Culture
Oban is considered the home of The Royal National Mod (a Gaelic festival) as the Mod was first held in Oban in 1892, with ten competitors on a Saturday afternoon. In 2003, Oban hosted the 100th Mod, and many signs were replaced with bilingual versions. As well as the 100th Mod, Oban also hosted the centenary Mod in 1992 (the year it became Royal). (The 100th Mod was later than the centenary because it was not held in the war years.) The 2009 Mod was again held in Oban.
The town had a two-screen cinema which was closed in early 2010; it was reopened in August, 2012 as the Phoenix Cinema. Oban has also been used as a backdrop to several films including Ring of Bright Water and Morvern Callar.
The Oban War and Peace Museum advances the education of present and future generations by collecting, maintaining, conserving and exhibiting items of historical and cultural interest relating to the Oban area in peacetime and during the war years. A museum also operates within Oban Distillery, just behind the main seafront. The distillation of whisky in Oban predates the town: whisky has been produced on the site since 1794.
In the 2010 Pipe Band season, the local Oban High School Pipe Band were successful in winning the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, the Cowal Games competition, and the Champion of Champions for the year in the novice-juvenile grade. The band is led by piping legend Angus MacColl, who has taught all of the pipers.
During the 2011 Guy Fawkes Night, Oban became famed for its failed fireworks display which became a worldwide news and online hit, when £6,000 of display fireworks were ignited all at once. The display due to last 20 - 30 minutes was over within 50 seconds. Pyro1, the company putting on the display, provided a free fireworks show on 27 November.
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Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“When a culture feels that its end has come, it sends for a priest.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
“Insolent youth rides, now, in the whirlwind. For those modern iconoclasts who are without culture possess, apparently, all the courage.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)
“The higher, the more exalted the society, the greater is its culture and refinement, and the less does gossip prevail. People in such circles find too much of interest in the world of art and literature and science to discuss, without gloating over the shortcomings of their neighbors.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)