It’s a slow, boring day - looking out the office window at a miserable, misty, foggy, damp, windy Dublin Bay and a thought came to me – whatever happened to the set of pipes owned and played by Canon James Goodman (of the Goodman Collection etc.) ?
Given the depth of knowledge displayed here on matters such as narrow bore D chanters, history of Pastoral pipes, ease / difficulty of making pipes and just about everything else, surely someone is bound to know ?
The Goodman Taylor set is alive and kicking in Cork in the hands of Eoin, although Eoin favours a Froment chanter with the set I believe.
"Eoin O’Riabhaigh of Cork, Ireland: 1 Taylor set that once belonged to Canon Goodman and was disinterred by a Mr. Phair (Alderman Phair the Cork piper?) after a few days had passed, circa 1900. Michael O Riabhaigh owned them, then passed them on to his son Eoin who plays them now. Eoin believes the pipes were made in the early 1860’s. Eoin also owns a Taylor double chanter in C sharp. Michael Dooley says “Unlike other Taylor doubles I’ve looked at this one is two separate pieces bound together by ferrules” from
http://w1.461.telia.com/~u46103557/taylor.html
Goodman was a collector too of Egan chanters if I remember correctly or prehaps it was another holy geezer.
As regards narrow bore chanters I wonder if they were always intended to be quiet and sweet sounding back in the day. I’ve adjusted the reed on a C chanter I possess and it can honk and rage near as loud as a concert pitch, although I prefer to have it sounding in a dainty fashion.
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Canon Goodman collected tunes. His collection was published a few years ago as ‘Tunes of the Munster Pipers’
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Canon Goodman was an Anglican clergyman born and raised around Dingle, West Kerry. He was a native Irish speaker and reputedly a fine player of the uilleann pipes and also possibly the flute. His collection, “Tunes of the Munster Pipers” is an interesting compendium of tunes as played in pre-Famine Southwest Ireland. There are a few familiar tunes in it that hardly sound different from their versions today, but also a number of really sweet tunes that had up until now, slipped through the cracks of history.
Seoirse O Luasa, the eccentric owner of An Caife Liteartha bookshop in Dingle apparently owns one of Canon Goodman’s original manuscripts of the book.
RTÉ’s Late Session rebroadcast a show in June from an in-house concert last fall of arrangements of tunes all from the Goodman Collection. (I don’t know if you captured this, Pat D’Arcy?) The piper was Mick O’Brien. There was some very nice stuff in it.
djm
Just so happens…
The dates are DDMMYYYY: 22/12/2002 and 02/02/2003
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/links_radio.html
Enjoy,
Patrick.
Yup, that’s them! I love the way the flute and pipes go together so nicely. Man, I wish I could play so well!
djm
Thank you, Steampacket.
Now that I’m not bored, and the sun is almost shining, for 10 marks (or an A in the A levels if you’re in the UK) - what did he play (and where is it) before he got the Taylor set, which he must have had only from the 1870’s at the earliest?
“what did he play (and where is it) before he got the Taylor set, which he must have had only from the 1870’s at the earliest?” Emer
He mostly used a '58 Les Paul Standard with pat. applied for humbuckers, with medium gauge strings, through an old brown tweed Fender Twin, both given to him by Elmore James..wait that can’t be right…wrong bloke…
Now if I’m not mistaken, can’t find my notes, But the Canon probably played a flat set by Coyne, Egan or Kenna I’d imagine. The holy man with the Egan, Kenna, Coyne collection wasn’t Canon Goodman I remember now, but Brother Gildas, also a Kerry holy man who moved to Belfast. I wonder whatever happened to his collection of chanters/pipes. Gildas was a friend of Sean Reid and on at least one occasion sent his chanters to William Rowsome to be reeded. I don’t know if that was a good or bad thing to do as some reed/pipemakers were known to fit the chanter to their reeds. Hopefully not William Rowsome. Brother Gildas also tells of a 14 1/2 in Egan that O’Meally wished to purchase to go with a Taylor set he owned
Gildas’ pipes were spread around, some went to Sean Reid who in turn gave them to people. Breandan Brathnach i think swapped pipes with Tommy Reck at some point, one of those was from Gildas, I think the Egan now with Breandan’s daughter ( the former minister of education Niamh).
I have one tape of Seamus Ennis playing a B set, one I have had for over twenty years and on it he plays miss Wallace, the only recording of him playing that one I have ever come across. It was a mystery for a long time, some thinking it was slowed down others dismissing it as non-Ennis. Pat Mitchell at first rejected it when I sent it to him for inclusion in the Ennis collection. In his research for the book recently found it was Ennis after all, playing br. Gildas’ pipes.
I have one tape of Seamus Ennis playing a B set, one I have had for over twenty years and on it he plays miss Wallace, the only recording of him playing that one I have ever come across. " Peter
Now that’s interesting. I wonder who owned the B set, Sean Reid perhaps. Brother Gildas is said to have collected one each of different sized Egan chanters increasing in length by half inches, from 14 up to 18 inches. I wonder if the 14-15 inch chanters were wide or narrow bore, probably narrow, but as the Taylors were making wide bore chanters in the 1860’s then prehaps even Egan had had a go shortly before he died. Prehaps the Taylors were inspired by Egan if Egan had experimented with a wide bore before them.
In a letter to Sean Reid (courtesy of B. O’Neill, 1997) Gildas writes:
“If you turn out genuine copies of Egan Chanters and put them at
the disposal of young men or big boys with a keen taste for music,
you will live to see delightful results.”
“Speaking of carrying pitch: Several years ago I payed a selection on
my own 17 inch set on the stage in a good sized hall (100 ft long).
Some days after a senior boy from the school, who happened to be
down at the door in the hall a the time I was playing, says to me:
“Down at the door you would hear the Pipes properly.” Then
O’Meally calling the 14 1/2” Egan Chanter “a player’s chanter”.
Again O’Mealy offering to buy the 15 Egan to play in the Taylor
Set."
Goodman might’ve played anything before getting the Taylor set. It’s a big blind alley. Some have speculated that the Taylors made loud stuff before emigrating, Rolf Knusel’s set for instance, which used to belong to John Pedersen, the California pipemaker. That’s very fancy stuff though - metal bass and double bass regulators, metal mainstock (a bunch of tubes soldered together, looks like some sort of Satanic milking machine).
Sean Folsom told me once about an old Dublin piper, Peter Flynn, who had what was said to be a pre-emigration Taylor set - or a set by the father? I had the characteristic diving board keys - but only one regulator - and in brass. I think the chanter was gone, too, Sean said. This was in the mid-70’s. One regulator was popular with O’Meally, though, perhaps they mistook O’Meally for Taylor?
How many regulators on Pat Ward’s pipes, Peter? Did you count the reeds coming out the man’s pocket? The picture in O’Neill’s is him with full set, but in the Ennis tutor he has one reg, or just drones?
RTE Ceolnet had a bunch of Peadar O’Loughlin’s piping, that’s this Br. Gildas set, right? 17 inch Egan?
It went through Gildas’ hands anyway, and it has been to the cleaners. Toncil job.
Oh that’s a shame! 
Patrick.
Pat, Egan’s were considered the bees knees during the early 1900s, people were looking for them and when they found them they wanted to have them going. There are few if any that haven’t had their throat examined.
How did Peadar obtain the set? Was it through Sean Reid?
Patrick.
yes, weddingpresent.