This year Scotland celebrates Tartan Day with a week long programme of events from Saturday, 29th March to Saturday, 6th April, commemorating the very best of Scotland and the Scots, both at home and away.
Tartan Day on 6th April is a celebration of Scotland, showcasing the nation's creativity, innovation and heritage, its business, sporting and economic success – and its people.
The celebrations - which mark the Declaration of Arbroath, the Scottish Declaration of nationhood at Arbroath Abbey on 6th April, 1320 - were originally conceived in Canada in 1991.
Several years later, in 2004, 6th April was established as a public holiday in the USA to celebrate Scotland's contribution to that country's development by emigrant Scots. Since then a consortium of Scottish Local Authorities has collaborated with VisitScotland and the Scottish Government to make the celebrations in New York a showcase for Scottish musicians, dancers, artists and businesses.
Many other US cities now have Tartan Day festivals and there are also celebrations in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Holland and France. In 2004, Scotland also embraced this celebration of all things Scottish when Angus Council established the first Tartan Day celebrations on home territory.
Since then the event has gone from strength to strength and this year eight other local authorities across Scotland are taking part in the celebrations.
From 29th March to 6th April there will be eight days of:
- gala dinners,
- ceilidhs,
- thought-provoking debates,
- celebrity-studded receptions,
- a special Robert the Bruce Celebration
- and international sporting events, including top class golf tournaments,
- culminating in the historic re-enactment of the Signing of the Declaration of Arbroath.
