Cripes!!! 
Who said what, now, about the fox chase? Am I missing something in this thread. 
Criminy, no, no one said bollix about the Fox Chase! It’s an ideer that had been percolating in my pipe-diseased brain for a while, I hope it’s not totally inappropriate to bring it up here?
I love Liam’s piping and I wouldn’t be playing pipes at all now if my mentor had not lent me his personal copy of Seamus Ennis’s “40 Years…” . I just wondered if anyone else had heard the various renderings to which I’m referring, had formed strong opinions, and why they had them…maybe something fit for a different thread. If you think so, I’ll just start one on the very topic. Appy - loggies.
Gottcha. 
Bring it on. Nothing wrong with a thread diverging into a tributary of side-topics.
You and me both, about O’Flynn, that is. I wouldn’t be playing pipes today if someone hadn’t noticed me listening to The Furey’s ‘When You Were Sweet 16’ and said, “Here’s something MUCH better”, and lent me PLanxty’s black album.
No need to appologize. My sad face was a tongue-in-cheek response anyway, no hard D feelings.
Cheers,
DavidG
Willie had Sean Reid’s pipes during the early 60s, there are several tapes of him playing the set (the John Joe Tuttle tapes among others) and he made them sound more wonderful than anybody else. Some film footage shown on Come West along the Road show Willie playing the set( Kilrush Fleadh among others) , inside out bass reg closest to the body. Paddy Donoghue, had them for a while too during the 40s. I don’t think they went to Flynn straight after Willie had them. Sean reid lent them to Liam though later and they stayed with him after Sean died.
The only versions of the Fox Chase I know are the Ennis version, the Felix Doran version, and Eoin Ó Riabhaigh playing his dad’s version, which he attributes to originally coming from someone named Hyland. Each is entertaining in its own way. I wouldn’t go so far as trying to choose a “best” version. What else would the Fox Chase be about besides a fox chase? (can’t find an emoticon for naive).
djm
In the 1970’s Liam was in Scotland with Planxty. After the concert he was approached by a gentleman from the audience who ( to make along story short) gave thim the Bb set made by Egan. It was brand “new” 150 year old set, in the original case with the receipt. The leather had rotted away. The top of the bass regulator was capped with a beautiful solid Ivory billiard ball. Liam took the set to Dan Dowd to see if he could restore them and Dan broke the Ivory ball.
All the best,
Pat Sky
In the late 1980s or early 1990s, Liam played the Fox Chase on Irish TV for nearly breathless, host Paddy Glackin “the first time this piece has been played in its entirety on television”. I’ve got it on video tape.
Good stuff Jim, I’d love to see it. I bet Liam did a super job.
DJM. Think about when the piece was composed -1798 or 1799, and think about the way Ireland was a hotbed of unrest, how much of the country sided with Napoleon - and how expressing displeasure with one political faction or another was liable to get one hanged or shot with the least provocation. I don’t think it’s coincidence that the Lament for the Fox is so gut-wrenching and that the slip jig that follows it sounds more than just a little bit mocking in comparison. I think there’s a simmering dislike of the Establishment underlying the whole thing and that the composer’s sympathies were rather with the fox - with revolution, with stopping the ongoing rape of the countryside, the exploitation and murder of the native people, etc. - than the hunters or the dogs. It was a way to have an admittedly bitter laugh at his master’s expense while entertaining him and all his friends. Maybe. But I don’t think it’s just about a fox chase. Program music of this sort usually has a point to it, even if it’s not readily apparent.
some might say it’s triumphalist establishment drivel, too. You can make an argument either way.
Pat, I guess that’s where I get confused with you interpretation. The “fox” was usually the euphemism used to represent the the English red-coats, so I can understand wanting to hunt the fox, see him ripped to shreds by the hounds, etc. but then why the lament (“Seilg a’ Mhadaidh Ruaidh” I think it is called), or was the widow’s tears part of the triumph? Maybe using the sport (fox hunting) introduced to Ireland to hunt down the self-same “fox” was the irony you are refering to, perhaps?
djm
I’ve never heard of anyone associating the fox in the fox chase with the English army; that sounds a bit odd especially since it’s the same kind of people who made up the army’s officer corps who happen to be involved in hunting the fox. That is, they were part of the establishment (English-speaking, well-to-do Protestants who detested nearly everything Irish and Catholic), and what’s more the establishment depended on the army to help remain the establishment. The last thing they would want to do is destroy the very thing that maintained their privileged lifestyle.
Stop associating the fox with the army, and start thinking of the fox as a rebel, a symbol of nature, a likeable trickster, something that can not be subjugated so it is destroyed by those who must subjugate everyone and everything to their will.
_Wildly o’er Desmond the war wolf is howling.
Fearless the eagle sweeps over the plain.
The fox in the streets of the city is prowling,
And all who would scare them
Are banished or slain.
- from O’Donnell Abú_
I always took “the fox” to mean the red-coats.
djm
I’m not 100% on this, but I think the Fox in O’Donnel abu is a reference to an idividual, an enemy officer, Godzilla, G. W. Bush…or somebody. 
Well, that’s how the fox is used in one song. Tricky thing, symbolism. The same symbol can mean different things depending on context and association.
Consider the audience for whom each piece was written. The composer of the Fox Chase, Edmund Keating Hyland, was the resident piper in one of the big manor houses in Tipperary and would have had some insight into the establishment and its foibles. He also performed mostly for that crowd, too, so he had to watch his manners.
O’Donnell Abu is a rebel song for preaching to the choir. It can afford to make baldfaced, unflattering comments about the establishment and the army since that’s its whole purpose.
The Red Fox does have a red coat. You’re right on. A lot of them ended up as people coats too. 
I read somewhere that, as the red-coats marched past, the people of Boston would chant, “Lobster-back. Lobster-back,” much to the chagrin of the wearers of said apparel. I’m surprised this didn’t catch on in Ireland.
djm
A shame most of the pipers for the past 250 years have missed the meaning of the Fox Chase and aren’t we lucky to have it now?
I wonder if any uilleann/psychologist can explain why we like fingering our chanters so much? Is it the music or…
DJM:
Eoin O’Riabhaigh plays a very nice version of “The Fox Chase” on his CD, “Tiomnacht: Handed On”.
From the sleeve notes:
“More than almost any other tune, this was Mícheál O’Riabhaigh’s “party piece” and he passed it on to Eoin. This version of the famous piper’s showpiece, attributed to Hyland, differs from what Eoin calls the “other” version, especially in the rythym of the final section, and in the lament.”
BrianC, not sure what your point is. I already mentioned this version above.
djm
Yes you did.
Here’s a biscuit.