Runrig

"We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." - Voltaire


Runrig is a Scottish Rock/Folk group that I began to listen to after I spent 5 months living in Scotland during a semester abroad at the University of Stirling. Their music is a delightful blend of folk, rock, and traditional Gaelic music, with about 30% of their songs' lyrics in Gaelic.

Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to find their music in the United States, though some shops that specialize in Celtic music do carry them as imports. A few of their newer albums have been released on US labels, but they're still hard to find. As for finding their older albums, Tayberry Music carries them in the US. Compact Disc Europe carries their albums and has online ordering, as do places like Amazon.com and Amazon UK. I've also recently discovered that the HMV chain of music stores carries them in the Celtic section of the World Music area. You can now also order albums, books, t-shirts, and videos directly through the Fan Club Site. (I am not connected to any of these stores, and do not endorse them. I am only passing along information that may be helpful in ordering Runrig albums on line.)

Band members are:

Former leadsinger Donnie Munro left the band in August of 1997 to pursue a career in politics, and the new lead singer is a Canadian singer and songwriter Bruce Guthro. Donnie Murno has now started a solo career in addition to pursuing politics, and has his own website

Pictures of Group Members

The name of the band reportedly refers to a land-use topography pattern that occurs in Scotland. "Rig" is a strip of farmland and a "run" is a group of those strips. The run-rig system of farming is no longer used in Scotland, but evidence of this past land use is prevalent, especially on the Isle of Skye where the band originated. More information about the "runrig" system of land and clan ownership is available from the Scottish Culture Page. There's a book about the band called "Going home: The Runrig Story" by Tom Morton, published in 1991. Though the book is out of print, information about the book, including its ISBN number, can be found at Amazon or other book ordering companies.

Runrig has an OFFICIAL SITE called Runrig on the Net.

The few Runrig related links that I've managed to find are:

"Amazing Things" Song Clip (419 K in .wav format.)

Celtic Knot Related pages that may be of interest:


To send me comments or suggestions about my page, e-mail me at ehane@netspace.org.

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