Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

83
DeMISe OF ‘UnIOn PIPeS’
But there was evidently contemporary contention about the two
terms, and it occasionally surfaces. ‘Cork Piper’, the pseudonymous
writer of a letter to the editor of The Gael of Dublin in 1921, in
reference to the ‘Feis Ceoil Union Pipes Competition’ and the
playing there of the ‘rowsome Family on the Union Pipes’, says
you will note, Mr. editor, that I hold to the adjective ‘Union’ throughout,
and in doing so I beg to state that I think it to be the one and only
title, for the obvious reason that the word implies what these pipes
convey, viz., union, concord or alliance of the various sounds emitted
from its various sections.
The editor of The Gael however was having none of it:
We are sorry to disagree with the final paragraph in the above letter.
“Uilean” is the proper name of these Pipes, and not “Union” – literally
“elbow” Pipes. 311
It would seem that the tide began to turn in favour of ‘uilleann pipes’
as the new Irish Free State began to define itself in the course of the
1920s and to make decisions about its future. For the first time in
Irish history there was a perceived need for ‘official’ national terms
for administrative and cultural activities, and the development of
this terminology was heavily influenced, on all political sides, by
the philosophy of the gaelic league. Some felt that the Irish-english
hybrid ‘uilleann pipes’ was an acceptable national term, incorporating
as it did a word in Irish. The new term held the field in 1924 at
the state-sponsored national Tailteann games, a revival of ancient
Irish athletic and cultural contests:
... let us hear no more of the detestable name “Union” pipes; the proper
designation, which has been rightly adopted by the Tailteann games
Committee, is “Uilleann” pipes, i.e. played by the elbow’. 312
311
Issue of 12 Dec. 1921.
312
letter from W.h. grattan Flood in The Irish Independent, Dublin, 23 May 1924.