My hire car was broken into yesterday, February 2, '05, in Dublin. Items taken included my practice set. which comprises a Howard chanter with popping valve, plus Kennedy bellows and bag. The chanter is made from African blackwood - I think. (Anyway, it’s black!) The Kennedy bits are finished in green felt/velvet with yellow trim. The bellows intake valve is ivory. (I’m afraid that’s what they used in those days.)
The box also contained a Mike Burke brass, tuneable D whistle (the one with a plastic O-ring in the tuning slide and delrin-lined mouthpiece); a black Susato tuneable D whistle; a Howard Low D, and three or four Generation whistles (C, B flat and E flat, and possibly a standard D).
Needless to say, I don’t expect to see this stuff again, but the practice set at least is pretty distinctive, and if by any chance anyone hears of it being offered, please let me know. Many thanks.
I’d suggest keeping an eye out on Ebay..I read a story a while back where a fellow piper had his stolen and then recovered them a while later from an anonymous seller on Ebay.
Good Luck in your search…and I will keep a look out, and I hope it’s returned to you.
Sorry to hear about your bad luck Peter. Don’t forget to inform NPU seeing as the theft took place in Dublin. You never know, you may get the chanter and bellows back.
Joseph
Peter, do you have a photo of them that you could post here (Or have somebody do it for you…I’ll volunteer), so we could indentify them should they turn up on eBay or where ever?
I’m really sorry this has happened and must have dampened a great holiday . Things to do to try and trase down the set:
Notify the Garda (police) emmdiatly about the brake in and the stolen goods that where taken from the higher car. That way if worst comes to worst you can claim the damage on your insurance. Give them a picture of the pipes (if possible) and a description so that you can they can identify them. The good thing about Uilleann Pipes is the instruments individuality. This means that they can be easily identified
Contact Na Piobari Uilleann about the stolen set. They could probably place an article in An Piobri and keep an eye out on their second hand sales list.
Contact the ebay administrator about the stolen pipes. Like the Garda give them a picture/description of the pipes. That way if they appear on ebay they can cancel the auction and get the police involved.
Post a message of the stolen goods on Ebay so that honest bidders will notify you if the set appears.
I hope the information posted is of use. As Joseph said can you please post a picture. That way others on the forum can keep an eye out. We’ll be keeping an eye out for you.
Thanks for the advice L42B. I did report the theft to the gardai there and then, but will follow up with the rest. The garde was totally uninterested, needless to say, but I had to do it for insurance purposes.
Totokots, the car was parked (legally) about 50 yards from Store St gardai. Not a great area, I know, but I assumed stuff would be safe in the boot for an hour or so. I was wrong! (The car itself wasn’t stolen, Patrick, just damaged.) Thanks for the suggestions about pix, but for some reason I never got round to taking a photo. (Unlike my motorbike, which I HAD to photograph for the insurance valuation.)
upiper71, that eBay story rings a bell. I seem to recall that it was a Woof set taken from someone fairly well known and was advertised as having been that guy’s set! I think the vendor in that case turned out to be an innocent victim?
Was the set in a case or a bag? If so, the thief probably thought it was a sax or similar sized brass instrument. They’re much easier to get rid of - much bigger market for brass instruments. The sad thing is that the thief will probably just dump the pipes, if he can’t get rid of them quickly.
I used to live in the IFSC, just beside Store St. The locals used to say that it was so rough in Gardner St (just around the corner) even the dobermans were afraid to go out alone and it was so dirty that even the rats wore over-alls.
Rotten news Peter. Anyone wanting to see what your chanter looked like can access a photo easily on Brians website, www.howardmusic.co.uk I’ll bet Brian will help you out over a replacement, he tries to keep no waiting list for practise sets. Good luck with your insurance claim.
Good point about the photos on Brian’s website, teirw. Thanks for posting the link. He will indeed fix me up with a chanter very quickly, and there seems to be a growing consensus that his chanters are now just about as good as you can get.
In Portaferry the other day, I met Jackie Boyce, of Comber, Do.Down, who has made bag and bellows for Kathryn Tickell among others, and supplies Geoff Woof and several other leading pipemakers. He didn’t know me from Adam, but tried to insist on replacing my bag and bellows free of charge. I didn’t feel able to accept that, but an amazing offer all the same.
PJ, the stuff was indeed in a box, and you might have put your finger on why it was stolen. In other respects the thief or thieves were very picky about what they took and what they left, and they will surely get little enough for the practice set.
Hopefully it will be returned to you promptly. I am on the lookout for anything (as described) just in-case something turns up on the net. Was there a small reward offered by chance? It may encourage others to ‘turn-in’ someone who may have seen something, it also may provide incentive for the thief to come forward.
Mainland Britain, or just shorted to ‘mainland’ in Ireland. As in Christy Moore’s song, ‘I was over on the mainland, doing me thing in some old village hall’. (Not the song title).
PJ, I take your point about Gardner Street. I was aware of some other parts of Dublin that had that reputation, but that’s going back five and 10 years and more, when Dublin was reckoned to be one of the wrost capitals in Europe for street theft.
After all these years of economic boom in Ireland, there’s surely no excuse for people having to live in the deplorable conditions that still exist in some parts of the city, and for such under-resourced policing.
Thanks to Fergmaun for drawing attention to this auction in another thread, and especial thanks to Dorothy and Brian Howard who followed up and established that this was the kit stolen from my car last year.
The gardai have been notified, as has the seller, a Scottish smallpipes player who uses an email address which includes the name Brian Doyle. (He may be quite a good piper, since his previous eBay ID was piperchamp!)
He seems to have acquired the set in good faith, but has so far not aborted the auction. The day after I advised him that he was offering stolen goods, someone mysteriously took out a new registration with eBay and put in a bid of £400.
I’m assuming that eBay or the police will intervene before the auction runs iits course.
