I just spent a very enjoyable week teaching pipes at scoil éigse, the music school the week before fleadh ceoil na hÉireann, I taught some fantastic young pipers both from Ireland & America and their enthuasiam for the pipes and life in general was very encouraging. What was also encouraging was the standard of the pipes they were playing, almost every one of them had a good strong D chanter and in good tune, all from the new breed of makers, some great Seth Gallagher Stuff, a few cracking Micky Dunne chanters, 2 great Gordon Galloway sets. It was fantastic that most of them had an instrument which worked. Long may it continue.
I think that a lot of the newer pipe makers have learnt much from those who can really make good pipes such as Cillian and the late Dave williams.
In turn it is also due to the generousity of those pipe makers in sharing their hard gotten knowledge with the newer makers.