Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

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53 MeAnIngS OF ‘UnIOn PIPeS’ melodies with staccato passages or staccato effects as the contemporary Irish instruments already could. Only two drones are apparent, in about a 3:2 length ratio, whereas Irish instruments already had three as early as about 1750. 158 resting against the player’s shoulder, they imply a small common stock, but it is doubtful whether the common stock shown is realistic. no regulator can be seen, and it is probable that he did not have one – given that there is no mention in the many surviving references to Courtney of what would have been such a noticeable and musically interesting feature. Whereas sitting was and is the normal posture for players of Irish bellows pipes, 159 the instrument shown here could as easily and more dramatically have been played standing, like a Scottish bagpipe. The second octave needed for playing the music that we know Courtney played would have been obtained on the contemporary Irish pipes by placing the end of the chanter on a knee-pad (not possible in a pipe of the type shown) while overblowing through exerting pressure on the bag, and probably uncovering a back hole on the chanter. In all, it is hard to understand how the instrument shown could have the emotional effect that Courtney’s playing undoubtedly did on audiences, whereas it would be understandable had he played pipes with the rich sonic potential of a good instrument of the egan or Kenna type. 160 158 Illustrated in a Joseph Tudor painting ‘View of Dublin from the Phoenix Park (see Crookshank 2002: 73); and a hugh Douglas hamilton drawing ‘Blind Daniel the Piper’ (see laffan 2003: 135). 159 Street players did sometimes play standing, but they used a leg-crutch under one knee to enable the characteristic occasional silencing of the chanter on a knee-pad. 160 Whatever about the exact form of the instrument used by Courtney, it is puzzling how he achieved sufficient volume to be heard by the large theatre audiences he played for, such as the 2,000 who filled his regular venue of the Theatre royal on Drury lane, or the 3,600 who filled the rebuilt theatre from 1794. The bore of his chanter may have been specially adapted for volume. At any rate singers
COUrTney’S ‘UnIOn PIPeS’ AnD The TerMInOlOgy OF IrISh BellOWS-BlOWn BAgPIPeS 54 The instrument shown also seems undeveloped in the light of the earliest known physical description of the ‘Irish pipes’. This was of a set that in 1774 belonged to the Cork piper James McDonnell, the same who, as already noticed, played with Courtney before the highland Society of london in 1791 and played the ‘Irish pipes’ in recital in london in 1793 during Courtney’s absence in Ireland. McDonnell also played seated. his pipes in 1774 were ‘small and of ivory... tipped with silver and gold... [as well as ‘the chanter or treble’] there are three other pipes which hang over the wrist. The longest of them is called the drone or bass.’ 161 Again as seen, since Courtney played with John Murphy before the highland Society of london in early 1788, and since Murphy played a set of ‘Irish Bag-pipes, by the real old egan in Dublin, made for a nobleman deceased’, it is inconceivable that Courtney played on an instrument inferior to Murphy’s, given that he would have a resounding london stage success within a week of their second performance. It also seems inconceivable that Courtney’s Dublin successes of 1793 could have been achieved on an instrument as undeveloped as the one shown in Cruikshank’s illustration, when played for Irish audiences who were used to more sophisticated instruments. Courtney had been absent from london from the beginning of the year in which the illustration was published: it is likely therefore that Cruikshank had been forced to draw from memory and had fallen back on a stock bagpipe image. The probability must be therefore that the drawing is not an accurate representation of the reality – in spite of the high reputation of the artist Cruikshank – as is so often the case with drawings of musical instruments, and especially the bagpipes, 162 by even the best artists. and instrumentalists such as violinists, flute players, oboeists and harpers also played successfully in the same spaces; the venue acoustics must have been finely balanced. 161 O’Keeffe 1826: I, 246–8, see Carolan 1984: 59–61. 162 See Cannon 1989: 10–31. The accuracy of a c. 1828 drawing by one of the Cruikshank family of the northumberland piper James Allan has been called
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Denis Courtney on stage in Oscar an
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Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

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