When Irish guys are pipin'

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes, are calling. But they’ve also been calling to Mickey Dunne for years.

Dunne, who’s from Limerick, Ireland, has been making perhaps the most traditional of Irish instruments, the uilleann pipes, since as far back has he can remember.

“My dad was a player — a famous player — and my brother was a player. My family has been in music for generations,” said Dunne, who had just given a master class on the uilleann pipes to 10 pipers in Houston before heading to Wichita Falls with his band, Ireland’s Call.

The group is in town today to perform at the St. Patrick’s Day Downtown Street Festival. The band will hit the outdoor stage in the 600 block of Eighth Street at 7 p.m., and then they’ll also perform Wednesday for St. Patrick’s Day at the Iron Horse Pub.

While Dunne comes from one of the great musical families in Ireland, he’s also well known for his day job as a uilleann pipe maker — a job that became so rare at one time that the instrument was in danger of becoming extinct.

“This almost died out completely,” said Dunne of uilleann pipe making. “In the 1920s, there were only about four or five pipers in the country ... In fact, there were a few more in America, actually, because more (Irish) people immigrated.”

There was a time in Ireland, he added, that playing the pipes was banned by the British.

“They wanted to wipe out anything Irish,” Dunne said.

There isn’t quite anything more Irish than the uilleann pipes, the country’s national bagpipe. The instrument is played by strapping a small set of bellows around the waist and right arm. The bellows inflate the pipes bag, so there’s no need to blow into the instrument, like with the Scottish Great Highland bagpipes.

Dunne took out his set of pipes during a stop last week at the Turtle Creek Trading Co., and with his bandmates — Joe Maher, Martin Byrnes and Bryan Healy — played a very non-Irish song, the Peruvian “El Condor Pasa.” They also launched into a few traditional Irish tunes, too.

It takes about three months to make a set of pipes, which can cost up to 10,000 Euros, or about $14,000, Dunne said.

The pipes he plays are made from horse bones, though old pipe makers used to use ivory, along with nickle-plated brass, leather and ebony.

“The very old makers used to make them from boxwood.”

He added, “What makes these unique is that you’ve got regulators for harmonies for the chords,” Dunne said.

It seems not anything is simple when it comes to the uilleann pipes. Even the reeds for the pipes have to be specially made.

“You have to make your own reeds, and it’s tricky to get them to play in tune,” he said.

While the pipes were almost wiped out a century or more ago, Dunne said the instrument is enjoying a revival of sorts. Uilleann pipe clubs have formed around the world, and Dunne has taught pipe playing classes everywhere. “I’ve been to Vietnam, would you believe. Vietnam and Pakistan make these.”

When Dunne takes the stage today with Ireland’s Call, he won’t only be playing the pipes, but the pennywhistle, too, yet another traditional Irish instrument.

The guys in Ireland’s Call have their own bands back in Ireland and play together especially for the St. Patrick’s Day Downtown Street Festival, an event organized by Downtown Wichita Falls Development Inc. Danny Ahern, co-owner of the Iron Horse Pub, who’s originally from Tipperary, Ireland, often watches the guys play when he goes back home and persuaded them to play in Wichita Falls. So they formed the band just for their trip here.

Their appearance at the festival today will be their second time to play the festival.

And, of course, they’re here to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, too. The holiday, honoring the patron saint of Ireland, isn’t celebrated quite the same in the Emerald Isle.

“It’s not great. It’s a dull day, especially with the (Irish) weather,” said Joe Maher, guitarist, with a laugh.

But don’t expect anything dull from Ireland’s Call. The pipes, the pipes will be calling, after all.

Paddy Keenan and Tommy O'Sullivan at Passionfruit

Paddy Keenan and Tommy O'Sullivan will play at the Passionfruit Theatre in Athlone on Friday February 12 2010



For more info, see www.passionfruittheatre.com

Piping up for the Pale

At next week’s Temple Bar TradFest, a photographic exhibition will document Dublin’s long, varied and sometimes underrated contribution to the history of traditional music, writes SIOBHÁN LONG

THE URBAN/RURAL divide is at times a nebulous concept, but it always rears its dubious head when conversation turns to traditional music – and the many sources of spring water that feed it. An aficionado of the tradition might wax lyrical about the particular delights of the Sliabh Luachra style, its robust rhythms a boon for dancers, while another might champion the finer points of the Donegal fiddle style. In between, Sligo’s sinuous flute style and Connemara’s sean-nós singing will also come into sharp focus.

But what of the urban traditions that have salted more than a few musical doorsteps in their day? On Leeside, Cork Singers’ Club thrives in the heart of the city, fuelled by a swathe of singers with a hunger for witty lyrics and rhyming slang.

