Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

61
SPreAD OF ‘UnIOn PIPeS’
musical partner with Weippert and they appear together (and sometimes
with C. Jones, harp) at various periods in 1798 and early 1799
(including yet another performance of Oscar and Malvina in March
1799). 182 By May 1799 Murphy had moved to the new royal Circus
and was playing regularly there with another harper, g. Adams. 183 In
1801 he was ingeniously canvassing engagements by word-playing
on the new term for his Irish pipes:
Murphy, who performs on the Union Pipes at the Theatre royal, Covent
garden... would, if agreeable to the noblemen and gentlemen of the
Union Club, be glad... to wait on them, when they dine at the Union
Club house, and play on his Pipes... 184
The northumberland outlaw gypsy and performer on several kinds
of bagpipe James Allan (c. 1734–1810), referred to in 1828, is
recorded as having played the ‘Union pipes’. 185 As said, he may be
the ‘Allan – Piper’ who is recorded playing with John Murphy for
the highland Society of london in the early months of 1788, just before
Murphy appears there with Courtney. 186 If so, he would first
have known the instrument as ‘Irish pipes’.
nineteenth-century printed references to Irish bagpipes – which are
found in Ireland, Britain, the United States of America, Canada and
Australia – run into the high hundreds if not the low thousands of
instances. But throughout the century the same assortment of terms
is found as has been seen in use during the eighteenth-century. A
difference is that ‘union pipes’ now features prominently among
182
The Times, london, 14 Mar. 1799.
183
The Times, london, 16 May 1799.
184
Morning Chronicle, london, 20 nov. 1801.
185
Thompson 1828, quoted in Stewart 2009: 85.
186
nlS MS highland Society of london Dep. 268/34.