Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

89
DeMISe OF ‘UnIOn PIPeS’
The Irish shift from ‘union’ to ‘uilleann’ was not however paralleled
by an equivalent contemporary shift of usage in Irish America,
which had not been influenced to the extent that Ireland had by
either the ideology of the gaelic league or of the emergent Free
State. Although ‘uilleann pipes’ had appeared in print there as early
as 1904, 334 copied from Irish newspaper sources, and was known to
at least some pipers there, older habits continued and oral tradition
was followed rather than print-introduced innovation. The
instrument continued to be commonly known in the United States
in the early twentieth century as ‘Irish’ or ‘union’ pipes. This was
the practice followed by prominent piper associates of Francis
O’neill such as Bernard Delaney of Offaly and Chicago 335 Patsy
Touhey of galway and new york, 336 and Tom ennis of Chicago. 337
however when Irish pipers began to record in some numbers on
commercial 78s from the 1920s, issued on the ethnic series of
generalist record companies or on small Irish-American labels,
‘union pipes’ became a casualty of the commercial need for a term
that would be instantly understood by record buyers. In almost every
case the performers were described as playing ‘Irish (bag)pipes’ or
as playing Irish reels and jigs on simply ‘(bag)pipes’. This usage
continued through to about 1960, when a shift to the term ‘uilleann
pipes’ began to occur under the influence of uilleann pipers such as
Seamus ennis and leo rowsome coming to America on commercial
recordings or in person, and the foundation of branches of CCÉ
334
Irish World and American Industrial Liberator, new york, 23 July 1904.
335
See The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, 18 June 1909, for example.
336
Mitchell & Small 1986: passim. Jackie Small points out (pers. comm., Apr. 2012)
that in his spoken introductions to his cylinder recordings Touhey refers to the
instrument as ‘pipes’ and ‘Irish pipes’.
337
New Victor Records catalogue, July 1917. Confusingly, while this source says
that ‘Union Pipes’ is the correct name for the instrument, it goes on to say that
the term is ‘a corruption of the old Irish name, Uillean Pipes’. This information
presumably came from Tom ennis. his father Thomas senior spoke only of