Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
27<br />
eSTABlIShMenT OF ‘UnIOn PIPeS’<br />
howard was for a time a close companion of ‘Prinny’, the dissolute<br />
Prince of Wales and Prince regent who would become King george<br />
IV. Courtney also was a favourite of the prince, and of his father<br />
george III. In 1792 at a meeting and dinner of some five hundred of<br />
the Free and Accepted Masons in their hall at lincoln’s Inn Fields<br />
the Prince of Wales, the grand Master, was in the chair, and afterwards<br />
‘Courtney, on the <strong>Union</strong> <strong>Pipes</strong>, and Wiepert, on the harp,<br />
added to the entertainment of the day...’. 69 In 1793 it was claimed<br />
that ‘his royal highness the Prince of Wales has often commanded<br />
him to attend his parties’. 70 In a 1794 royal Command performance<br />
of a show in which he played, it was reported that ‘Courtenay, with<br />
the charming music of the <strong>Union</strong> <strong>Pipes</strong>, seemed to afford uncommon<br />
satisfaction to the royal Box’. 71<br />
Courtney did not however spend all his time in aristocratic service:<br />
‘Courtenay, the celebrated <strong>Union</strong> Piper... was a choice spirit, and would<br />
sooner play on his pipes to amuse his poor countrymen, than gratify<br />
the wishes of noblemen, although handsomely paid for it’. 72<br />
Courtney’s establishing of the bagpipes as an instrument acceptable to<br />
fashionable london audiences may have contributed to the first stage<br />
appearance of a Scottish highland piper there later in 1788. The<br />
highland Society of london, as well as having the Scottish mouth-blown<br />
highland bagpipes played privately at its own london functions, had<br />
69<br />
The Diary or Woodfall’s Register, london, 4 May 1792.<br />
70<br />
Hibernian Journal, Dublin, 4 Jan. 1793.<br />
71<br />
The World, london, 11 Feb. 1794.<br />
72<br />
egan 1820: 142–3. The implication that Courtney would have had a familiar <strong>Irish</strong><br />
traditional repertory for this audience is borne out by his later introduction of<br />
such music into his stage performances as below. It is likely that Courtney also<br />
played for dancers on these occasions, that being then a primary function of an<br />
<strong>Irish</strong> piper. This and other references give the impression that Courtney was himself<br />
of humble birth.