Featured Galleries in "Classic Sets"
Set made by Denis Harrington in Cork in the 1850s. It was sent from America to Leo Rowsome in part payment for a new set of Leo’s making, and in the 1950s it was purchased from Leo by Ronan Browne’s parents. Ronan has been playing the set for many years and, along with Geoff Wooff, has made the name of Harrington celebrated throughout the piping world.
In Irish Minstrels and Musicians (Chicago 1913), Francis O’Neill was able to provide only the scantiest information on Harrington’s career:
Harrington . . . was the son of a small farmer, but he couldn’t be kept away from music. He went to the city and lived on Hanover Street, where our informant often saw him making pipes. “Over fifty years ago,” says Mr. O’Neill, “the first exhibition in Cork was held. Harrington made a set of Irish pipes for the occasion. The keys and ferrules were of silver, and he sold them at the exhibition for fifty pounds. At the Munster Feis at Cork, about eight years ago, I complimented one of the pipers, named Cash, from the county of Wicklow, on the beauty of his pipes. He drew my attention to the words, ‘Harrington, Cork,’ branded on every stick of them. I have an old set of Harrington’s make left me by a piper named John O’Neill.”
Discouraged by the direful condition of affairs resulting from the famine, Harrington emigrated to America and all trace of him was lost.
This set was made by Leo Rowsome for Dubliner Seán Seery,
the son of one of Leo’s friends in the Dublin Pipers Club. Seán
was a student of Leo’s at the Club and also at the Municipal
School of Music. It is unique among sets made by Leo in
having a soundbox on the baritone drone as well as the bass.
Seán was born into a musical family. His father Jim was
originally from Rathconrath, near Mullingar, but was settled
in Stoneybatter in Dublin when Seán was born. He was
one of the founder-members of the Dublin Pipers Club and
served as Treasurer of that body, a position which he also
filled with the newly founded Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann
in 1951, which he also helped to found.
Seán was a very successful piper in competition,
winning the ‘triple crown’ of piping in the late 1940s – the
Dublin Feis, the Oireachtas and the Feis Ceoil. He was also
a member of Leo Rowsome’s piping quartets, along with Jim
Dowling and Tommy McCarthy in one phase, and in another
with Leo’s son Leon and Willie Clancy. His death in late 2002
closed a contribution of fifty years to piping in Dublin.
Set made originally for Patsy Touhey by the Taylor Brothers of Philadelphia.
Francis O’Neill wrote of the Taylors as follows:
We are credibly informed that Highland pipes, as well as Irish pipes, were anufactured by the Taylors in Drogheda, and it is quite probable such was the case, because Highland pipes were turned out in the Philadelphia shop. Some medals were awarded the Taylors at the Centennial Exposition held in that city in 1875. The renowned musician and mechanic died in 1901, and his brother “Charley” followed him in about a year, but as neither had ventured to embark on the stormy sea of matrimony there were neither widows nor orphans to mourn their loss. They were sincerely lamented,
however, by all the Irish pipers in the land, for to them the death of the Taylors was a veritable calamity. (Irish Minstrels and Musicians, Chicago 1913)
On the death of Patsy Touhey in 1923 the pipes passed into the possession first of Mike Carney and then his niece Annie – both left-handed pipers like Touhey. Annie subsequently married the New York piper Tom Busby, and in the 1970s they gifted the set to Seán Mac Ciarnán who now plays them.
The ownership of this set of pipes can be traced almost from the time of its manufacture to the present. They were made for John Coughlan (1837-1908) by Michael Egan – one of two sets that the famous pipemaker made for him in New York in the late 1850s. Egan had been induced to come to America by Coughlan’s father Thomas, and taught John for some time, as well as making the pipes for him.
John Coughlan became a celebrated piper in the United States, but emigrated to Australia in 1862, apprehensive at the disturbed conditions arising from the American Civil War. He settled in Melbourne, and later moved to Sydney. He acquired a great reputation as a piper and travelled throughout Australia, as well as to New Zealand, performing Irish music.
On his death in 1908 the pipes were bequeathed to his brother Tom, who was professionally known as “Tom Buckley, the Irish Comedian”. He travelled even further with them, bringing his comedy/music routine to India and throughout Australasia.
The ownership of the set is unclear for some time after this until they came into the possession of Australian piper Bill Crowe (an uncle of Joe Barry of Templemore), probably in 1945. Bill’s father Paddy, a Tipperary man, arrived in Australia in 1899, and Bill was born there. By occupation a fireman, he visited Ireland in 1956 taking the set with him. During a tour of Tara Street fire-station, he was introduced to “another mad piper”, Dan O’Dowd, who worked there. They struck up a relationship and Crowe stayed with the O’Dowds for some time before returning to Australia. Before he left he gave the Egan set to Dan.