Sons Of Ulster Shankill

Saturday 3rd May saw the band travel to the Shankill Road in Belfast for the annual parade of the Sons Of Ulster.

The host band travel all over the country, and after being approached by one of our belfast members a while back about attending the parade as its his home turf (as he likes to call it) the band made the simple decision to attend. Belfast is our second home basically as the majority of our parades take us to the capital.

The parade itself kicked off after 7pm with quite a lot of belfast bands leading the parade around the streets of the Shankill.

First band of the night that I saw was the Pride of the Raven from East Belfast. the band has increased its membership since last year, and have their own unique style.

Another East Belfast band that is impressing bandsmen around the country is the Lower Woodstock. They have a very young band like ourselves, and although they are small in numbers, they play to impress and entertain, sounding loud and proud.

Other bands that were going well were Pride of the Hill Rathfriland, Ballysillan Volunteers, Shankill Protestant Boys, East Belfast Protestant Boys and the Whiterock.

This is a band who have a very unique style of playing, their old time blood and thunder swing, tunes and the rope bass drum, made this band very entertaining to watch.

Onto our own band now, bit of a slow start to the season for us, only the 4th parade of the year,but gradually geting better with each outing. New tunes, three of which our now out on the road (soon to be followed by many more) are being polished up well, our new american medley 'yee ha' and scots quarter our new drum link are going down a treat with the crowds.

We paraded with 9 girls in the colour party, 1 senior drum major, 9 side drummers, 1 bass drummer, 1 cymbal player and 21 flutes, The majority of the band tonight consisted of young lads under the age of 18 and this bodes well for the future.

The band was placed 1st in 8 different categories which was a great achievement with so many bands out. The band were awarded the following: