Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

COUrTney’S ‘UnIOn PIPeS’ AnD The TerMInOlOgy OF IrISh BellOWS-BlOWn BAgPIPeS 20
Establishment of ‘Union Pipes’
It is necessary to detail what is known of Denis Courtney’s career in
order to understand not only how he introduced the term ‘union
pipes’, but how he established it so firmly in contemporary musical
consciousness that it would outlive him as a standard term for more
than a century. The explanation for this feat lies in the considerable
public successes he enjoyed in the course of his brief musical career.
had he not been successful, the term would hardly be known today.
Courtney in London 1788–1792
even before his first public appearance in london on 14 May 1788,
Denis Courtney is seen as receiving an unusual measure of recognition
there. On 10 April, as ‘Courtney’, he was brought by Sir hector
Munro to play privately for the highland Society of london, along
with his fellow Irish piper John Murphy. They shared a fee of two
guineas. 57 Both played for the Society again for the same fee on 8
May, ‘Courtney having come without being ordered’. 58 In the several
advertisements taken for his stage debut a particular emphasis can
be discerned in the promotion. The concert itself is introduced as a
benefit for him, something which implies that the performer already
has a following. The tickets are expensive – 7s. 6d. each. They are
being sold by the leading music sellers, publishers and musical
instrument makers longman and Broderip of Cheapside who, as
contemporary makers and sellers of ‘Bagpipes, Scotch or Irish’, 59
were possibly involved in the promotion of the concert. Courtney
himself is to be found at the fashionable address of 1 york Street, St
57
nlS MS highland Society of london Dep. 268/34. general Sir hector Munro,
Bart., became president of the highland Society of london in 1800 (Highland
Society of London 1873: 23).
58
nlS MS highland Society of london Dep. 268/34.
59
Longman and Broderip catalogue [c. 1780].