Earlier today I went for a walk in the Seven Woods of Coole Park.
In the visitors centre I found this image on display. In an accompanying extract from the childhoodmemories of Lady Augusta Gregory’s granddaughters (from their book ‘Me and Nu’) the piper was named as ‘Curly the Piper’. He visited the house in Coole regularly and was made welcome by Lady Gregory and he sometimes entertained the guests. Lady G. also collected stories and folklore from him.
I know, it looks like someone photoshopped a pic of Stephen Ruane into a Gregory family snap to make a nice exhibit. It’s a good story though.
THERE’S many a strong farmer
Whose heart would break in two,
If he could see the townland
That we are riding to;
Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
That photo of poor old Curly used to be on the old NPU website photo section. I always thought it looked like the photo was taken just as Curly was about to sit down and was told by some person in authority to get his backside off the park bench! Either that or he’s sitting on a biscuit tin placed on the bench. Strange. Seems an uncomfortable way to play the pipes.
The angle of the shadow thrown by Curly’s leg seems the same as the shadows thrown by the group of toffs. Perhaps the detatched appearance of the background is some peculirity of tin-type photographs.
He is sitting with one cheek on an iron arm placed midway in the bench. If you look at the arm on the end of the bench, and then look at the piper’s feet, you will see the iron leg behind his foot.
No they don’t. Amazing how people can be foodled by a hat!
Some things to look at. Different face shape. Ruane has perfect posture… the other gent doesn’t and is quite hunched… maybe he was just popping a note or something?
Look at the bass drone also. The support strut on the bend is closer to the bend on Curly’s pipes by a good few inches.
Where do I know the Curly picture from? Is it in IM&M? … .just read back… the NPU site, yeah. I read more information on this photo somewhere… anyone had any luck in the NPU archive? I’ve looked with no success.
I wouldn’t count the posture. The piper could have been playing when one photo was taken and posing for the other. I know from bitter personal experience that I have the posture and expression of a troll when I’m concentrating on my playing (even worse when I have my teeth out ).
What you’re calling the strut on Curly’s pipes is more likely a shadow.
Isabella Augusta Persse was born in 1852, and married into the Gregory family (which owned Coole Park) in 1880. She was associated with Yeats from 1899 on, and died in 1932.
I’m guessing she was in her 60s or 70s in the photo, which would be roughly 1912 or later. Yeats (to the left of Lady Gregory) wrote “In the Seven Woods” in 1904, and “The Wild Swans at Coole” in 1917.
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