Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

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9 1 28 20130207 28 ~ SEANCHAS ~ A DARK KNIGHT L ES LORDS LIEUTENANTS D'IRLANDE... ont le droit de créer chevalier qui il leur plait, ils en ont quelques fois fait une plaisanterie assez mal placée, à ce que je pense. le duc de Rutland, après avoir un peu bù, fut si charmé d’un certain aveugle, joueur de corne- muse, qu’il lui ordonna dè se mettre à genoux et le créa Chevalier avec l’epée et l’accollade. Cet homme depuis ce temps se nomme Sir Denis * * *, il continue cependant son premier métier et va jouer dans les maisons pendant le diner, c’est un homme vraiment habile sur son instrument, dont j’avoue à ma honte que je ne fuis pas grand amateur’. [The Lords Lieutenant of Ireland... have the right to make whomsoever they please a knight, and as a result they have sometimes made, in my opinion, the odd pretty unfunny jest. The Duke of Rutland, after having had a drink or two, was so charmed with a certain blind bagpiper that he ordered him to go down on his knees and created him a knight by sword and by embracing him. This man since that time is called Sir Denis * * *. He continues however with his first way of life and goes to play in people’s houses during dinner. He is a man really skilled on the instrument, of which I must admit to my shame that I am not very fond. – present writer’s translation] From De Latocnaye, Promenade d’un Français dans l’Irlande, Dublin, 1797, pp. 110–11. Identi- cal in 2nd ed., Brunswick, 1801, p. 120. A published translation into English Rambles through Ireland. By a French Emigrant… Translated from the French of Monsieur De Latocnaye by an Irishman, vol. 1 [of 2], Dublin, 1798, pp. 165–6, identifies the piper as a ‘Denis O’Grady’, which seems confirmed by a later poetic reference to ‘O’Grady, that fam’d piping Knight’ (The Overseer, Cork, 5 July 1817). He was doubtless a bellows piper. Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1784 until his death in 1787. he was popular in Dublin for his conviviality and hospitality, and drank himself to death in office. – Nicholas Carolan D UBLIN FEIS CEOIL. Record entries—about eight hundred—signalised the 1923 Feis Ceoil… Strange… that there was but one entry each for senior and junior harp, and none at all for the Irish harp… The junior Irish bagpipes was awarded to Master Johnnie Doran (New Ross) and the senior was won by Mr. Liam Walsh (Waterford). It is regrettable that the old Irish Uillean (Shakespeare’s ‘Woollen’) pipes, like the Irish harp, will soon be a memory of things that are past. – The Musical Times, London, June 1923, p. 432 (Submitted by Nicholas Carolan) Johnnie Doran at the 1923 Feis Ceoil

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2013-02-06T00:00:00

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