Uilleann or Union??

[PJ]

As has been pointed out there's a lot of speculation floating around the above thread.

Yes, but the real question is when did this thread start to be speculative. It may have been when Dan mentioned the genitive case, or when I referred to Frank O'Connor, or indeed ...

[Ceann Cromtha]

As has been pointed out there's a lot of speculation floating around the above thread.

Yes, but the real question is when did this thread start to be speculative. It may have been when Dan mentioned the genitive case, or when I referred to Frank O'Connor, or indeed ...

Hah! Patrick, you crazy man!!!

In all seriousness, I thought that Mukade's original question was not just about what the original name was but how it changed to what most now use. I certainly wouldn't argue with Mr. Haneman's presentation of facts about which came first but I am still very curious about whether the shift from 'union' to 'uilleann' first came from the equivalent translation of the English 'union' into Irish 'uilleann', then a reinterpretation of it to a secondary meaning ('elbow') to avoid the despised primary meaning ('union'). If so, this would be a linguistic coincidence that'd be up there with Красная площадь having changed its original meaning of 'Beautiful Square' to 'Red Square' just in time for the October Revolution!1

(1) The original Russian word for red was червонный, from червь 'worm', the cochineal insect from which crimson dyes were made (most other Slavic languages still use the relative form for 'red', e.g., Bulgarian червен). (Interestingly, English [from French] 'vermilion' has the same etymology.) Красный meant 'beautiful' and the Slavs have always been mighty fond of the color red, so...

[Dave R]

I think that my date of c1700 isn't far off.

Larry Grogan was supposedly the first noted player of these pipes, and he died 1728/9, accoring to Sean Donnelly's fine biography of him. Instrument makers would have been exploring this chanter for a while. To become a recognised and noted player would take some 7-10 years, so maybe 1717 when Grogan started.

Did he teach himself?

Did he find an instrument maker with an idea and work with him?

As for the Courtny article, the contemporary pics shows him play with drones vertical ,while the drones shown by Hogarth at a similar time shows drones in a low position, but played standing.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/8985
This is the Beggars Opera, first perfomed in 1728.

So i would say c1700 on for these pipes, but it is unlikely we will ever really know.

Dave

[billh]

Dave, you keep conflating the pastoral pipes with the union pipes. They are not the same thing.

Union/uilleann pipes are the primary object of discussion here.

- Bill

[Dave R]

Sorry, i see the natural progression from one to the other, without the gap of transition.

Help me Bill...was Larry Grogan a player of Union/Uilleann pipes?

[CHasR]

Sorry, i see the natural progression from one to the other, without the gap of transition.

For me, DaveR's statement really holds up under intense research-level scrutiny. It is the rare instrument indeed which suddenly 'pops' into existence without having had some closely related predecessor; often overlapping in common practice. Pipes especially, are a rather fluid species, organologically speaking.
No need to apologise, imo.

[Dave R]

So, i have re-read the Donnelly article again, and it seem that there is no mention of union or uilleann in it, and while Grogan may have been a famous piper, and irish, it was not necesarily what we associate with "irish pipes" that he played.

[zpipertom]

Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, a widely respected historian of traditional Irish musci, gives the following, brief, non-annotated explanation in his Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music (O'Brien Press, Dublin 1998) :

"As Edward Bunting hurried to salvage the last of the native harp music in the 1790s, the uilleann or union pipes reached their present state of development combining drones, chanter and regulators to create what some commentators called the 'Irish organ'. (The term 'union' refers to the union of regulators with the chanter, not the Act of Union 1801.)"

To search English language archives to resolve the question poised in the opening salvo of this thread seems silly to me. The English colonizers made no minor effort to extinguish Irish music and language during their long occupation of Ireland.

Since the speculative hounds have previously been released:

Wouldn't it make sense that the Irish would distinguish between mouth blown bagpipes such as the Great or War Pipes and pipes that are filled by a bellows ? Would it not also follow that within a language as poetical and creative as Irish that native Irish speakers might apply the Irish word for 'elbow' to make this distinction seeing that the elbow is the operative joint involved in the working of the bellows, as opposed to the knee or shoulder ?

Zpipertom



"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it." (Steven Wright)

[myles]

To search English language archives to resolve the question poised in the opening salvo of this thread seems silly to me. The English colonizers made no minor effort to extinguish Irish music and language during their long occupation of Ireland.

The point is that Irish academics and musicians themselves appear to have had no real awareness of the term "uilleann pipes" until Grattan Flood came up with it. And we know where he got it from: correspondence between two academics back in the 18th century who were not trying to explain a preexisting term "uilleann pipes", but rather trying to come up with suggestions as to what the Shakespeareian phrase "woolen pipes" might have meant. The evidence is just not there for the separate existence of the phrase before Flood.

