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The Glasgow Gaelic Club was established
on March 7, 1780 with a charter from the
Highland Society of London, which among
other privileges conferred on them the
power of awarding the annual prizes
given by the Society at the Tryst of
Falkirk for the encouragement of bagpipe
music. The Gaelic Club annually
proceeded to adjudge the valuable medal
appropriate for the best pibroch.
The original qualifications for becoming
a member was that the individual should
be a Highlander, either by birth or
connection. Another requisite was that
he should be able to speak the Erse, or
be the descendant of Highland parents,
the possessor of landed property in the
Highlands, or an officer in a Scots or
Highland regiment. It was a law that
the Club should meet on the first
Tuesday of every month in Mrs. Sheid’s
tavern – then a first-rate house in the
Trongate – at the hour of seven at
night, and that the members were to
converse in Gaelic according to their
abilities from seven till nine.
Up to the year 1798, the Gaelic Club
appears to have held its monthly and
anniversary meetings in several
locations within Glasgow. After leaving
Mrs. Scheid’s, the Club went to Mrs.
McDonald’s and continued there until
1794, when it removed to Hemming’s
Hotel. It was in the Star Hotel that the
anniversary of 1798 took place; and it
was at this meeting on the 7th
of March that the Gaelic Club was
formally dissolved and a new one
organized with amended rules and
regulations making it a preliminary step
to membership into the Highland Society
of Glasgow.
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