Celebrating Burns Night in Johnson City, Tennessee
- caseynicholson
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
It was a cold and wet January 25th, a day when all of Appalachia was supposed to be snowed in before an unexpected warm front turned the snow to rain in northeast Tennessee. That sounds almost poetic, doesn't it? Well, it should, because the reprieve from the weather gave us the excuse we needed to get out of the house for a bit and take in a fun outing in Johnson City, where Mulligan’s Irish Pub was hosting a Burns Night celebration.
Burns Night
Right about now you may be wondering what in the world is Burns Night? If so, you’ve never been to Bonnie Scotland, the place that celebrates the birthday of the country’s most famous poet laureate of the past, Robert Burns, every year on January 25th. The 18th-century poet became Scotland’s best-known wordsmith, penning rockers like “To A Mouse” and “A Man’s A Man for A’ That”.
Not familiar with those? Well, there’s one Burns poem that you almost certainly do know. In fact, you may have sung this particular Robert Burns poem as the ball dropped to welcome in 2026 at the beginning of this month. Burns’ most widely known poem is “Auld Lang Syne”, now sung at the crack of midnight each and every New Year’s Eve.
Robert Burns died unexpectedly at the age of 37 in 1796, just twenty days after Tennessee gained entry into the United States. He became a legendary figure in Scottish history, and his birthday is now recognized as a national holiday by the Scottish Parliament. In 2009, a survey by Scotland’s STV television network listed Burns as the greatest Scot to have ever lived.
Burns Night in Appalachia
That’s all fine and good, but why celebrate Burns Night in Appalachia? Well, lots of places in the US celebrate Scottish traditions, just like we celebrate the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, or have chips and salsa on Cinco de Mayo. Here in Appalachia, however, the notion of a Burns Night celebration is all the more logical, given the Scots-Irish influence in the European settling of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the 1700s.
We saw an ad for a Burns Night celebration at Mulligan’s Irish Pub in Johnson City, and that led to a lovely evening of food and fun. Why an Irish Pub and not a Scottish one, you may ask? Don’t ruin it for us, dear reader. Just go with the flow here.
The night began with Celtic tunes from Jenny and the Weazels, a local trio featuring fiddle, guitar, and bodhrán. This particular night the band played lively, driven fiddle tunes, and ones that very much reminded us of a Scottish ceilidh (a forerunner of the Appalachian square dance). The music reminded us of the influence that old fiddle tunes from the British isles have had on our own Appalachian culture in the form of Bluegrass and Old-Time music.
Burns Night at Mulligan's Irish Pub
Mulligan’s stylizes itself as a “gaming pub”, and there was evidence of that all around. A large assortment of board games could be found on a shelf near the seating area, where the spacious dining room featured several large tables, perfectly set up for board games and gatherings of four to eight-or-so people.
The pub is entering its fourth year in business, having been established in 2022. The kitchen featured standard Irish fare, including Shepherd’s pie. A traditional Burns Night would include the option for haggis, the Scottish mincemeat pudding that Burns paid tribute to in one of his poems. While the dish is made from sheep organs, Scottish folklore tells of the haggis as being a mythical creature, said to be native to the Scottish Highlands.
Mulligan’s left the haggis off the menu for the evening, so we opted for the fish and chips, which were well-fried and served with a side of coleslaw. We also had side salads, which featured crisp radishes and yummy beets, and then sampled the pub’s bread pudding with whiskey sauce for dessert.
After the band played, we were treated to a reading of some of Robert Burns’s most famous poems, read by local poet Brandon Bragg (main image, above). Bragg took his role for the evening both seriously and not so seriously, dressing up in garb that effectively made him a historical re-enactor, but also referring to himself as “A drunken poet celebrating a drunken poet.” Bragg, who holds a Masters degree in storytelling, is a member of the Johnson City Poets Collective.
All in all, this was a great night out. The pub wasn’t very crowded, probably due to the threat of bad weather, but it certainly deserved to have a larger audience for this neat throwback celebration that harkens back to Appalachian traditions from yesteryear. We recommend you try out Mulligan’s when you’re in Johnson City, and mark your calendar for January 25, 2027. Maybe you can find a Burns Night celebration in your neck of the woods next year, wherever you find yourself in the Appalachian Mountains.
