Sir Billy Connolly said he danced “a wee jig” in his heart leading the New York City Tartan Day Parade on Saturday.
Around 30,000 spectators watched the Scottish comedian perform the role of Grand Marshal.
Thousands of participants including solo pipers and drummers, Highland dancers, pipe bands, Scottish clans and Scottish dogs followed the Big Yin along Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue.
The 76-year-old, who has lived in the US since 2011, accepted the invitation to take part despite announcing in December that he was retiring from touring.
![Sir Billy Connolly](http://content.assets.pressassociation.io/2019/04/06195209/e231cc8c-7a7b-48d4-b2ad-5a8b96ff8fbb-640x960.jpg)
He said: “I’ve absolutely loved being Grand Marshal of this year’s New York City Tartan Day Parade.
“The crowds were brilliant and hearing the skirl of the pipes echoing along Sixth Avenue made me dance a wee jig in my heart. What a day.”
Previous Grand Marshals include Sir Sean Connery, Alan Cumming, Sam Heughan and Brian Cox, while KT Tunstall became the first woman to lead the parade last year.
It is the showpiece event of Tartan Week, which brings a full programme of special events to New York from April 3-8.
Kyle Dawson, president of the New York Tartan Day Committee, said: “What an incredible 21st year this has been for New York City Tartan Week.
“We’ve enjoyed a phenomenal week of celebrations – from ceilidhs to workshops and pipe bands performances to parties.
“We had the great honour of welcoming Sir Billy Connolly as Grand Marshal of this year’s NYC Tartan Day Parade and saw tens of thousands of people line the sidewalks of Sixth Avenue to cheer on our participants.”
Scotland’s Veterans Minister Graeme Dey also took part in the parade and said he was “delighted” that Sir Billy led the way.
He added: “The annual Tartan Day celebrations are always a spectacular showcase of Scotland.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel