The Royal National Mod is Scotland's premier Gaelic festival, held every October at a different location in Scotland. The festival is competition-based celebrating the Gaelic language and culture through music, dance, drama, arts and literature.

First held in 1892, the Mod is now the second largest festival in Scotland attracting visitors and competitors from the UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada and the USA. It provides a major economic and cultural boost to the host area and attracts considerable national and international publicity.

Whilst the Mod is a competitive event it also provides the opportunity for Gaels and non-Gaels to gather and renew old friendships and forge new ones. It has evolved organically, responding to changes in the Gaelic world and acting as an incentive for individuals and groups to develop their talents in the public arena. Over the past century, the Mod has been a significant cohesive element in keeping the Gaelic community together.

Since 1912, there has been a Royal association with the Mod whose parent body, An Còmunn Gàidhealach, has HM The Queen as its Patron. Members of the Royal Family regularly attend the festival, so look out for them at Mod 2002 which takes place from 11-19 October in Largs, the setting of the historic Scottish defeat of the Vikings in 1263.

Provincial Mods take place throughout Scotland every year between May and September and there's an annual gathering of Gaels at the Mod Vancouver in May and the Mod USA in September.

A more recent initiative to preserve and celebrate the culture is the Feisean nan Gaidheal. Fèis pronounced faysh (plural Fèisean) is the Gaelic for a festival or feast. The word has become associated with the Fèis movement: Gaelic arts tuition festivals, mainly for young people, which take place throughout Scotland.

The Fèis movement came about in 1981 when a group of parents on the Isle of Barra seeing the local traditions dying out took it upon themselves to teach their children.

As word of the success spread, many other communities across the country followed suit. 18 years on, there are now over 30 Fèisean in which more than 3,500 young people participate. Fèisean nan Gàidheal's work includes running 1,350 community tuition workshops and holding showcase concerts at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness.

Meanwhile, on the Isle of Lewis, the Hebridean Celtic Festival has, since 1995, become one of the most eagerly awaited attractions on the Celtic music calendar. Held in mid July, the Festival is staged in the scenic grounds of Lews Castle, Stornoway and delivers a high quality professional programme featuring major artists from the Celtic music genre. Great emphasis is also placed on promoting Gaelic language and culture within an international programme. The unique location, the friendly welcome, and fantastically enthusiastic audiences make this festival highly attractive and along with Glasgow's Celtic Connections has done an enormous amount to bring this dynamic music to a wider audience.

Stornoway is also home to Proisneact Nan Ealan (The Gaelic Arts Agency), the key development agency for the Gaelic arts in Scotland. Since its inception in 1987 it has developed and piloted a huge range of arts and cultural initiatives to increase the visibility of Gaelic. Its success is impressive: Gaelic now contributes more than £40m to the economy every year. Its latest initiative is undoubtedly its most ambitious – Leabhar Mor na Gaidhlig (The Great Book of Gaelic) a 21st Century 'Book of Kells' bringing together the work of more than 200 visual artists, poets and calligraphers from Scotland and Ireland. With publication by the innovative Edinburgh-based Canongate, a touring exhibition of the 100 artworks starting at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow in November and moving to Dublin via the USA in 2003, a 90-minute BBC film by Murray Grigor, a schools pack, a music CD and an events programme stretching over five years this project is set to place Gaelic well and truly on the modern cultural world map.*

The new Calum Colvin exhibition opening at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh on October 4th, recognises the cultural significance of the Gaelic language with the Gallery's first bilingual catalogue (English and Gaelic). The exhibition – titled Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry – questions the assumption that photographs are reliable and objective recorders of 'truth' and is inspired by James Macpherson's controversial "translations" of Gaelic poetry (1760).

*Watch this space for further information on the Great Book of Gaelic.