COMPETITORS took part in the Haggis Hurling World Championships at the 18th century home of Robert Burns yesterday.
At stake was a year’s supply of haggis to anyone who could surpass the current record but no-one was successful.
The present World Record for Haggis Hurling was set at 217 feet by Lorne Coltart at the Milngavie Highland Games in June 2011.
Modern Haggis Hurling is judged on the basis of distance and accuracy of the hurl. Any split or burst haggis is immediately disqualified, as it must be fit to eat after landing.
For the past five years the contest was held in the bard’s home town of Alloway but this year it transferred to Ellisland Farm, Dumfriesshire where Burns moved aged 29 and is where two of his children were born and he got married.
It is also where he wrote Auld Lang Syne, Tam O’Shanter and Ae Fond Kiss.
The winner was Josh Noel who threw the haggis 145 feet. Stuart Cochrane organised the event, which used 20 haggis from local butchers Mogerlys of Dumfries in the competition.
He said: “It brings back an old Scottish custom that hasn’t been seen since about 1700 and then having a fun contest out in the fresh air and adding it in with Burns season and it’s just great fun.
“I had a shot and my throw managed to reach 136 feet which I thought was very good. You want the haggis to skim through the air rather than skim to prevent it from splitting on the ground.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here