Heres a picture of a great set of pipes made by Michael Egan in the early 1850's.
The set is now resting in a museum in Arrowtown, in the southerly tip of New Zealand.
They belonged to Patrick Galvin who O'Neill wrote about in his great work, 'Irish Minstrels and Musicians'
There's also a sketch of Galvin playing a different set too. Story has it that he left New Zealand 'in a hurry' but bought himself a new set when he returnes to Ireland.

Tommy Martin




If the picture doesn't show up go to www.tompipes.com and click pictures and go to the bottom of the page and you'll see it.

Nice pic. I love the bobbin hinge on the bellows.

djm

lovely.

Tommy:

I didn't know Egan was ever down under at all; and the place he left "in a hurry" was reportedly Liverpool. He was in New York by 1851. When does your story place him in Kiwiland, and where did you hear that?

Bill

Galvin left NZ in a hurry. Galvin in O'Neills was 'caught' through O'Neill's lens on a trip to Ireland where he bought a set of some sort.

Egan was Ireland, Liverpool, and finally New York.

Arrgh, I should read more carefully!

Thanks Kevin for posting the picture.
According to the curator of the museum, Galvin stabbed a lad in a row in a pub one night and fled.
His decendants still live in the area today though.

Also i think this is one of the sets that John Coughlan ordered from Egan while in New York but then he brought them to Austrailia where he may have crossed paths with Galvin. I could be wrong though.


Tommy

Well, in 1996, I visited Paddy Galvin's grave in Cardrona, where he lived in the south island of New Zealand. Cardrona is North of Arrowtown, and connected to it by a dirt track, the shortest route, over part of the Pisa range of mountains.
There's a neat, white picket fence around Paddy's grave, and that of his son, who lived till 1982. The dates on Paddy's stone says:
"Patrick Snr. 1840- 1929". Also in the same plot, is: Mary and Tom, twins
7-10-1906, and Patrick Jnr. 1866-1937. if you turn around opposite, there's John Stevens Galvin, son of Mary and Patrick Galvin, died July 21st, 1982,aged 78 years. John supported himself as a "Rabbiter", collecting the bounty on English rabbits that went wild, so wild "You couldn't go out the door without tripping over some of them!" This story I heard from Martin Curtis, a local postman and folkie, who knew the son. One story was that Galvin could play the pipes and the fiddle so well, that people would walk for a day or two, over the mountains, just to hear Paddy perform at dances, and weddings etc.
Supposedly, Galvin would get drunk and still keep playing, even when he was asleep. Short naps on automatic, "sleep-playing" mode, instead of sleepwalking!
Hey! I'm just repeating what I was told about him...Don't be disappointed, Go buy the bridge in Brooklyn !
At the Arrowtown "Lakes District Museum", the curator, David Clarke, never told me about Paddy "being on the run". Was he trying to protect my feelings? Anyway, Galvin's line drawing in O'Neill's entitled, "The Piper of the Antipodes", is rendered from a photograph,(and Galvin is not shown with the museum's set of pipes, but another set) that the Lake District Museum has in it's archive. I bought a copy ($35 NZD)
of the original photograph, and I gave a version of it to the Seattle piper's club, with some of my photo's of the museum set ,and some written blather, which they never published. I've got the stuff here at the house, in a box, that I'll have to find....the reason I cared so much about Paddy, is my middle name is Galvin (my mother's people are from co.Kerry) and when I read Francis O'Neill's book, "Irish Minstrels and Musicians" in 1973, I was amazed and happy to know that a Galvin, was a historic Irish Piper,
in a far-off land, that I thought I'd never visit. So I did visit, and made the pilgrimage, and true to relate: After playing at the grave, I played in the local pub in the Cardrona Hotel, and there was a woman there, from the national radio in Wellington, who invited me to be on the Wayne Mowatt radio show....Thus, I had packed houses to see me for the rest of my N.Z. tour, and since my foot got in the door, several other UP pipers got to be on that show, and get some notice....
All Thanks to Paddy Galvin !!
Sean Galvin Folsom
PS There's a young UP piper Galvin, that tours in Russia, for the Irish folk nuts there! Hit Google and check him out! SGF

"According to the curator of the museum, Galvin stabbed a lad in a row in a pub one night and fled. His decendants still live in the area today though. "

Interesting as Egan is supposed to have stabbed a customer in his workshop in Liverpool with a reamer made from a bayonet during a dispute over a set of pipes. He then left England in all haste for the "New World"

Well I looked, and looked, and found "The Box" got out the photos, edited the above post, and with some luck, and help from the computer expert daughter, get some photos up on the forum, of Patrick Galvin and his Pipes.
Martin Curtis, Folksinger and song writer (and an Englishman transplanted to New Zealand via Australia) had joined up with UP pipers Paul Yielder,and Ken Clark, who then took the Galvin Pipes out on loan from the museum, got them fixed up and going. Then Paul Yielder recorded 2 songs and 2 Kerry polkas,played on Galvin's Pipes, on Martin's cassette album entitled:
"Gin and Raspberry" "Cityfolk"#CFC004 published 1982.
David Clarke the curator, told me that he would love to hear me play
Patrick's Pipes, but he was afraid the glass case they were in would fall to pieces, if they opened it up to get the Galvin set out.
So boo-hoo on that "almost happened" but there's not many museums, anywhere, that will even contemplate such a possibility !
sean GALVIN folsom

Never mind Sean, I thought of doing this at the start of the thread but left it after another encounter with one of the less enchanting sides of this forum. Yes, you somehow expect Willie Rowsome had a look at that set too.

What's the ghostly stuff going on to the right of the chanter? (picture right. not the pipers right)

Perhaps the image caught fumes from a smoldering pipe or stogie.

Bitchin' pic!
What kind of print is that, I've seen those elsewhere - looks like a four color watercolor photorealist painting? Old postcards and the like.