All fans of old pipes have got to check out http://www.uilleann.nl/pipes/pictureGallery/wkpf2001/index.html This is on the Dutch Pipers’ website, which has fantastic photo galleries of sets by O’Meally and Robert Reid. This one is under the heading “The 8th William Kennedy Piping Festival, Armagh, Northern Ireland.” I didn’t realize there were more photos of old sets on this site, which has fantastic pictures; for instance, this photo of the monster Moloney Brothers set, which I’d seen and hadn’t realized was online:
The set was made in the 1830s in Kilrush and, I believe, the last owner was Prof OLeary. The National Museum had them in 1936 when Leo Rowsome got them playing again. Nice to see them get out once in a while. The set was the inspiration for Alain Froment’s C Sharp 5 regulator, 4 drone set.
Reading between the lines in ONeills, I believe that Francis ONeill tried to acquire the set on his trip to Ireland in 1906. He saw the set in OLeary’s hands while OLeary was competing in Cork and in Willie Rowsome’s workshop one week later. I believe that ONeill was in Ireland for 6 weeks; spending time in Clare (his wife was from Feakle, Co Clare), Cork, Dublin, other places assuredly (likely Kerry, Waterford).
Finally, the recent set on eBAY one week ago is a Willie Rowsome B set (no chanter) and looks like (and very well be) the set in the Willie Rowsome photo. ONeill was in Ireland with Fr Fielding (Mooncoin, Co Kilkenny and Chicago) and it was likely that Fielding took that photo. How the set made it to Boston is unknown at this time.
Kevin , nice photo . I have heard tha that the old makers , " old boys " , had a degree of understanding in regards to the pressure as it concerns the uilleann pipes , and this is mostly meant to imply , to the pipes that have five regulators , ect , ad infinintum .
I wonder If these pipes were made using inverse cone staples , and will assume , , that ALL , the notes were in chune I do like the tone of my modern wide bore dee chanter , and I still am , thinking that the makers of these pipes had some way of getting all that in tune . Chune >
tom .
tok . .
The Moloneys were blacksmiths. They made this for a member of the Vandeleur family, who were gentry big time; when this set was made Lord Vandaleur had evicted some 12000 people, so there’s blood on its hands, too, sad to say. The set was intended for his son, but he met with an accident and couldn’t play, so the Moloneys had to sell it for a trifle. It lay in a cabin for years and years until Denis O’Leary found it and brought it to Willie Rowsome to be restored. Incidentally, according to O’Neill the set was in the shop being worked on when the photo Jim is alluding to of Willie was taken!
O’Neill says it has an 18 inch chanter - Bb. The Moloneys were fond of Bb - Willie Clancy had a set. Their stuff is heavier, not so delicate as the other makers of the time, and said to be not so sophisticated either. As for the key layout, I think the small regulator is in the middle reg socket for some reason. Old pipers were fond of doing this for some reason - probably to get at the D key on the middle more easily. It is seen in many old photos. The middle reg seems to have the F# key missing. Perhaps they were thinking you could remove the other two regs and play it like a standard set if you were so inclined. Or perhaps not. The other regulator next to the middle has that snakey bottom key which looks to play a C#, since the pipe is about as long as the middle lying next to it. The touch of this key is next to A on the middle, so perhaps it’s for a AC# chord, which would be nice here and there. Just a guess! The double bass looks to play G, F#,E,D, below the bass reg. A good selection of notes, that. Keep in mind that the man these were intended for very well may have been exclusively an air player, like so many pipers of those times were.
And. There are only two drones. The Taylors later sometimes built four reg two drone sets - like Patsy Touhey’s, for instance.
, that ALL , the notes were in chune 
