Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

35
eSTABlIShMenT OF ‘UnIOn PIPeS’
1792 Courtney and Weippert are together again in Oscar and Malvina
during the new theatrical season in Covent garden. 101
At this time Courtney was beginning to be noticed in books as well as in
newspapers:
... in many passages she [a stage singer Miss Broadhurst] reminds us of
Courtenay, on the Union Pipes, who certainly commands the greatest power,
and produces the most bewitching and various sounds on that Instrument
which possibly can be conceived. his ingenuity seems to have made a new
discovery in Instrumental Music... 102
Courtney in Ireland 1793
By early January 1793, a month in which France would declare war
on Britain and Ireland, Courtney’s successes in Oscar and Malvina
had brought him across the Irish Sea to Dublin and he is noticed there
as an arriving celebrity: ‘yesterday morning, Mr Courtney, so famous
for playing on the pipes at the Theatre royal, Covent garden, arrived
from holyhead.’ 103 he had been brought over by richard Daly,
manager of the Theatre royal, Crow Street, ‘at a very considerable
sum’ 104 to appear there in a roadshow version of the piece, one of
two productions that had been running in Dublin from late 1792:
hitherto its success has been unprecedented, and the Manager... has, to
encrease its attraction, brought over at a considerable expence, Courtney,
whose performance on the bagpipes, at Covent garden, has established
101
The Diary or Woodfall’s Register, london, 1 nov. 1792.
102
[Pigott] 1792: 261. The reference is also found in the 3rd ed. of 1793 and the
4th ed. of 1794.
103
Public Register, or, Freeman’s Journal, Dublin, 1–3 Jan. 1793. he arrived on 2
January. holyhead is a Welsh port of embarkation for Ireland.
104
Hibernian Journal, Dublin, 4 Jan. 1793.