Hi all,
As many of you are already aware, the Irish Traditional Music Archive regularly publishes digital items from its collections. A collection of images of impoverished pipers from the early twentieth century has just been made available to view and can be seen here:
http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/gallery/pipers/
Many of the pipers in these images are yet to be identified. Any help board members could give in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
I.
Unless my eyes deceive me, the first picture in the ‘Poverty of Pipers’ gallery is Lawrence, ‘Larry’, Mealy, father to R. L. Mealy of Belfast, husband of Letitia Lewis, mother to R.L. The set he is playing is very probably the Kenna set that has been passed down through the Mealy family and is currently being played by a Farrar.
Bob
Great shots and a revelation to me on the mechanics of stand-up piping. I had always assumed (from the few shots I had seen in the past) that standing pipers (who use a prop) were somehow balancing with the stick point as a fulcrum contacting the soul of the shoe. The stick is more of a crutch-like device whose contact is the thigh above the knee.
[note to self: make recording called The Piper’s Stick] [new note to self: scratch that. Sounds too much like The Piper’s Tick as well as The Piper’s T’ick]
I’ve looked at some of the photos on uilleannobsession and come up with some suggestions (I’ve copied some of the text from uilleannobsession, but not credited the actual contributors - sorry)
Photo #6/17 - Nicholas Markey
Photo # 10/17 - John O’Reilly, Dunmore, Co. Galway. 1912 Dublin Oireachtas winner.
Photo #16/17 - Jem Byrne
Photo #17/17 - “Pipers at Feis Cheoil 1901” it states the pipers as being "L to R seated: Miss H. Barry, Pat Gallagher, Michael O’Sullivan, Martin Reilly, Denny Delaney, Edward St. John, George McCartney. Standing: Pat McCormick, John Cash, Pat Ward.
I’d take a guess that photo #6/17 might be Pat Gallagher also seen seated in the group photo. Markey played a full set and if you see photos of him without the beard he had a much narrower face.
#4/17 could well be Edward St John. Similar set and also left handed.
#3/17 is Tom Carthy 1799 - 1904 (according to O’Neill) may well have exaggerated his age… he was born in 1913
http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000877185/
Tommy
I,m so glad I wasn’t a parent in 1901, you had to decide if your child was possibly an idiot an imbecile or a lunatic.
(go to the last column on the census form)
RORY
I’ve thought most of my children were all of those at one time or another. Mostly when they were teenagers.