Real Name: Lou McBride

SCA Name & title: Baron Cormacc mac Gilla Brigde

Years in the SCA: 12 active but my first SCA even was in 1997 with a huge gap to 2010 because of life.

How did you find out about the SCA? A local Newspaper, then I was brought to my first SCA activities by my friend Cyndi who I occasionally run into at Pennsic

Where did you start, what was your first event? My first Event was an Endless Hills 12th night.

What is your persona? Early 11th century Irishman who fought at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 in the Munster army of High King Brian Boru.

Why did you pick this persona? I wanted to do Irish, and it seems like the most interesting time for me.

Do you have any group or household affiliations? Duchy of Arindale as Squire to Duke Timothy

Tell us a little bit about your life outside the SCA – I have two amazing sons and I have worked for Amazon since 2012.

What SCA activities do you or have you participated in? Shenanigans and heavy fighting mostly, but I occasionally fence (mostly at war,) I throw, and shoot archery when there is time. I love work in feast kitchens and do over fire cooking, and I have been known to so some woodworking.

Tell us a little bit about your SCA experience (jobs, offices, duties, etc.) I am currently the Region 3 Heavy Marshal and have been for a while, I am also a Combat Archer and a Fencing Marshal. I have been a knight marshal of Endless Hills, and Zule Herald of Endless Hills. I have been event steward for about a dozen events, and head cook for 4 events. I was also Captain of the Queen’s Guard for Duchess Gabrielle.

When you started in the SCA what goals did you have? To become a knight.

What are your goals now? To be the best fighter I can be, I understand now I can’t control what happens with polling orders, but I can control how I act, and how hard I work. I also want to bring more cooking with period technology to events.

What was the most intimidating thing you encountered in the SCA? Duke Dietrich’s footwork…seriously though I have been lucky in being part of such a great household I learned early not to be intimidated.

After the unexpected shutdown ends, what is one thing you would like to accomplish in the SCA? To help the society build back better. We lost a lot of good people the pandemic, but more importantly we lost a lot of problematic people. I would really like to help replace those people with new people who feel more welcome than they were before. Particularly, I would love to see more younger heavy fighters, more cis female, female presenting and gender fluid heavy fighters as well as more siege engineers and combat archers.

What advice would you give to a new person in the SCA, or if new yourself what question would you ask and who would you ask it of? The SCA is a long show path, a have fun, meet all the people, try all the things, and take time to decide before you join a household or enter a Student/Teacher relationship.

If you magically woke up with an SCA talent you do not already have, what would it be? Tablet Weaving: I really want more tablet women trim, but I can’t afford to pay fair Price and also don’t want to rip off my friends.

If you had to join the SCA in another “era” (1970, 1980, etc.), what “era” would you pick and why? I would have loved to have been able to afford to stick with it when I joined in 1997, I would be 25 years in the SCA right now.

Don’t be modest, what award or honor would you like to receive above all else and why? Order of the Cornelian. I have 2 grant level awards a Gage and a Millrind. Both of them say I worked hard, and people noticed. The cornelian says people believe I am a good, kind, and courteous person. To me that matter more than being a good fighter or good at service.

If you could pick one thing you would like to see more of in the SCA, what would it be? More events with settings away from cars and modern things. It drives me nuts when you see a great picture of someone that is ruined because there is a car in the background. I would love it if people dropped their stuff and moved there car away. I know this is difficult for some people, and I accept that, but some able-bodied people are just don’t care enough to move their car.

I would also love to see more people get into their persona beyond some clothes and a fighting kit.

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