Irish and the playing of Scottish Bagpipes?

[wayneo]

I was wondering if in The Republic, the Irish play the Scottish Bagpipe on St. Patricks Day or much of all?
Wayneo

[Nanohedron]

First: Sounds like you assume the Irish celebrate the day the same as we Yanks do. In Ireland, St Patrick's Day is first and foremost a holy day, and if they hold parades, it would be within the past twenty years and due to American influence (and probably to please the tourists for that matter, as if the Irish should care that much to stoop to the practice). St. Patrick's Day parades are an American thing, begun in the States and held on that day originally to protest anti-Irish discrimination and bigotry and not out of any particular devotion to the saint, or that they thought Irish pride itself was worth a parade, nor to have an excuse for excessive drinking. Only after the Irish were assimilated into general US society and their ethnicity became a non-issue did the parades, and general American perception of them, transform into what they are now - complete with accompanying hoopla.

Second: Do look up your bagpipe history. While the Scots embraced the Great Pipes to such an enduring degree that the world understandably associates the two, the Great Pipes (or GHBs, if you like) always were and have remained a part of Irish musical life, only now not to the same degree as with the Scots. And since all species of bagpipe are the troublesome things that they are, when you have Uilleann Pipes, why indeed do you need that much more on your plate?

As to your question, someone else will have to tell you about the relationship of the Great Pipes and the Irish Republic on St. Patrick's Day, since I haven't been on hand to witness any of that. I understand that the Great Pipes may be found particularly in Donegal.

[CHasR]

Second: Do look up your bagpipe history. While the Scots embraced the Great Pipes to such an enduring degree that the world understandably associates the two, the Great Pipes (or GHBs, if you like) always were and have remained a part of Irish musical life, only now not to the same degree as with the Scots. And since all species of bagpipe are the troublesome things that they are, when you have Uilleann Pipes, why indeed do you need that much more on your plate?

bagpipes and their association with their country and/or ethnicity of origin are even more bothersome than reeds.
It is very difficult to seperate the instrument, 'the bagpipe'(any pipe) purely in and of itself, from its collective cultural baggage, wether or not that bagage becomes an asett or liability, musically speaking. unlike, say, the accordion, piano, harp, violin, flute, sax, or trumpet. (which all have their respective specific nationalities of origin)
So, today, in short, imho, everybody now has the opprotunity to excel authentically on everybody elses pipes: participation in the culture of origin notwithstanding.

have I actually said anything here???

[Nanohedron]

I've been wondering the same about myself, truth be told.

It's worth pointing out that the Great Pipes have historically been enough of a feature in Ireland that the Irish eventually saw fit to adopt a two-drone form of the instrument so as to make them identifiably "more Irish" (that was around the turn or so of the last century, IIRC), and Irish drone profiles and mountings tend to be different from those of the of the style of instrument as typically played by the Scots. Of course the two-drone, or Brian Boru, pipes (not to be confused with that devilish chanter of the same name) are not completely universal in Ireland as you do see the three-drone form, but when you see the two drones, you may safely assume that you are probably in the presence of a definitely Irish, or Irish-style, piper.

Certainly there are Irish pipe bands, and that means they'll be looking for any worthwhile excuse for a parade. St. Paddy's Day in Ireland, though? Couldn't tell you. Here's where the expert witnesses can help us.

[The Sporting Pitchfork]

The history of piping in Ireland is rather complicated because there was a break in the tradition. Piping in Gaelic society in both Ireland and Highland Scotland had been dependent on the patronage of the clan system. When that disappeared, the bottom fell out of the bucket, so to speak. In Ireland, the old tradition of playing on the 2-3 droned bagpipe that they called the píob mhór (i.e., what we now think of as the GHB) died out in the first half of the 18th century. The notion that the Irish invented the uilleann pipes in order to play their national music on a "quiet" bagpipe in secret because the old bagpipes had been outlawed by the British is entirely made up. The píob mhór died out in Ireland because there was no longer a system of patronage and, consequently, no real incentive to keep it up or teach it anymore. Mind you, the same thing was beginning to happen in Scotland, but the piping tradition there was saved in part by the concern of Highland societies and the adoption of the bagpipes as an instrument in Scottish Highland army regiments. However, many would argue that these parties in a way wound up destroying (or at the very least radically altering) the old tradition in order to save it.

