Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

COUrTney’S ‘UnIOn PIPeS’ AnD The TerMInOlOgy OF IrISh BellOWS-BlOWn BAgPIPeS 64
by John Murphy finally publishing in Paisley about 1810: A
Collection of Irish Airs and Jiggs with Variations, Adapted for the
Pianoforte, Violin & Violoncello, by John Murphy, Performer on the
Union Pipes; at Eglinton Castle. 196
With these new publications, intended for professional as well as for
amateur musicians, the term ‘union pipes’ could be said to have
achieved printed permanence after it had become firmly established
in stage performance. The degree to which the term had become de
rigueur in Britain is particularly evident in liverpool in 1819 when
a visiting piper from Ireland is seen in his advertisement in the very
act of turning from his native term to the new one:
Mr. Plunket, the celebrated Performer on the Irish pipes is arrived, and
attends the Mystic Tavern, hale-street... for the instruction of young
gentlemen on the Union Pipes... 197
John Murphy had been performing in Scotland since the 1780s, as
seen, and richard Fitzmaurice there since about 1805, on the
evidence of his book, and frequently thereafter, but it is 1807 before
we find the earliest evidence of the term ‘union pipes’ linked to a
Scottish piper: ‘Monthly Obituary... At Port Dundas... in the 26th year
of his age, Mr. James M’Kenzie, whose abilities as a performer on
the Union Pipes stood unrivalled...’. 198 From his age, M’Kenzie could
only have been using the term (if he did at all) after the death of
196
Murphy c. 1810: title page, quoted in Cannon 1980: 90–1. The musical earl of
eglinton had been president of the highland Society of london in 1779
(Highland Society of London 1873: 22), and may have been instrumental in
inviting Murphy to play for the Society in 1788, as above.
197
Liverpool Mercury, liverpool, 29 Jan. 1819.
198
Caledonian Mercury, edinburgh, 10 Oct. 1807; European Magazine, and
London Review, london, Oct. 1807: 324.