Sure this has been covered before, but couldn’t get search to work. 
What is the history of the tin whistle in ITM? All the old pics are pipes, flute, fiddle etc. I’m thinking early C20, when the whistle as we know it was mass produced for the 1st time?
Whistles, more or less, as we know them were around from the latter part of the 19th century. Ofcourse bone whistles etc have been found dating back as far as viking Dublin.
There’s an old attitude I ran into fairly often, when I first started playing Irish music back in the 70s, that the whistle was a beginner’s or child’s instrument, and that if someone showed musical promise they would ‘graduate’ onto a ‘serious’ instrument such as flute, pipes, fiddle, or box.
It’s why practically all of the old trad guys could knock out a tune on the whistle, even if they hadn’t touched one in decades: it’s what they started out on.
I’ve often heard The Chieftans given credit for elevating ‘the lowly whistle’ to a concert instrument. (Ironic because their whistleplayer, Sean Potts, was a piper.)
How long have whistles as we know them been around? There were mass-produced inexpensive whistles widely available in the 19th century, that we know.
The feadan shows up in ancient literature and 13th century bone whistles were excavated in Dublin (with two holes, evidently like a Tabor Pipe).
Henry Mayhew’s description of Whistling Billy (the fellow on the Clarke whistle) in his 1856 work, London Labour and the London Poor, gives a good idea of the use of mass-produced tin whistles as they became available (and affordable) in the mid 19th century in the UK.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fIoBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200#v=onepage&q&f=false
[ Thanks again to Hoopy Mike for finding the online source. ]
Not all necessarily playing Irish music though
Your photos Mr. Gumby?
Best wishes.
Steve
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Yep. It’s a bit risky to impose rigid modern distinctions we sometimes like to make between different trad musics - Irish, Scottish, English, American, etc. Even folk musicians don’t live in little boxes; there’s always been a flow between them of both music and instruments. And the late 19th / early 20th century seems to have been an especially fertile period for exchanges.
I imagine there were Irish Whistling Billys as well. And at least historically, it’s possible to talk about music of the UK or the British Isles to include Irish trad without running afoul of politics. 
He’s been at it a long time. Mr. Gumby, stealing souls since … 
He’s been at it a long time. Mr. Gumby, stealing souls since … >
Not quite since Victorian times though.
He’s been at it a long time. Mr. Gumby, stealing souls since … >
Victoria Beckham’s not that old is she?
Best wishes.
Steve
Thanx all. That ‘pirate club’ pic is just gr8
Boxing, booze, guns, and fist-sized rocks. What could possibly go wrong? 
Somebody pulls out an accordion.
The banjo hadn’t arrived yet…
Below is a clickable thumbnail of the whistle that belonged to my great-grandfather. My grandfather was born in 1899, so I’d think this whistle was probably made sometime before then, but we really don’t know anything else about it. The $10 is shown for scale. The fipple is lead. It plays very soft and sweet – key of C, which you can see stamped on the barrel. It’s a brass tube.
In the case of Scottish Highlanders it’s impossible to know, because the word for bagpipe practice chanter is the same as the word for whistle in Scots Gaelic.
Ah yes - the little-known but seminal role of the bassoon in ITM.
Looks like Phil Lynott. Or his ancestor! 