Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

1

Galway Pipers THE PIPER WITHOUT PATRONAGE PIPERS WILL BE VERY FAMILIAR with the image shown here It was carried as an illustration in Francis O’Neill’s Irish Folk Music (Chicago, 1910) without explanation or attribution, and entitled ‘The Piper, without patronage’. Probably no other image of a piper has been more often recycled. The picture was drawn by Mrs. J. Lizzie Cloud, a columnist with the American periodical Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, and was included in her article in that journal in 1873 under the title ‘A Lone Woman in Ireland’. This extensive article ran to eleven and a half pages, with ten more illustrations of Irish country life by the author. The passage describing her encounter with the piper is re-printed below. The sun, softened by the humid air of this mild climate, where the wind seems tempered for the shorn lamb, shone with peculiar richness on the morning of our departure from Galway. For a few miles the road lay over a gently undulating country, beautifully shaded by overhanging trees, which retain so long their fresh green. It was market-day and the peasantry and small farmers, with their wives and children, were wending their way to the city with pigs, sheep, turf, and flannel. As I watched them with their bright garments, now dotting some sunny expanse, now disappearing in the shade of the trees, I thought their light steps seemed less laden with the weight of care than those of any mortals I had ever seen. After proceeding a while in this embowered road, where the solemn twilight was only broken by occasional gleams of the mid-day sun, we were startled by the shrill yet plaintive notes of the Irish bagpipe. By a spring which made a spot of way-side refreshment for the country people, was a humble cottage, whitewashed to a dazzling brilliancy, and by its door sat an old man, who played upon the pipes. While Flanigan [the coachman] regaled his pony, and lamented the absence of poteen for himself, I sketched the musician. “It is seldom,” said Flanigan, remarking upon the gratuity I had given in return for our entertainment, “that he sees the color of coin; a potato or a piece of turf is all that he gets for his music, for the real

10

20

[Periodical]

2014-02-14T00:00:00

anonymous,guest,friend,member