Both “piob” and “pib” (w/fada) are acceptable spellings of “pipe” in modern Irish. “Pib” is a product of 20th century language reform and these days seems to be the more common variant of the two.
I was flipping through my copy of Dwelly’s (Scottish) Gaelic-English Dictionary the other day, which was initlally printed in installments (like the OED) between 1901 and 1911. The entry for pipes lists the Gaelic terms for all parts of the instrument (e.g. “bann”–ferrule, “ribheid”–reed), these of course being the piob mhor we’re speaking of. However, there are also these entries:
piob-shionnaich, pl. -an-shionnaich, s.f. Bellows-pipe, Irish bagpipe.
piob-na-comh-sheirm, s.f. The union pipes.
“Sionnach” is the Gaelic word for bellows.“Comh” is a participle roughly equivalent to “co-” in English and “seirm” means “melody.” “Comh-sheirm” can mean either “concert” or “harmony.” So “harmony pipes,” I guess.
I’m certainly not suggesting that similar terms to these would have been used in Irish in the 19th Century. It is interesting that there were Scottish Gaelic terms for the instrument though. There were a small number of people in Scotland known to have played the union pipes at that time, but not very many and most of the ones who did seem to have been Irish immigrants. It seems to me that Irish speakers then would have referred to them as many often do now as “the pipes,” or more correctly, “an phiob”/ “the pipe,” as bagpipes are often referred to in the singular in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic.
As previously stated, the union pipes were unquestionably an offshoot of the pastoral pipes, a 2-octave instrument with a range from middle C to a third octave d and usually one regulator (though some sets had two). The pastoral pipes developed in the early-mid 18th Century and were known to have been played in Ireland, Scotland, and Northumberland. I think Breathnach posited that the union pipes were first developed in the mid-1770s or thereabouts. Early sets were often made of boxwood or ebony and had one regulator. Brad Angus has one of these very early sets, pitched a little bit above D and has made a copy of it.
http://pageproducer.arczip.com/halfandhalf/JEganStyle.html
The cost of the materials and the intricate labor involved in construction would have made the pipes prohibitively expensive back then (some things never change…). However, Ciaran Carson mentions in his “Irish Traditional Music Handbook” that there is evidence of pipes having been made out of boortree and other indiginous woods.
There are some records of Protestant churches in 19th Century Ireland using the union pipes in place of church organs. “Irish organ” was another term sometimes applied to the instrument.
As for pitch, it should be emphasized that the standard A=440 is a relatively recent development. Baroque pitch was A=415. Classical era was A=433 or something. Many French and English flutes made before the 1830s were pitched around here. Seamus Ennis maintained that his C# Coyne set would have been considered a “D concert pitch set” back when it had been made. In the 1840s, many English orchestras operated at A=452. I’ve heard that some of the early concert pitch sets, like those of the Taylors and William Rowsome seem to have been originally intended to play at around this pitch.
"The Companion To Irish Traditional Music, edited by Fintan Vallely (Cork University Press, 1999) gives a detailed account of appearances of union pipers in paintings, the earliest listed being Maria Spilsbury’s “Harvest Festival at Rosanna, Wicklow,” ca. 1813-20.
