Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

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8 3 25 20120622 25 Dragoons play on his German flute; which he does very well: he has also a pair of Irish Bag- pipes, with which he can play in concert; they having sixteen notes, and the Scotch but nine. He has no pipe to put to his mouth, and but very little motion with his arm; his fingers do the chief. You shall hear him on Monday, if you please; and I hope you will please. (p. 277) August 1st, 1751... my venerable Oak: The sol- dier that played on the German Flute so well, whilst I sat under it, is returned to Worcester, which I am sorry for; it sounded so well amongst the trees as I walked in my little wood; and even his bagpipes were not disagreeable. He played on both on my birthday [St Swithin’s Day], whilst we bowled, and had our syllabub out of doors; for I had no entertainment to offer but des amusemens champétres. (p. 285) Lady Luxborough is typical of English writers of the eighteenth century in defining Scottish pipes (by implication) as being mouth-blown. In fact bellows-blown pipes were common in Scotland during the century, and were found in the Highlands as well as the Lowlands. 3 EGAN PIPES FROM DUBLIN Egan of Dublin was, according to an entry in the register of the Royal Irish Academy, the maker of the ivory bellows pipes of 1768 which later belonged to Lord Edward Fitzger- ald and which is now in the National Museum of Ireland (Seán Donnelly, ‘Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s Pipes’, Ceol vol. VI, no 1, Apr. 1983: 7). Nothing else definite is known about Egan. His existence and the fact that he had a reputation as a pipemaker is confirmed how- ever by an advertisement in The Morning Post and Daily Advertiser of London on 20 Sep- tember 1779: Wants a Place, a young man, who is thoroughly acquainted with all the branches of servitude, either in a family or with a single gentleman; as he dresses hair well and expeditiously he would prefer a single gentleman, having lived in that capacity lately. The same person has a very handsome pair of Irish Bag-pipes, by the real old Egan in Dublin, made for a nobleman deceased. Any single gentleman wanting a ser- vant, or a pair of Bag-pipes, or both, by direct- ing a line to C.C. at Mr. King’s, hair-dresser, Shug-lane, Haymarket, shall be immediately waited upon. He can have an undeniable char- acter from his last place, where he lived two years and a half. This young piper was doubtless the ‘Murphy, Player of the Irish Pipes’, who later advertised in Edinburgh for a place in service as a musi- cal dresser or butler (The Caledonian Mercury, Edinburgh, 26 July 1787). John Murphy be- came a celebrated professional ‘Irish piper’ and ‘union piper’ in London and Scotland, and was musician in residence to the Earl of Eglinton. He published a Collection of Irish Airs and Jiggs with Variations in Paisley about 1810, and died in London in 1818. 4 O’FARRELL A PIPEMAKER As is well known, the Irish piper P. O’Farrell was also a stage recitalist in London and else- where in the early 1800s, notably in product- ions of the Ossianic ballet pantomime Oscar and Malvina, and during the first two decades of the century he edited and published there important collections of Irish and Scottish music which are still in use: O Farrell’s Col- lection of National Irish Music for the Union Pipes and the later four volumes of his O Far- rells Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes. On the title-page of his first publication of 1804, O’Farrell says that ‘Gentlemen may Likewise be Accommodated with Real Toned Irish Pipes’, and he also publicises this service in a news- paper advertisement of 1805: ‘Gentlemen may be accommodated with the most elegant toned Pipes, with the newest Improvements’ (The Morning Post, London, 15 June 1805). It now seems clear from other newspaper advertise- ments that O’Farrell himself was the maker of

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