Just got home from International Uilleann Piping Day held in Melbourne. The afternoon started with lessons for beginners. Then a talk about the history of the pipes in that fair city. (The venue was the Exford Hotel where John Coughlan and Owen Cunningham, among others, had regular gigs in the 1860s. History was appropriate.) It finished with a concert of great music and pipering, nicely topped off by Conal Duffy, from Dundalk, playing The Fox Chase. Coughlan used to end his performances with The Fox Chase, so it was fitting to have it returned to one of his haunts after a century and a half. It was also fitting that there were three Wooff sets there - two played in the concert. Two of those sets were made not far from Melbourne.
Best wishes to the other IUPD events as they unfold, and the world turns.
I arrived a bit more than fashionably late for the planned event, which had started at seven, not at eight as I expected. I just caught the last five minutes, the last set of tunes, of the invited piper, concertina player and harpist playing to about ten people. I then had a chat with the other piper in the audience for five minutes after and then the venue closed and everybody who hadn’t left yet went home.
