Kilts and Pipes Co-opted by Irish in America

[flairball]

Americans associate pipes (and kilts) more with the Irish than the Scots because of pipe bands attached to fire departments and police forces staffed by Irish Americans.

Umm,.... What? How do you get from here, to there, logically?

[Madadh]

As an American of Irish and Scottish decent, I both enjoy the kilt, bagepipes, and the Araan Island sweater. I also thank the Scottish wollen mills for their nice complement of Irish tartans. As I once told a IG inspector when he asked me about my ration card being fully used for liquor, "Well if Uncle Sam didn't want me to drink that much, then he would not have put that much on the ration card now would he."

So, if the wollen mills didn't want the Irish to wear kilts, they wouldn't make them for us now would they.



ps. We are Irish are also known for our wee dogs.

[Dale Seago]

Pipes with drones originated in the middle east, and gathered extra drones along the way, LOL!

So actually, then, the use of drones in the middle east is nothing new at all. . .

[bikercelt1]

Umm,.... What? How do you get from here, to there, logically?

What question are you asking here? If you are asking about Pipe Bands affiliated with Fire Departments and Police Departments that seems to be pretty much a given in most American metropolitan areas. Historically Irish and their decendants are over-represented in Police and Firefighting because it was one of the few legitimate jobs available to them during the early days of immigration when the Irish migrants were suppressed by the other already established European immigrants. Hence a logical connection in many peoples minds between Irish and bagpipes.

Jamie

[be da veva]

So actually, then, the use of drones in the middle east is nothing new at all. . .

He he he ... Nicely done.

[Kiltedmedic]

Could it not be said that the Spartans were kilted before anyone? And by the by, nobody seems to complain about intermingling when the Dropkick Murphy's are playing.

[flairball]

What question are you asking here? If you are asking about Pipe Bands affiliated with Fire Departments and Police Departments that seems to be pretty much a given in most American metropolitan areas. Historically Irish and their decendants are over-represented in Police and Firefighting because it was one of the few legitimate jobs available to them during the early days of immigration when the Irish migrants were suppressed by the other already established European immigrants. Hence a logical connection in many peoples minds between Irish and bagpipes.

Jamie

As a career firefighter I am well aware that the police and fire depts are fond of them. My dept had a Gaelic brigade. But the logic of the quoted statement is missing. People associate the pipes as Irish because the police and fire depts have pipe bands, and historically have been staffed by Irish. So, how did the police and fire depts come to have pipe bands? The statement need to connect the police and fire depts to the Scots prior to the Irish getting involved. Then the Irish continuing the Scottish tradition, which had become the police and fire dept tradition, and the subsequent assumption by others that the tradition was Irish would make more sense. If not we've got a chicken / egg argument. Not that it really matters.

[TheOfficialBren]

So actually, then, the use of drones in the middle east is nothing new at all. . .

Oh, my!

[OC Richard]

This subject is one of great interest to me, and one that musically I'm caught in the middle of, because I play both the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and the Irish Uilleann Pipe.

I also have a great interest in the subjects of Highland Dress and the traditional Irish Dress and have read more on the subject than most.

There are a few points to be made

-the English invasions caused the extinction of the traditional Irish costume of leine, brat, etc so unlike Scotland, Bulgaria, Japan, and so many other countries there does not exist today in Ireland a traditional national folk costume which has come down in an unbroken line from time immemorial.

-the English invasions likewise caused the extinction of the traditional Irish bagpipe and since no examples exist we cannot be sure of its exact nature. When one is aware of the dazzling variety of bagpipe species in France (several hundred species) and in the Balkans etc it is absurd to imagine that the traditional pre-invasion Irish bagpipe was identical to a Scottish pipe of the same period. In fact, we don't know what "a Scottish bagpipe of the same period" was like either! The first clear depiction of a Highland bagpipe only dating to the 18th century. What has survived in Ireland is a number of old marches thought to be originally "Irish warpipe" tunes; these reveal that the ancient Irish mouthblown pipes had musical capabilities like those of Central French pipes and the Scottish Lowland pipes, not the Scottish Great Highland pipe.

-the kilt evolved from a shared Scottish and Irish folk costume after the extinction of the Irish half of the shared stream.

-the Uilleann pipes were probably developed in Britain; recent research has revealed that the centres of uilleann pipemaking in the 18th century were Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Newcastle, and London. So the modern belief that the uilleann pipes are "the genuine Irish pipes" has no basis in fact.

-there is a vast body of traditional Irish music which has developed over the last 300 years or so on the uilleann pipes, fiddle, and flute. While a large percentage of this music has a range too large to fit onto the gamut of the Great Highland Bagpipe, there are hundreds of traditional Irish jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas, and airs which fit perfectly onto the scale of the GHB and hundreds of others which require only slight modification to fit. One might point out that the majority of traditional Scottish music likewise doesn't fit onto the GHB, and that even some of the most common GHB tunes (like Scotland the Brave) have been mangled quite a bit to make them fit.

In any case if one takes the short view- the view for example of Francis O Neill who was writing around 1900 just when the Irish Revival was really taking off- the wearing of kilts and playing of the GHB by Irishmen are inappropriate and downright unpatriotic. If one takes the long view the uilleann pipes are no more "Irish" than the GHB and it is entirely suitable to play the GHB for Irish events. One would wish, though, that the Scottish pipers would trouble themselves with learning some traditional Irish tunes for these things!

Our Pipe Band did a moneyraising "pub crawl" on St Patrick's Day and sadly the band's repertoire is entirely Scottish. When it came time for solos however I played Ar Eirinn ni Neosfainn Ce Hi, The Fields of Athenry, and the like. As an uilleann piper I have a large repertoire of Irish music, some of which can be transferred to the GHB.

[OC Richard]

As for the pipes, the Scots contribution was the third drone. Pipes with drones originated in the middle east

As far as three drones go, the Union Pipes and Northumbrian Pipes have long had three drones, and there were a number of European pipes with three drones.

If you're talking "ancient Irish warpipe" v "Great Highland Bagpipe" the trouble is that nobody knows just exactly what the extinct Irish mouthblown pipes were like, including how many drones they had, and nobody knows exactly what Highland pipes were like before 1714 (save for the unclear Mole painting).

What appears to be unique about the GHB is not that it has three drones but that it has a redundant drone. Other three-drone British and European bagpipes have the three drones playing three different notes.

What's interesting is the extinct Danish bagpipe that appeared to have two identical tenor drones only. This is quite rare, perhaps unique, in the bagpipe world because the usual path of bagpipe evolution in Europe was droneless > add bass drone > add tenor drone > add treble drone. (This whole process is still working itself out in Spain, where the old-fashioned Gaitas have a bass only, the more modern ones have an added tenor (often with a cutoff switch), and the latest style has an added treble drone for a total of three.)

It's intriguing to imagine that an aboriginal Irish pipe with bass only, or bass and tenor, had met up with a Danish import having two tenors which in the Highlands had evolved into a proto-Highland pipe, resulting in a hybrid three-drone GHB. But this is mere speculation.

About the "middle eastern" origin of bagpipes, it's one of those things that has no basis whatsoever that through endless repetition has gained an undeserved aura of truth. There is no evidence whatsoever that bagpipes originated in the middle east. All evidence (admittedly not much) points to a European origin, as does the application of the age-area hypothesis.