Hello,
I was fool’n around on the National Library of Ireland’s website and came across this,
http://kildarest.nli.ie/npa/pi/pwp1316.htm
I’ve never seen this photo before. The young man in the photo looked a little familiar so I searched Pat D’arcy’s Uilleann Obsession site and came up with this
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/diary_1999.html
(about half way down). Could it be a photo featuring “Bernie” O’Donovan reversed? (or maybe a relative?) Great photo regardless
: )
John M
They look the same. must be the same man.
so one is reversed
on the black and white photograph 3 men wear their vests the same way
right over left
in the coloured photograph his vest is left over right
so i think the B/W is reversed
Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a set of GHBs set up left handed.
Like the night I went to see the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra. I mentioned afterwards that it was funny there were no left handed fiddlers… boggled looks and mouths agaped 
I am (partially) used to this reaction to things I say at this stage, but was genuinely surprised that lefties are taught to play right handed. I think I remember the first fiddler in the RTE Orchestra playing left handed though!!!
Pat.
Ashley McIsaac is about the only fiddler I know of who pays with the bow in his left hand, and event then, his fiddle is set up for a right handed fiddler. I still think he should have been elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada - at least it would have made Parliamentary Question Time more interesting:
They’re pretty few and far between, but there are “left handed” GHB players. I grew up on highland pipes, and am left handed, but I learned to play righty. I’ve had some bass ackward friends who learned to play lefty though.
I play them left handed, like I play all wind instruments.
It’s very unusual though to see three left handed pipers in one picture, it is much more likely the photo has been reversed.
In classical music, all people are trained to play right handed. In Scottish piping the same, but if you look at old photographs (pre-1950) you do see quite a few left-handed players.
Interestingly, in the case of the Italian zampognari as well as the Czech Bohemian dudy players, a right-handed player would play what we would call left-handed, bag under the right arm, right hand on top.
In Bulgaria, roughly one third of the gaida players use lefty fingering, but they all play under the left arm.
While ol’ H’Ashley (as one of fiddle friends call him years ago) may be a great musician, I don’t think much of him as a person. His off-stage antics are a little bit too whacky for me - and I don’t consider myself to be a prude by any stretch of the imagination!!. As much as I’d like to see a bit of life in the House of Commons, I can’t exactly see the decorum benefitting from his presence 
I was attending University in his native Province of Nova Scotia when he was doing the campus rounds (early 1990s). I chose to miss his concert at Dalhousie and I’ve been kicking myself eversince because it was a good show and that was back when he was a musician first - not the spectacle he became later!
But I digress!
Howaya Seand… just to clarify. I didn’t say that. It was the PeeJ.
Thanks,
PD.
T’was, wasn’t it?? Sorry , gotta keep close track of the thread posters, what??
Cheers,
Sean
His on-stage antics are not exactly sean nos either. Still, he’s one of the finest fiddlers I’ve had the pleasure of hearing. I saw him in Dublin in 1998 and in Montreal sometime prior to that.