Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

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8 3 24 20120622 24 O NGOING PROGRAMMES of digitising his- toric newspapers and books continue to make significant new information on the early history of the uilleann pipes avail- able to researchers. The following items were among those found in the course of researching the essay ‘Courtney’s “Union Pipes” and the Terminology of the Irish Bellows-Blown Bag- pipes’, which is now freely downloadable as a pdf from the website of the Irish Traditional Music Archive at www.itma.ie/digitallibrary. The references quoted there in truncated form are given fully here. 1 DATE OF GEOGHEGAN’S TUTOR Seán Donnelly’s discovery that 1743 was the publication date of John Geoghegan’s tutor and tunebook The Compleat Tutor for the Pastoral or New Bagpipe (An Píobaire vol. 4, no 7, Sept. 2008: 26–7) has been confirmed by the discovery of an advertisement for it (along with newly published collections of Scottish tunes and songs, and sonatas for the German flute) in The Daily Advertiser of London for 29 September 1743 and subsequent issues: NEW MUSICK. This day is publish’d The Complete [sic] Tutor for the Pastoral or new Bagpipe; containing all the necessary Instruct- ions for such as are desirous to play that In- strument, and attain the true Knowledge of all the Principles thereof. Never before publish’d. Wrote by MR. JOHN GEOGHEGAN. To which is added, A Collection of familiar Airs, light Jigs, Hornpipes, &c. curiously adapted to that Instrument. Note, The Tunes are proper for the Violin or Hautboy. Printed for John Simpson, at the Bass Viol and Flute in Swithin’s Alley, opposite the East Door of the Royal Exchange; where may be had, Bagpipes, and Books of Instruction for the Violin, German Flute, Harpsichord, Common Flute, Hautboy, French Horn, and Singing. Geoghegan’s Tutor was the first publication in English for the bellows pipes. His chromatic instrument had a range of more than two oc- taves, and, to a degree not yet properly under- stood, his tutor is an important document in the history of the uilleann pipes. Geoghegan had undoubted Co Westmeath connections, what- ever about the connections of his pastoral bag- pipes. Confirmation of the tutor’s publication date provides a firm basis for further research. 2 LADY LUXBOROUGH’S IRISH PIPES The first-known explicit reference to an ‘Irish bagpipes’ of two octaves powered by a bellows is to be found in an English letter of 1751 writ- ten by Henrietta Knight, Lady Luxborough (c. 1700–56), from Barrells Hall, Warwickshire, to the poet William Shenstone in London, and published in the volume Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Lady Luxborough to William Shenstone, Esq. (Dodsley, London, 1775). The musician she refers to was a trooper belonging to ‘Captain Robinson’s Troop’ which was guarding horses on her estate: July 10th, 1751... I sat last night agreeably, though alone, hearing one of the Grass-Guard ~ Seanchas ~ NEWS FROM ENGLAND Nicholas Carolan

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2012-07-01T00:00:00

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