Carolan's paper also suggested, fairly convincingly, that "union pipes" was some sort of publicity term invented by or for the 18th century performer Courtney - rather as "pastoral pipes" may have been a term used in Geoghehan's 1740s tutor
to give the sense of a new, fashionable product (pastoral and shepherd-y stuff was all the rage at the time). I suspect most of those acquainted with the instrument, whether bellows or mouthblown, would just have called them "pipes" - as we see in some other cases where several different forms existed. The obsession with classifying different varieties of instrument (such as trying to work out the moment "pastoral pipes" became "union pipes") is essentially modern. Who did Arthur O'Neill describe as being at Mr Irwin's gathering in Sligo in 1782(ish)? 10 "common pipers".

[billh]

zpipertom's assertion seems to assume that the union pipes originated in a vernacular tradition. What evidence there is does not seem to support that notion. Neither the 'Pastoral' nor 'Union' pipes were 'folk instruments' in any normal sense.

While it is possible that there is some ancestral folk predecessor which went unrecorded by history, the alternative name 'New Bagpipe' which was applied to the 'Pastoral' pipes in the 18th century infers otherwise. There were certainly 'bagpipers' in Ireland prior to the introduction of these new pipes, but there is no evidence that their instruments were bellows-blown, nor that they shared other supposedly-novel characteristics with the 'New Bagpipe'.

The english language sources, which are as zpipertom rightly points out are about all we have, describe the introduction of a novel instrument marketed at gentlemen: that is, more of a drawing room instrument that would have been out of reach of the 'common pipers' with the possible exception of those with extensive patronage. This narrative is consistent with contemporary notions about pastoralism and leisure, insofar as I am aware of them, but of course we are only hearing part of the story.

The question that most interests me about this: When, and how, was this rather gentrified novelty - apparently from 'the Mainland' - transformed from a slightly synthetic medium for romantic gentility, into an authentic voice for the vernacular, Irish 'folk' idiom? For that seems, according to the historical evidence, to be what happened.

- Bill

[Pipewort]

Enjoyable discussion.

Perhaps its time for a new name - the dreaded rebranding. Does 'Irrascible' translate into Irish gaelic? Too many sibilants to sound at all Irish in its english form.

Back to it lads!

Pwrt

[CHasR]

The question that most interests me about this: When, and how, was this rather gentrified novelty - apparently from 'the Mainland' - transformed from a slightly synthetic medium for romantic gentility, into an authentic voice for the vernacular, Irish 'folk' idiom? For that seems, according to the historical evidence, to be what happened.

I can tell you precisely "how the pitch was wound & thrown" to the isles from the continent, but how it was caught & played in Ireland, Northumbria & the Lowlands is up to someone else.

Its is my considered opinion that you will find the first half of the answer to your question by looking at concurrent developments in music history at that time. As ive said above all evidence for bellows pipes coming into NW Europe in the 1600's points to the French musette, which was a regular member of the 'orchestra' at this time, and in whose repertoire lies the first printed music exclusively for pipes (in tab, no less). Of course you all will know, opera plots during this time dealt mainly with gods & godesses, myths, legends, of Greece & Rome, the total pastoral shtick; HOWEVER, several changes rapidly took place in the mid/late 1600's:

Fashions changed to feature more contemporary, middle-class characters & less fantastic plots (creating the number opera, vaudeville,& even the 20th c musical), more complex harmonies( esp in the works of Rameau), 5 acts of dramatic accompanied recitative morphed into 3 acts of Italianate full blown virtuouso aria interspersed with secco recit and (esp. in France), ballets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_opera

Long & the short of it is, because of the struggle between Italian & French styles, "high-art-music" advanced beyond the capabilities of the bagpipe & hurdy gurdy, leaving these instruments in an historically peculiar position. DESPITE numerous technical advances in construction (Shuttle drones, the chalameau (aka regulator), and chromatic touch keys for accidentals) obviously added in an attempt to keep up with performance requirements. The older style, which included the bagpipe and its associated cultural baggage, was still much loved by the aristocracy even after 1789. So we have this instrument associated with the elite, unable to move with their 'style', and yet too eloquent for the vernacular.

To touch on the topic only for musical purposes, , its *very* difficult to imagine Ireland having no contact with Catholic France during this time in history. The rising tide of populist revolution in the late 16, early 1700's crashed the continental bellows bagpipe firmly on island soil, still caught precariously between (for lack of better terms, and i use them with considerable disdain) "high" and "low" art. Was there even a subversive appeal (i.e. 'gentlemen behaving badly?' ) ??

For all we know, "uilleann" may be a contemporaneous Gallic pronunciation of "Irlande".

[mukade]

If the pipes were ever rebranded I suggest sponsorship.
Uilleann by Chanel.
Irish Pipes @ Paddy Power
RyanAir Pipes with supplementary charges for drone an regulator playing.

Personally I have always called them the 'feckin pipes.'
Where are my feckin pipes? The feckin pipes aren't working again.

[tommykleen]

I should point out that, mechanically, the shoulder is the operative joint in the "uilleann" pipes. The elbow is just the contact point for the arm/lever.

Therefore, henceforth and from now on, the union, uilleann, new or whathaveyou pipes are to be (more accurately) referred to as the gualainn pipes.

I think giving the uilleann pipes a reboot with the accurate name of the gualainn pipes will settle all this hash.

What say ye?

[Ted]

"Gualainn Style"