Well, all the stuff they say about Gaelic cultures is fraudulent. Playing music at a Highland Games doesn't mean they met any criteria, especially as they may have b.s.ed their way in by pushing the pretendian angle as a curiosity for the white audiences.
The Highland Games are basically white people pow wows. Some are very traditional - family reunions for Scottish people and people with Scottish heritage, where merchants and performers are auditioned and chosen for cultural accuracy. Others are total debacles, like the infamous east coast, white people pow wows that are horrific, newage, pretendian dress-up parties. Most are somewhere on the continuum in between. The more tourists that attend, and the more the event is aimed at making money, the less accuracy is to be expected from performers and vendors.
In all the years this thread has been up, these people have not gotten more involved in any authentic cultural preservation community of any kind. From what I can tell, they've just gotten more outlandish with their claims and scams. I think whatever benefit of the doubt we were willing to initially give them, assuming they were just ignorant, was too generous on our part. I think it's clear now they are scammers.
