Open Thread

I’m not questioning whether there are Irish bagpipes. I’m a pretty big fan of Irish music and know about uilleann pipes. Among other things, uillean pipes tend not to have big drones and the bag is not usually plaid. The pipes also tend to point every which way but up, as opposed to the vertical bunching of the pipes on Scottish bagpipes. Also, the NYPD repertoire tends to have a bunch of Scottish classics in it, as well as the usual maudlin Irish-American stuff, but no real Irish tunes. I have yet to see uillean pipes in an NYPD funeral or parade assemblage.

Legion,

I was seriously annoyed about that. First, I am supposed to keep the sidewalks in some kind of repaired condition within the confines of historical period correctness. To get that I need a DOT permit AND a LPC permit. And I have to hire the people and spend the money and buy the bluestone for the messed up parts. Then, easy breezy, Con Ed comes by and graffittis up my sidewalk. If I did that on my own, I could get a Department of Sanitation ticket for grafitti.

I do like a nice Oirish Sweater though!

Evidence of the bagpipe in Ireland occurs in 1581, when John Derrick’s “The Image of Irelande” clearly depicts a bagpiper. Derrick’s illustrations are considered to be reasonably faithful depictions of the attire and equipment of the English and Irish population of the 16th century.[6] The Battle sequence from My Ladye Nevells Booke (1591) by William Byrd, which probably alludes to the Irish wars of 1578, contains a piece entitled The bagpipe: & the drone. In 1760, the first serious study of the Scottish Highland bagpipe and its music was attempted, in Joseph MacDonald’s ‘Compleat Theory’. Further south, a manuscript from the 1730s by a William Dixon from Northumberland contains music that fits the Border pipes, a nine-note bellows-blown bagpipe whose chanter is similar to that of the modern Great Highland Bagpipe. However the music in Dixon’s manuscript varied greatly from modern Highland bagpipe tunes, consisting mostly of extended variation sets of common dance tunes. Some of the tunes in the Dixon manuscript correspond to tunes found in early 19th century published and manuscript sources of Northumbrian smallpipe tunes, notably the rare book of 50 tunes, many with variations, by John Peacock.