporter in the United Kingdom.)