http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230247792682&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:GB:1123
Set made by R.L. O’Mealy…a pipe maker I’m not familiar with. Can anyone shed light on this maker?
Thanks!
from the website of Bill Haneman:
Looks like the whole set is made out of the same brownish wood as the stock. Wonder if they’re in C#, which O’Meally favored.
“The pipes have brass regulators and the mounts and ferrels are ivory.”
Ivory ferrules, that would rule!
If they are genuine, this would be quite a nice set of pipes to own.
The seller is in Crianlarich, Central Scotland. Does anyone on the forum know him/her?
O’Mealy had a fairly unique style of piping, playing a counter melody on the regulators instead of harmonic or rhythmic accompaniment. There are clips of his piping on Ross Anderson’s website:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/index.html
There’s photos of him on D’Arcy’s website (Scroll down 3/4 page):
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/diary_2003.html
Eamonn Ceantt certainly had some thoughts on the wearing of costumes by uilleann pipers. 
One odd thing about this “O’Mealy” set is that O’Mealy is said not to have made tenor regulators (one usually sees “bari, bass, contrabass”, c.f. the set on the cover of this month’s An Piobaire, as played by the late Jim McIntosh). The pictures in eBay are too fuzzy to tell, but the tenor reg (and perhaps bari?) keys are not obviously O’Mealy tongue-depressor-style i.e. Tayloresque. I wonder if the whole set is O’Mealy?
Wood is probably Irish boxwood, that can be a different color from the Continental stuff…
Bill
I don’t know any pipers (or anyone else for that matter) in Crianlarich. Maybe Boyd, Davey or Liam know who it is.
I’d like to see some more close up shots of the set. It is in a Eugene Lambe box and there’s a Huge Euge bellows in there too… hmm… might it be an old Lambe set with an O’Meally bass regulator? I wonder where the stamp is? If it’s on one of the bellowses then that doesn’t tell us much.
Pat.
They have been stencile named by the previous owner, M. O’Malley.
Hi SS
The only player of uilleann pipes I know of in that area is Duncan McInnon and he lives in Killin, not Crianlarich.
David
I’m skeptical due to the time warp issues.
It seems like this auction should not have appeared on eBay until after the 27:th of September in about seventeen years.
What happens if I buy the set and meet the present owner, will the set disintegrate?
or
What happens at lunch on the 27:th of September 2025, a world ban for uilleann piping?
/M
FYI
I contacted the seller (via eBay) shortly after this topic was posted, and asked which parts of the set were stamped “O’MEALY”. I have received no reply.
regards
Bill
I also contacted the seller (two days ago) asking for better photos and to find out where it was stamped. No reply as of yet.
I contacted the seller (via eBay) shortly after this topic was posted, and asked which parts of the set were stamped “O’MEALY”. I have received no reply.
Well that makes at least three of us.
There is another maker - William Hamilton of Glasgow 1897-1973 who made pipes in a similar style to O’Mealy. Instead of riveting plates to the regulator bodies he formed them as a ‘u’ and cut a matching groove in the bottom of the regulator to locate them. They were held in place by the heavily sprung key.
There are a couple of sets of photos on line here one showing a set of O’Mealy pipes http://mulelia.demon.co.uk/pipes/pictureGallery/116belfast/index.html
and another labelled as O’Mealy but appears from the style of the regulator keywork and fittings to more likely be by Hamilton http://mulelia.demon.co.uk/pipes/pictureGallery/londonPipersClub/index.html
Chris
The auction ended without a bidder meeting the reserve. I never did get any requested information from the seller. I did make him an offer to trade for a set of MacDougall highland pipes plus some cash…he asked me for photos, which I provided but I never heard back. The reason I offered highland pipes in trade is that the listing said the seller was an accomplished piper, but by all accounts of his desciption of the O’Mealy set, it didn’t seem like he was an Uilleann piper.
I for one would be wary of buying this set. The seller didn’t seem very communicative and the true origin of the pipes seems, to me anyway, to be still in doubt.
They were held in place by the heavily sprung key.
Would be interested in seeing this so any detail photos as this sounds a little precarious
John