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Speech: Untitled [Part of a lecture on the uilleann pipes, containing the following topics: history of the pipes; emergence of the pipes at the beginning of the 18th century; Ledwidge (?) described a regulator as an innovation in 1790; O'Farrell (from Clonmel) wrote a tutor in 1803 / 1804; a tutor had already been published by Geoghegan in London in 1746 for a forerunner of the uilleann pipes known as the 'pastoral bagpipes'; O'Farrell published two other books, including the 'Pocket Companion'; until 1903 / 1904 these pipes were known as the 'union pipes', thereafter as 'uilleann pipes'; Grattan Flood proposed that in the reference to 'woollen pipes' in 'The Merchant of Venice', the word 'woollen' was a corruption of 'uilleann', meaning elbow; Grattan Flood's false etymology is the source of the use of the word 'uilleann' to refer to these pipes; in the 18th century the instrument was played by high and low society; Lord Rossmore in Monaghan, lord of 40,000 acres, was an excellent performer; piper Jackson published tunes, including Jackson's Morning Brush, in 1799; instrument played widely until 1850, when the quadrilles and sets began to supersede the older dances, and the concertina and melodeon began to be popular; a revival movement began in the 1890s, by which time the former professional pipers who survived were old and in poorhouses; as part of the revival, pipers' clubs were formed in Cork and Dublin; the piping tradition then in the same state as the harping tradition had been at the close of the previous century; Eamonn Ceannt and others of the Dublin pipers' club employed Nicholas Markey (born Meath? Louth?) to teach the pipes; Markey a pupil of Billy Taylor; tradition thus kept intact; the music for the pipes consists of jigs, reels, and hornpipes; jigs are extant in Ireland since the 16th century; reels since the latter part of the 18th century; first reels to appear in Ireland are Scottish reels like Lord McDonald, Lady Mary Ramsey, and Mrs McLeod; the hornpipe is an English form, imported about 1780; hornpipes, however, played in Ireland are Irish; Robbie (Hannan?), one of the pipers due to play after the lecture, plays a set of pipes made 150 years ago, thus representing the sound that people listened to in the 18th century; in Louth, there are accounts of pipers in the works of Carleton, esp. in his stories of the Irish peasantry from c. 1820; Carleton writes of the pipers Gaynor (possibly Dan Gaynor, attested elsewhere) and Cassidy; the Taylors (half-brothers Billy and Charlie) were the sons of a good piper; the Taylor family emigrated to the USA in 1870, where Billy and Charlie became famous pipemakers in Philadelphia; they died c. 1900; before emigrating, the Taylors taught Nicholas Markey and Pat Ward] [END OF BAND ONE]

Breathnach, Breandan - speech in English

Stage backdrop featuring a harp

Creation Location:
9th World Harp Congress; O'Reilly Hall, UCD, Dublin

Unidentified harp

Creation Location:
Malahide Castle, Dublin

Gráinne Yeats, seated playing harp

Creation Location:
Lecture: The Irish Harp by Aibhlín McCrann; 9th World Harp Congress, O'Reilly Hall, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4