The recent thread by Wyatt on his prospective choices for an instrument and some of the pictures that were shown made me wonder - what is the oddest or most complex set ever built.

Some contenders would be
The Source shows a set from the Bowes Museum that looks pretty odd
There is the Taylor Beattie and Burke sets (Pat Sky's Tutor and IMM)
The Robert Reid set in the Nationel Museum of Scotland
The Hennely 'Skyscraper' drone set (Pat Sky's Tutor and The Source)

but am sure there are others

Qwop Maguire's uilleann harp is probably the most complex set I've ever seen or heard. The frame of the harp sits sideways on the stock, encompassing 20 wire strings. Maguire was the only person that could play it in a proper manner. The chanter was angled through a gap in the strings enabling him to pluck the strings with either left or right hand depending on the fingering needed to sound the chanter. The set had six regulators and five drones with double bores, each drone with it's own stop key. It sounded like an orchestra with everything going, loud as heck, but was hell to keep in tune. Qwop claimed it was a on off prototype built by the Taylor Bros. just before they emigrated to Americky. The chanter had 10 keys and a double bore. Qwop's daughter, who lives in Ballygob, Co. Down,has the set now under her bed. It really ought to be in a museum.

The Boston Egan:



The Vandeleur Moloney (and maybe the Dave Williams 'paperclip set' for Marc Guilloux that was inspired by it).




Along the same lines the 'Capt Kelly' Egan/Colgan (although I believe there's another set claiming the Kelly tittle).



Then there's a plethora of sets, with extended bass regs and additional regs that would possibly better qualify as 'extended' rather than 'complex'. Note most extended bass regs (down to D, typically) have fallen by the wayside, both in old sets that had them and modern sets made for ambitious pipers. Too heavy, too fussy.

"The Set With the Rollbar" as someone coined it.

Hi Kevin,
I was hoping you would show with that set! It sounds as great as it looks.

Hi Thomas

Would this be the set dug up in a field near Drogheda around 1917?

Chris

Other photos
viewtopic.php?p=942710

RORY

"Would this be the set dug up in a field near Drogheda around 1917?" Chris.

That's the one Chris, complete with elder reeds