In the late 19th centuries, both Republican and Unionist elements in Ireland took to the GHB in significant numbers as a way of expressing their polar opposition to one another. For Republicans, playing the instrument was perceived as a way of reviving an old Irish tradition (though there are no written records in Ireland of music that was played on the píob mhór); for Unionists, playing the instrument was a way of connecting with the North's significant Scottish heritage, which by this time was OK with expressions of Highland culture as being perceived as "Scottish" in general. In the Republic of Ireland, the instrument was adopted for army use, and in both the Republic and the North, some regiments used two-droned pipes or Brian Boru pipes, though this practice was phased out so that Irish pipers and pipe bands could compete in Scottish competitions. Virtually all bagpipe players in Ireland and Northern Ireland today play the standard GHB. Particularly in the Republic, the instrument is still sometimes referred to as the "(Irish) warpipes", a complete misnomer. In Donegal, there have been some players of the instrument since the 19th century, but this was due to local people routinely going to Scotland to do seasonal labor and not (as is sometimes erroneously stated) a holdover of the old Irish piping tradition. Scottish pipe tunes have strongly influenced the Donegal fiddle tradition as a result.

In general, the standard of playing in Ireland was relatively low until about the 1970s when more Ireland-based players began to compete abroad in Scotland. The two best-known pipe bands from Ireland are the Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band, which has its roots in Unionist South Belfast, and the St. Laurence O' Toole Pipe Band from Dublin. Field Marshal Montgomery has won the World Pipe Band Championship six times. St. Laurence O'Toole won the World Championship for the first time in 2010.

Several members of the Armagh Pipers Club play both GHB and uilleann pipes, as does Pat Broderick (son of the famous flute player/composer Vincent Broderick).

If you're really interested in the topic, the website Piper's Persuasion (http://www.piperspersuasion.com) features video interviews with Terry Tully (pipe major of St. Laurence O'Toole) and Richard Parkes (pipe major of Field Marshal Montgomery), both of which discuss the recent history and current state of GHB playing in both the Republic and the North.

[MTGuru]

Scottish pipe tunes have strongly influenced the Donegal fiddle tradition as a result.

As an aside ... I would think that the strong Scottish fiddle tradition has influenced Donegal fiddling directly at least as much as Scottish pipe tunes indirectly. Not that that's incompatible with your observation.

[wayneo]

Wow! Thanks for all the great information.
I thought that in Ireland St. Patrick's day was at one time more reserved than in the states.
I was curious if the GHB was played much in the Republic due to political reasons of the past.
I play both and it always struck me as funny whilst in kilt playing the GHB on St. Patrick's day,
that it was a Scottish instrument.
Finally, hooray for St. Patrick and those who keep the memory scared in their hearts.
All the best,
Wayneo

[s1m0n]

The GHP died out fairly recently. In the north, the traveling musician/tinker families - think Johnny Doherty - could boast of almost as many pipers (GHPs, UPs, or both) as fiddlers. If you look in Alan Feldman's (iirc) book, Northern Fiddler, there's a family tree of the Dohertys, the Cassidys & related families with what instruments each played noted. Many were able to play at least two and one or two in each generation played all three. Johnny's generation was the last one that spent almost the entirety of their musical lives before the revival.

[The Sporting Pitchfork]

That's certainly true. I think I remember reading that Johnny and Mickey Doherty's father played both Highland and uilleann pipes. There's a famous photograph (it might have been from O'Neil's "Irish Music and Musicians")that shows an uilleann piper from Donegal with a set of Highland pipes sitting behind him. Today, both types of pipers are a bit thin on the ground in Donegal, though young uilleann pipers like Ciarán Mac Fheilimidh may be the start of a comeback for uilleann pipers in the Donegal music tradition. Bear in mind that as I wrote earlier, musicians in Donegal who played the Highland pipes picked the instrument up at least initially through time spent in Scotland; it was not a holdover of the old Irish píob mhór tradition, as some people have claimed.