Dublin has spawned more than its share of traditional music and musicians too. For this year’s fifth Temple Bar TradFest, the flute player and former member of the Castle Céilí Band, historian and photographer Mick O’Connor, has compiled a photographic exhibition (assisted by graphic designer Martin Gaffney), which illustrates the continuity of traditional music activity in Dublin from 1900 to 2009. The exhibition includes a wealth of photographs documenting the capital’s traditional music heritage before the phenomenal growth of Irish music in the late 1960s. Taking time out from his Herculean task of compiling a history of the Dublin Pipers’ Club, O’Connor has relished the adventure of distilling Dublin’s musical past into a coherent and substantial visual exhibition.

One of the most striking features of Dublin’s traditional music scene at the beginning of the 20th century was the close proximity of music and politics, which won’t come as a surprise to anyone conversant with the city’s theatrical heritage.

“The origin of the Pipers’ Club is tied up with the National Revival,” O’Connor recounts with customary animation, “which focused interest on all aspects of our culture, including the music. The National Revival, which began during the closing decade of the 19th century, heralded the birth of the Gaelic League, the Feis Ceoil Association and the Pipers’ Club, all Dublin-based. A close examination of the Pipers’ Club minute book (1900-1904) reveals the cross-fertilisation of interests coming together to promote Irish music. Many members had dual membership of the Gaelic League and, later, of the Irish Volunteers. Members of the Pipers’ Club included some ardent nationalists and Gaelic propagandists.”

Perhaps the most famous was Éamonn Ceannt, a leader of the Easter Rising and signatory of the 1916 Proclamation. He was secretary of the Pipers’ Club until he resigned after his marriage to the treasurer, Áine Brennan.

Dublin’s traditional music fraternity didn’t limit its ambitions to the Pale either. In 1936, Seán Dempsey, one of piper Leo Rowsome’s pupils, participated in the World Dance and Music Festival at the Berlin Sportspalast, where he had the dubious distinction of playing before Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering and Josef Goebbels. O’Connor smiles as he recounts the tale in more detail.

“According to Seán, the other pipers played in the usual fashion, ie standing up. However, as there was no chair available and as uilleann pipers generally play seated, a stormtrooper was ordered to go on his hands and knees. Seán then proceeded to play while seated on the stormtrooper’s back! Apparently Hitler was intrigued and sent for Seán afterwards, and he received a gold fountain pen as a memento. Liam Ó Floinn’s father, Liam Flynn, played the fiddle and accompanied Seán on the trip.”

O’CONNOR’S EXHIBITION documents the peaks and troughs of the tradition’s past, capturing the struggles as well as the triumphs, and the hairpin bends it negotiated en route to the rude state of health in which it finds itself today. For example, he recounts the struggle to ensure the future of our piping tradition.

“Despite the revival of the Pipers’ Club,” he says, “it had a limited support with seldom over 50 members. It had many financial ups and downs. Tommy Reck recalled that while he was secretary in the 1940s, he often had to close the door of the club when other members failed to attend.”

O’Connor casts a wry eye over the some of the more po-faced practices of the past too. “In a picture of the Kincora Céilí Band, who won the All-Ireland Céilí Band Competition in Longford in 1958, there is a notice in the background of the right side of the photo, and when it was enlarged, the following wording appeared: ‘Jitterbugging in this hall is not allowed and anyone who fails to comply with the order will be asked to leave.’ No messing there!”

The cross-generational leadership roles undertaken by key Dublin piping dynasties have played a crucial role in securing Dublin’s traditional music heritage, O’Connor believes.

“Uilleann pipes for many years have been and continue to be a Dublin passion,” he says. “Piping has flourished in Dublin with an abundance of young talented pipers, quite a few of whom have family connections with the Pipers’ Club over several decades. A core of young musicians is studying the recordings and techniques of the previous generations and this is very evident in their playing. The Potts and Rowsome families are still to the fore in piping.”

He is optimistic about the future too. “Over the past few decades, we have witnessed an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Irish traditional music,” he says. “Most commentators would agree that Irish traditional music is saved for posterity. It was never in a healthier state.

“The other aspects of our native culture are also in the ascent. Dancing in its various forms is extremely popular. We now have people of unbounded talent taking an active interest in our music. In the present new generation, many are multi-instrumentalists, more numerous, more talented than any other generation that went before them.”

Traditional Music in Dublin , a photographic exhibition dedicated to the memory of the great Dublin piper, Leo Rowsome, will take place in Temple Bar Gallery and Studios on Jan 27-30 as part of this year’s Temple Bar TradFest. Exhibition times: Wed, Fri, Sat, 11am-6pm; Thur, 11am-7pm. Admission is free. For details of TradFest events, see templebartrad.com

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0125/1224263035406.html

The Battering Ram - Stephen Ducke

Track 11 from the CD "If There Weren't Any Women In The World", with Stephen Ducke (flute) and Bean Dolan (guitar) Brought out in December 2009, in aid of the Passionfruit Theatre in Athlone.

Available at www.tradschool.com

"4QuarterSet" Demo

Interesting...