There are a few video clips of Cathal doing his party piece of playing 2 whistles at the same time on “Youtube”, but this was the first time I saw him do it, at Aberdeen Folk Club in 1983 - audio only, no “videos” in those days. There is a second track with him playing his variations on “Doctor O’Neill” on flute :
https://youtu.be/txlm4FhMBPg
My first Irish flute teacher would do that.
He did it by taping the top 3 holes on one whistle, that whistle becoming the bottom-hand whistle, and playing the top hand on a second whistle. He played McLeod’s Reel. He said the trick was finding the right tunes.
I do that on the Scottish pipes, I’ve plugged the top holes on one chanter, and certain holes on the other chanter, so each hand has its own.
You mean like this?
I wonder if that’s a whistle thing (the windows could be in back) or a reed thing.
Very common in ancient Greece and Rome was to play a pair of shawms (double-reeds, the precursor to the oboe) which the Greeks called Aulos and the Romans called Tibia. Aulos competitions were part of the original Olympic Games, I read somewhere.
With two pipes you probably had harmony playing, especially as they often can be seen with pipes of two sizes.
Even though we know the Aulos was a reed instrument the word is to this day mistranslated into English as “flute”.
Folk versions often have single reeds, like modern drone reeds.