I’m trying to dig up as much info about Egan as possible…if anyone has any good sources on the net, please let me know…
Aaron Welsh
Aaron,
There’s some information in O’Neill’s IRISH MINSTRELS. If you don’t have a copy, I’d be glad to photocopy the section for you.
Also, I don’t remember if it was An Piobaire or The Pipers’ Review, but there was a blurb on Egan recently.
Jonathan
The last issue of the Pipers’ Review had an excellent article “Early Pipemakers in America” by Mark Walstrom, which covers Egan quite well. The style of the set shown in the picture is Egan’s typical turnings and key shapes, from which he rarely deviated; I have seen a picture of an Egan set with Coyne-style keys, however. The “Dan O’Dowd” and “Paddy Galvin” sets’ “trumpet” shaped regulator caps are another stylish deviation from his usual work. The bores and fingerholes of his pipes were a trifle larger than the other pipemakers of his day; this is a very marginal difference, perhaps .3MM in the chanter’s throat. Perhaps this accounts for the fondness old pipers had for him, that his pipes had a slight edge. The following is from Francis (Chief) O’Neill’s out-of-print book “Irish Folk Music: A Fascinating Hobby”: “Whether based on venerated memory, or on acutal merit, the sentiment prevails among pipers to this day [1910] that it is doubtful if Egan’s pipes have ever been equaled, not to say excelled, for mellowness of tone and adaptability as a parlor instrument. The music of lower than modern concert pitch was sweet and soothing, and on certain temperaments it exercised a peculiar fascination not easily explained.”
AND, the next sentence is of some curiousity as regards another maker: “The instruments now being manufactured by Mr. [Willie] Rowsome, of Dublin, are modeled after the Egan type of Union pipes and are quite as complete and well finished.” O’Neill met up with Willie Rowsome on a trip to Ireland in 1906; thus Willie was still making old style flat sets at that point?
Dan O’Dowd’s Egan “C” set can be heard to great effect on the early Chieftains records. Pat McNulty plays another Egan C on his Autumn Apples cassette from Ossian, but the quality of this recording doesn’t really convey its tone quite so well.
Teardrop shaped keys like Egan’s were also built by the Moloney Brothers of Clare, who were perhaps working a bit earlier than him; they seem to have wrapped up their career by the time of the Famine. So perhaps they deserve the credit for this innovation, which was later copied by the Rowsomes and their present day followers. Look up Egan’s name on the uilleann pipes mailing list archives and you will find numerous bits of information. Of especial interest are letters from old-time piper Brother Gildas, raphsodyzing at great length on Egan’s pipemaking.
Hope that helps!
Thanks, J, I do have a copy, I just have to dig it out, cuz the wife packed it up already!
Thanks for the info, Kevin.
Just trying to plumb every resource I can…
There’s also the excellent article by Seán Donnelly A century of pipemaking, 1770-1870: new light on the Kennas and the Coynes in The Seán Reid Society Journal. Volume 2, March 2002. 2.14 1
In spite of the title, there are quite a few references to Egan and homonym(s?) (why is it that all the big makers seem to have at least one namesake?).
PM me if you don’t already have it.