Best to do a forum search to get the details, gory or otherwise. I am not up to speed with the finer detail of all that.
I too was surprised by the spare look of the website, like it had been thrown up quickly to get sales going. “Lir” I assume comes from the Children of Lir of Irish myth, an attempt to link the whistle more closely to Ireland and give it more plausibility as a “made in Ireland” whistle. I hope you are wrong about the possible Chinese origin of the whistle; I have had recent bad experiences with products I purchased that later proved to have come from China and to be of shoddy manufacture and deceptively advertised. I appreciate all the input so far and hope that more people who may have purchased one of these whistles will give us their insights.
LOL thats friggen great 
i was crying on that one for sure , whoever it was playing the video, just ruined it , way to fast and uncontrolled, , its like he had a time limit
Yes good work can come out of China and poor work can come out of Ireland, sure, but the Irish Concertina Company says “Handcrafted in Dublin” on its website, and also “made in Ireland, shipped worldwide.” Maybe their beginner models are made in China?
It’s silly really, I’ll admit. For years guitar players would make a big flag-waving deal out of USA-made Fender guitars from the factory in Fullerton, CA; and they’d disparage the less expensive fender guitars made in Mexico. But then if you looked at the employees of the fender factory in its “golden age,” they were almost all Mexican or Mexican-American.
Sentimentally, I like the idea of “made in Ireland:” I think of it as honoring the tradition that I’m working at. But in reality the people making the “made in Ireland” instruments are likely to be from Poland or from Africa in modern Ireland, and good for them and good for Ireland.
Here in the USA things can get vague as to things’ origins but I had read that within the EU there were strict rules, called Protected Designation Of Origin.
Do those rules only apply to foodstuffs?
Can somebody claim “Irish Made” in the EU if it isn’t?
There was a period when Overton Whistles were being made simultaneously by Bernard Overton, Phil Hardy, and Colin Goldie. Sometimes it’s not easy to know who made what whistles, though at some point Goldie started signing his on the inside of the bell (I have an Overton like that).
I think it’s why Overtons can vary so much. I’ve bought old Overtons over the years that had strange tuning problems, had strange fingerhole locations, probably bespoke.
Lir and Killarney proud, Sindt flush.
“Protected designation of origin” only applies to “agricultural products and foodstuffs”. It is one of three such schemes for EU agricultural goods and foodstuffs. I can’t work out what an agricultural product might be if it isn’t a foodstuff.
There are separate rules on country of origin which apply to goods of many different types (not just foodstuffs) imported into the EU or exported from the EU. I really thought I understood the basis behind those rules, although the complexity involved in deciding what type of goods are being dealt with and therefore which particular rules apply is mindblowing. However, looking at it again, it turns out that I don’t even understand the basics. It’s horrendously complex. And I’m an accountant - I really thought I understood this.
So, in answer to your question, I’m not sure, for goods, including foodstuffs, which don’t come under one of the three EU schemes relating to the designation of origin, that anyone really has a clear answer. It’s probably at least as vague as in the States. At any rate, it’s too complex for most of us to work out (unless anyone can prove me wrong?).
Agricultural products not foodstuffs would probably include cotton and linen as well as natural dyes, like indigo, and seed oils not intended for consumption, like flax for linseed oil. Presumably wool might be classed as an agricultural product.
When we visited the Aran Islands it was hard to miss the skewed ratio of Aran sweaters for sale to actual sheep grazing. Lots of sweater, few sheep! 
To be fair we didn’t visit all the islands. But it would be interesting to see what legal encumbrances apply to “aran island” wool products.
To be fair we didn’t visit all the islands. But it would be interesting to see what legal encumbrances apply to “aran island” wool products.
‘Aran’ is now probably more a reference of the pattern/type than the location they’re made in. There used to be a factory around here, big machines working away at producing ‘hand knits’ 
Yes, of course. D’oh! 
The one place that USA laws are strict and clear is the labelling of garments.
Being that I play Highland pipes I have to purchase the various clothing items that constitute the piping outfit, and it’s maddening to see the vagueness and downright deception seen in the labelling of those items being sold in Scotland.
For one thing, legitimate UK makers often don’t label their products as such.
Vast amounts of tat Highland clothing made in Pakistan is being sold by Scottish-based firms. Some of this clothing has no labels, some is labelled with the firm name “So-and-So, Scotland” which says nothing about where it was made.
Some Pakistani clothing has labels saying “Designed in Scotland”.
Occasionally things have ended up in the courts, such as the Pakistani firm which was weaving knockoff Princess Diana Memorial tartan and selling it for their own profit (it was protected and the proceeds went to her charity).
And you often don’t know the fabric content of kilts and Highland jackets. Yes the UK makers usually have a label stating “100% Pure New Wool” but often UK-made woolen items lack these. The Pakistani clothing often says nothing or has head-scratching things like “Acrylic Wool”.
None of this would fly in the USA where every garment by law must carry a label stating the country of origin and fabric content.
About musical instruments I don’t know if there are any labelling laws.
Just a little update. Lír-whistles have contacted me and offered to repair the whistle for free, even though it was my own fault that it is broken. A nice move IMO. They also stated that the whistle is not “made in China”. So, I think as soon as they sort out the minor issues, they really got a nice whistle to offer. I might even get another one just to see how the un-plated version is. But at the moment I hardly play any of my whistles. I stick to the flute for now.