Some good insights on pitch here and how the standard evolved. Taylor set seem to be above A=440 but not to Eb. Francis O’Neill in a letter mentioned that Touhey’s pipes were ‘above concert pitch’.
http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/jswain/brass/pitchstan.htm
My information has it that the Cummings set seems to play flat of modern concert pitch.
Interesting link… though the Taylors were late 19th c, not early 20th. If they were ever using a low pitch, it might have been the “Steinway” or “Vienna” pitches.
Wikipedia has some interesting links in its article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch#Historical_pitch_standards
This list includes a number of values from historic tuning forks and organs:
http://www.uk-piano.org/history/pitch.html
What pitch you consider “standard” depends among other things upon what instrument/music you were playing. The Dolmetch company has one of the most comprehensive listings I’ve come across:
http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory27.htm
This article deals with some very early ‘standards’:
http://www.polettipiano.com/Media/pitch.PDF
Interesting to note that despite the standardization of “concert” pitch at A=440, many orchestras outside of the US are choosing to tune to a higher standard (again).
Interesting the Touhey chanter in it’s present state gave the impression it was extended at the bottom by about half an inch. At the time it was at Geoff’s it’s what we thought anyway. We didn’t take it apart to see if we guessed right. Another Carney-(modi)fication?
For English pitches from 1750 with references as to the source of each
A=435 seems to have been a popular pitch, for flutes anyway. I’ve a Cloos flute - NYC - it’s frustratingly just able to be blow in to A=440 with the head all the way in, but it plays best with the head out a little bit, which is too bad, it’s a great flute.
Regarding Taylor stuff, over the last few days I’ve been working on getting my 1979 Quinn chanter going, which (I heard) was modeled after a Taylor, although Dave always “hoed his own row” they say. I found that the best thing for the hard D was to put a wire in the bore and tie a bit of pipe cleaner to the the wire at the bell, almost choking off the bore at that point. Then the hard D comes relatively easy - without it it’s very contrary. I also did the old trick of putting a shim into the throat to make the bore smaller, but this seems to help a lot more.
Taylors always had popping valves on their chanters, of course; I heard Leo Rowsome had the bell of his chanter fitted with a ring of cork, and a couple of rushes in the bore - stripped feathers, actually. Perhaps Carney or Taylor were after something similiar. Leo also used a popping valve.
The Cummings set was original with a double chanter - basically narrow bores. Ted has a single chanter that may or may not be Taylor - a well made chanter - I lean toward ‘not’.
Touhey’s set was likely made around 1885/86 when he made the six month tour with Egan and the Four Cohans.
While the title is 20th century, the article covers the development of standards through the 19th century and those may have directly influenced Billy Taylor.
Orchestras move up the pitch in order not to ‘tire out’ audiences. A higher pitch freshens it up for the audience - effectively a new stimuli. Movies and TV increase the number of scene changes (adding more scenes/less time to take it in) till it eventually will be a blur to us.
Jimmy O’Brien-Moran’s Robert Reid 3/4 set was made some time in the 19th century. It seems (from listening to JOBM’s CD) to be fairly close to concert pitch.
But Jimmy didn’t use the Reid chanter. Reids tend to play fairly sharp of present concert pitch.
We are using all of our tricks to get a chanter to 440. As you get closer, you’ll notice modifications - tone holes, length, wire, different reeds - as we try to get to A=440. Recordings themselves add a layer of potential inaccuracy to the whole mess.
Chieftains tune to 447.
The Cummings set was made around the double chanter. That chanter seems happiest at A=440. A fortuitous accident. The regulators also reed easily at modern pitch.
Thanks Ted. You should know 
I was referring more to the drones and regs, regarding pitch. Of course much depends on the reeds, where that is concerned.
regards
Bill
In the translator’s appendix to Helmholtz’s “On the Sensation of Tone”, there is an extensive list of pitch standards, including old tuning forks, organ pipes, etc. etc.. This work is reprinted by Dover Books, and is a fancinating read.
With all this stuff about variations in the pitch of A, I feel an Ennis shaggy dog story coming on about how the correct name for the tune commonly known as “The rambling pitchfork” is actually “The rambling pitch fork” 
Listening to a couple of pipers and checking them against my piano, Patsy Touhey’s pipes seem to be a very sharp D set, and Michael Carney played an E-flat set.
I think some caution is required over pitch assumptions of older recordings. There is no gaurantee that the original recording or subsequent re-masters were pitch accurate. Even analog tape masters have been known to be way off. As an example, the orignal Miles Davis CD of Kind of Blue was way sharp due to a tape issue.
Actually Touhey and Carney are most likely playing the same set of pipes! I imagine you’re listening to Carney on the Wheels of the World CDs, those dubs are sped up slightly I believe - Phillipe Varlet (who produced the Rounder Irish 78s reissues) told me he offered to supply Shanachie with fresh dubs for their CDs but they opted to use dubs they’d made in the 70’s, or use their own apparatus, I forget which. At any rate dubs of Carney’s records I have second-hand from Phillipe not only sound better but are slightly sharp of D (and as a consequence slower), not in Eb like on the CD’s.
The Wheels of the World take of Touhey playing Miss McLeod’s has a skip in it, too…
Interesting! It’s too bad the more recent dubs of those recordings aren’t more easily available–it would be nice to hear them.