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TO CLOSE HIS POTTSTOWN SHOP
After ten years, Ian Turnbull plans to close the Celtic Glen, his ten-year old store on High Street in Pottstown on March 1.
Turnbull is a familiar face to attendees of the annual Robbie Burns Birthday Bash in Phoenixville each January; he has served as toastmaster for the event and conducted the carrying-in of the Haggis every year since the first celebration in 2001 and will be on hand in that role for the 2009 party at Sly Fox Brewhouse & Eatery on January 23.
Turnbull was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and raised in the Scottish Borders, an area covering eighteen hundred square miles which stretches from the rolling hills and moorland in the west of the country to the high agricultural plains of the east and then on to the rocky Berwickshire coastline with its secluded coves and picturesque fishing villages. In the photo at left, he points to the land of his childhood on a map of Scotland on the wall at Celtic Glen.
Robert Burns, of course, is Scotland's most famous poet and one of the towering figures in the history of English Literature. "The Burns Society puts Burns on par with Shakespeare," Turnbull noted, "He had a lot intellectual friends and after he died they decided to celebrate his life with a party every year after his passing. That event has come to be celebrated all over the world and the Sly Fox evening is a part of all that, one which is marked by the consumption of Brian O'Reilly's wonderful Scottish beers rather than the Scotch Whiskey of which he was so fond."
the poet's enduring popularity is due not only to such enduring masterpieces as Tam o' Shanter, one of the great narrative poems in English Literature, but because his Auld Lang Syne is arguably one of the most famous poems ever written, its opening lines sung around the world every New Year's Eve. Sly Fox's Gang Aft Agley Scotch Ale, takes its name from another famous Burns' line: The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley...
"You might want to tell all those Sly Fox fans who have learned a bit about Robbie Burns and Scottish lore over the years that about half the stock at Celtic Glen will be marked 50% off from now until closing," Turnbull added.