Does anyone know where I can get “Trip to Fanore”? I’ve searched all over the net to no avail!
The local library here has a copy 
Considering the tape is twenty years or so old it’s not likely you still find it in the shops (there may be a few shops with old stock, we had one in town where you could find unexpected old tapes on the shelves as well as 1960s swimwear etc but the owners have since retired and it’s a bookie’s now, not an improvement). Finding someone willing to copy it for you is the best option.
Thanks for the response! I hate to ask for copies and I know it’s a lot to ask, but if someone can make a copy for me I’ll send or PayPal them some money. I tried in vain to purchase a copy, but I’ll see if I can buy other EL music online. Not because I feel guilty, but because I really admire Eugene’s playing. What style of playing is that, anyway? I could be wrong because of the poor quality of the tape copy that I have, but it seems like he plays more openly than, say, Eamonn Dillon (who is my favorite).
I can make you a copy, PM me.
I remember a book with a title like “Arts and Crafts of Ireland” that had a section on Eugene, one pic was of a table with about 20 chanter/regulator blanks.
It’s “Ireland’s Traditional Crafts” by David Shaw-Smith, published by Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1984. ISBN 0-500-27416-9
It includes a 3-page essay on the uilleann pipes and their construction, with 2 B&W and 3 color photos. The photos show Eugene’s hands turning a chanter, him fitting a key on what looks to be a baritone regulator, a color shot of the shelf above his bench with 12 chanters hanging on nails (including three GHB chanters) and two mainstocks and a set of drones on the shelf below, a color image of four sets of bellows, and a shot of Eugene sitting with a set in his lap, reeding a chanter. The captions are not very accurate, but the rest of the writing is pretty good for a brief overview.
My wife and I visited Eugene in Fanore in 1986 at the suggestion of Phil White, who then had a lignum vitae Lambe set. Eugene was a very gracious host, and insisted that we stay for a few days. He took us spelunking in a nearby cave (the Burren is honeycombed with them), took me to cut turf with a neighbor, invited us to go to a lovely dance, and took us with him to Tommy Peoples’ session at a hotel in Lisdoonvarna.
As Peter Laban has mentioned, his workshop was in an old stone former schoolhouse about 50 yards from the shoreline of Galway Bay. He lived upstairs and worked down, and it was a spectacular location.
Eugene also visited us here in San Diego twice after that. John Tuohy and I took him to meet Dave Page, our mentor and a student of Leo Rowsome and member of Rowsome’s piping quartet. John and Eugene took turns playing Dave’s (now John’s) Kennedy set, and talked to Dave about his education as a piper. Eugene described to us how as a youth, he took a chanter to Leo Rowsome to be reeded, coming away a bit intimidated.
Dave died shortly after that, and I recall that Eugene wrote an obit for him, I think in the NPU journal.
Jonathan