Chiff and Fipple Forums

Allow me to be among the first to congratulate Nick Whitmer for his work in creating the amazing new online resource, Lives of the Pipers, an incredible archive of biographies and photos of pipers in the United States between 1850 and 1950, many of them previously undocumented.

I have spent the last several days enjoying this collection, and marvelling at the amount of work that went into it. Over the years I have written two biographies of old pipers for An Piobaire - one on Michael Anderson and another on John Cummings - so have an idea of the amount of work that goes into researching these kinds of histories. The fact that Nick has done this work for about 30 pipers is astounding.

Thank you Nick for this invaluable contribution not only to the history of piping, but to the history of Irish traditional music more broadly.

Rick

Excellent work indeed.
I spent a great evening talking to Nick a few years ago about some of these pipers and others too.
He is a fountain of knowledge indeed!


Tommy

Gentlemen,

Thanks for the kind words.

I just put up another biography, of James C. McAuliffe, the first Irish or uilleann piper to make commercial recordings (1899) - in North America, anyway.

I'll be adding more bios from time to time.

Regards,

Nick

Great article on Michael Carney that was just published in An Píobaire too! Thanks for all the fine research you've been doing!

I have added a biography of Michael Carney to the website. It was first published, just recently, in NPU's An Piobaire. On the web here with their permission.

Nick

Great work Nick. Did Tom Busby not make the cut time wise?

Thanks.

Neil

Did Tom Busby not make the cut time wise?

Neil,

Busby is on my list but it will be some time before a bio appears.

Nick

If only I could find out more about Joe Tierney.
A piper from St Louis. I found 1 reference of him playing in New York city in 1892.
Another mention of "a piper from St Louis" playing at an event in St Joseph,MO, but no name mentioned.

No mention of him in 1904 at the Fair but he could have died or moved away.
But then, the locals usually don't get invited to participate in bigger events.

Adam Tobin was the piper of choice for feis dancing competitions in St Louis and most of the pipers on Nicks list played here with touring shows.

But the search for Tierney is still on!


Tommy

Recently I added another photo to the entry for Barney Delaney, and added more information to the bio of John Hicks, one of the few pipers known to be a US Civil War veteran.
http://livesofthepipers.com/index.htm

Enjoy!

Nick Whitmer

Brilliant work as always, Nick. Thank you.

Rick