This flute was made by one of the few Irish flute builders (is there any others?)
Here is his Bios:
This flute is one of those antique flutes that are like a nice old pair of shoes that are real comfortable, but are showing a little wear... They play great right out of the box. (It kind of smells like a old pair of shoes too!) The tone holes, well worn, look like it was played continously most of it's life! You have to wonder where it has been, and who played it for its 150 year old life.George BUTLER was born about 1795 in Dublin.
The farthest back we can trace our Butler family is to George Butler, a musical instrument maker, who, according to William Waterhouse's "The New Langwill Index: A Dictionary of Musical Wind-Instrument Makers and Inventors" (London, T. Bingham, 1993), "flourished in Dublin from 1826 as a successor to a Mr. Dollard, maker of flute, Kent-bugle, serpent and bass-horn".
It appears George moved to London probably in the 1820s (his children were born there in the 1830s) while still maintaining the business in Dublin. It seems he worked for others in London for a number of years (the 1851 census of England shows that George, along with his son George, was working as a "journeyman trumpet maker"), but in 1859 it's believed he set up his first London shop at 17 Brydge's St. in Covent Garden.
In Dublin it's possible George's workshop was located for a time on Capel St. because the only Griffiths Valuation entries for a George Butler in the entire city of Dublin are for (i) 155 and 156 Capel St (warehouse, house, warerooms and small yard) and (ii) an address on what seems to be a lane between 13 and 14 Strand St. Little (just off Capel St.) where an office was rented. Part of Strand St. Little runs behind shops on the river end of Capel St. where numbers 155 and 156 are located. Griffiths Valuation was undertaken for the Capel St. area in May of 1854.