Scottish Ceilidh

Celebrating Brisbane’s Scottish heritage!

Join us for a fun-filled evening of traditional ceilidh dancing with fantastic live music by Phillip’s Dog.

When: 28 June, 2024
Time: 7:30-9:30pm +tea & cake
Where: The Hills District Community Centre.
291 Dawson Parade,
ARANA HILLS, QLD 4054
Cost: $25.00
Bookings essential.

Brisbane’s Scottish Heritage

Governor Brisbane came from Largs, Ayrshire, a rural area on the south-western coast of Scotland. He was the governor of New South Wales (which then included Queensland) from 1821 to 1825. The fledgling colony on the Brisbane River was named in his honour in 1824. While he lived in Government House in Parramatta, he celebrated his Scottish culture by dancing reels with his family and guests to the music of the harp and piano.

The Scottish village of Fortitude Valley
In the mid-1840s the Presbyterian clergyman, John Dunmore Lang promoted assisted immigration as a means of relieving Britain’s impoverished classes. Acting in the belief that the government had agreed to grant the emigrants free land, Lang arranged the first of three shiploads to come to Moreton Bay. The first vessel, the Fortitude, arrived at Brisbane in January 1849. The free land was refused, but the new arrivals were given permission to set up a temporary village at Yorks Hollow waterholes, an area now enclosed by Victoria Park and the Exhibition reserve. The waterholes ran between Gilchrist Avenue and the Exhibition railway line, putting the village in present-day Herston. The village of  ‘Fortitude Valley’ was named for the ship that brought the settlers to the colony.

At the time of its European settlement, Fortitude Valley was a distant settlement from Brisbane, separated by hilly terrain, notably Duncans Hill along Ann Street where All Hallows College is now situated. By the late 1850s Fortitude Valley had some 100 to 150 houses.