John Keenan Snr.

[PJ]

On Paddy's website, he has a few photos of his father, John Snr., playing a lefty Tayloresque set.



Anybody know anything about the set?

[myles]

Could be an O'Mealy?

[Mr.Gumby]

Looks like one of Alen MacWeeney's photographs. There are none of John sr in hi book as far as I remember but there is at least one of Paddy and John jr. And of the Fureys. Recordings from that time with it too.

There are more extensive series of them online although I can't remember exactly where right now (definitely one North Co Dublin library site but others too).

[Ceann Cromtha]

Patrick, I can’t see the image, but can access the link. Wow, those are great pictures! (Regarding the Baby Paddy picture, the John Lee Hooker line from “Boogie Chillen” comes to mind: “Let that boy boogie-woogie. It's in him and it got to come out.”)

[an seanduine]

The MacWeeney book is stellar. I do think I recall some pics of John, Sr.The recordings of the Furey's and the Keenan's are good as well. Pity MacWeeney had some sort of falling out with old man Furey, or there could have been even more piping.

Bob

[Mr.Gumby]

I do think I recall some pics of John, Sr.

I have seen some of them, I just wasn't sure it was in the book. Above was a pre-coffee post, if you know what I mean, those can be a bit off the cuff. There was a documentary, done by MacWeeney himself probably, in which he revisited some of the people he photographed, that was also very nice.

And apart from the CD with recordings of traveler musicians and singers that came with the book he also produced an lp on the Lyrichord label of similar material.Don't know what year that was (I have it here but can't see a date on either the disc or the sleeve).


If you're into that sort of thing, Jim Maginn's music photos in 'The Light of Other Days' are superb and if it's traveler photos you want I recently found Mathias Oppersdorff's 'People of the Road' and it's a superb collection (and I got a copy for very little money on Amazon or ebay, around a fiver. ISBN 0-8156-0476-9). No pipers in the latter but there's a great one of the Pecker Dunne in it.

[Steampacket]

On Paddy's website, he has a few photos of his father, John Snr., playing a lefty Tayloresque set. Anybody know anything about the set? PJ

I think it could be a McFadden set

[Roger O'Keeffe]

I got my first practice set from John Senior in, I think, 1971.

At the time, John was spending some time with Matt Kiernan learning about pipe-making, and he certainly made the bag and bellows. He was very proud of the bellows: he told me repeatedly "That's a bellows that'll last you a natural lifetime" and it is indeed still airtight 48 years later. I only discovered decades later that the expression "a natural lifetime" was commonly used in long-term agricultural leases, before the 19th-Century land reforms.

I don't know if John did any of the turning or other work on the chanter, but it does have a barely-legible Matt Kiernan stamp on it, so it is quality-controlled by Matt. It's boxwood, and it is perfectly in tune and produces a rather mellow sound, which is probably a good thing for a beginner's set.

It has been lying unused for many years, though I did get it reeded some years ago.

I saw recently that NPU is asking for unused practice sets to be donated to the club for the "pipes on loan" scheme, which seems like a good idea. However, because of its history, I would rather like this set to go to someone who will keep the whole set together. Then it struck me that if I sell it, I could donate the proceeds of the sale to the club as a charitable donation, which would give the club a tax rebate making the donation worth more than the cash value of the set.

I live in Dublin now, so could let any potential buyer within reasonable distance try it out.

Could anyone give me an idea of what it might be worth?