What little we know about the old Irish píob mhór tradition is that it was probably very similar to the old Scottish pìob mhór tradition. They probably would have played plenty of early jigs and reels. They certainly would have played what Scottish pipers today call pìobaireachd, or more properly, ceòl mór. When the Piobaireachd Society and Archibald Campbell of Kilberry began publishing their collections of ceòl mór, they made adamant claims that there was no evidence of any musical connection to Ireland in the music. These claims conveniently ignored scads of evidence to the contrary. We certainly know that musicians traveled between the two countries regularly for centuries. In the liner notes to his album "Dastirum", the Scottish piper Allan MacDonald recounts an anecdote of a 17th century MacDonald chieftain from North Uist who sent his younger brother to Kilkenny to study the much-admired Irish method for curing bacon. The brother was apparently also an avid piper and wrote back from Ireland that the Irish played many of the same tunes on the pipes "only with different names." Allan has found at least two ceòl mór tunes common to both countries: "Duncan MacRae of Kintail's Lament" is the Irish tune "March of the King of Laois." "MacNeill is Lord There" is another one that has a matching Irish tune whose title I can't recall. Angus MacKay's 19th century ceòl mór manuscript includes a tune called "The Frenzy of the Meeting" with the alternate title "Brian O'Duff's Lament." Another tune is accompanied by the postscript "One of the Irish pibrach." Certainly, lots of old Irish jigs have clear ceòl mór flavor to them--"The Humours of Ballyloughlin" (which was also known by the title "The Hurler's March") strikes me as a prime candidate.

[highland-piper]

St. Laurence O'Toole won the World Championship for the first time in 2010.

Just to point that out more directly -- the reigning World Champion pipe band is Irish. Last year it was Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, from Canada. It's pretty nifty that the GHB is played at such a high level in so many places.

It's interesting to observe how much influence GHB has on Scottish traditional music. Not so much in the distant past (when the fiddle was king) but in the present day, where so many great musicians play GHB. A lot of times fidders are playing modern tunes without even realizing that a piper composed them.

Hugh Cheape has a new book that examines the forensic record of the Great Highland Bagpipe, and he concludes that the instrument we know today was developed ("perfected" if you will) in the Victorian period. Piobaireachd, as it is played today, developed hand in hand with the instrument. It's a living art, and has been continuously changing through it's recorded history (going back to the mid 1700's).

[CHasR]

It's a living art, and has been continuously changing through it's recorded history (going back to the mid 1700's).

& to hammer THAT point home, uploaded today was a recording of tune from a Scots Guards LP from 1950: large numbers of pipers with hide & cane, playing perfectly complex traditional tunes, crashing rope tension drums, scrtached onto revolving wax by mesolithic power hungry mic's ahhhhh those were the days: when ya could blow a tube with a turn of a dial...none o this composite drone reed, electronically tuned high squealin pitched catty MCS poly blowpipe cr*p. thats what they meant by "ladies from hell" comrades.

sorry, digressed.

What I want to say is that the timbral concept of 'ghb pipeband' has changed radically and quite dramatically in only 60 years, imho.

[pancelticpiper]

Hugh Cheape has a new book that examines the forensic record of the Great Highland Bagpipe, and he concludes that the instrument we know today was developed ("perfected" if you will) in the Victorian period.

Actually somewhat before Queen Victoria took the throne, as Cheape credits Hugh Robertson (birth date unknown, married in 1754, died 1816) and Donald MacDonald (1767-1840) with developing the modern Highland pipe, in the second half of the 18th century.

About the Irish playing the GHB, back in the 70s we had here in LA a few elderly Irish musicians (uilleann pipes, fiddle, box), fellows who had been involved in the Irish independence movement in the teens and twenties. They had played GHB at that time and regarded the GHB as a patriotic Irish instrument.

[gregorygraham]

If you poke around on the uilleann pipes forum, you should find a discussion of Turlough MacSweeney of Donegal, who apparently played both uilleann pipes and those other things. There is a photo of Turlough with a set of both types of pipes which I recall seeing.

[Juan Pablo Plata]

I remember reading somewhere that Seamus Ennis played GHB, too.

[sean an piobaire]

Hola Juan !
Yes, Seamus Ennis BUSKED with the GHB on O'Connell Street ( in Dublin, natch ) in the 1940s.
This story was told to me by Dan Dowd, who started his own Piping with the GHB,
while being in (British) Jail for his part in the 1921 Civil War.
Seamus told me that the Rowsome Family were mere "Street Pipers" whilst He, Himself,
was a proponent of the refined "Drawing Room" style of "Closed" or "Tight" (fingering)
Piping. When I mentioned this to Dan, Dan gave a Laugh and told me about Seamus
playing in the street......it was just part of the contradictions in Seamus' personality.
Of course, everyone has their own set of contradictions, myself included.
It's Damned Hard to keep track of all of them !
Sean Folsom