Pipes in The Hills of Donegal, 1947

Uilleann Pipes
1

I was reading Reg Hall’s exhaustive document Irish music in London: A Few Tunes of Good Music, and noticed this:

In 1947, Larry O’Dowd, this time on the flute, appeared in a Butcher’s Pinewood feature film,
The Hills of Donegal.41 It was a typical romantic movie of the time, loaded with anachronisms and false stereotypes, but a scene in an eighteenth-century Gypsy encampment called for an Irish band. Pat Goulding played the pipes, Tom O’Shea from the East End was on the piccolo, and there were four others – three with fiddles and one with a single-row melodeon – who might have been non-playing extras – and one, at least, of Charlie Smyth’s dancers, Chris Forde, appeared as well.42 Twaddle it might have been, but the pay was good at fifteen pounds each for three days’ work.

Investigating this further, I found you can watch the whole movie online. And indeed, at the 1:50 mark, you do see a piper/flautist/piccoloer in the lower left corner - but they’re just there as set dressing, the music is the orchestra playing some massively arranged version of the Devil’s Dream, aka the Concertina Reel. The scene with the gypsy encampment may feature some of these players, but all I see are two piano accordions and a handful of fiddlers; one fellow goes into what sounds like a Paganini rhapsody.

But something much more interesting comes along at 41:45, where the lead actress’s tinkling on the parlour piano is interrupted by a piper upstairs playing the Wexford Hornpipe; and we then see one of the actors miming to what I assume must be Goulding’s piping, with a kid dancing a step. It’s quite brief, but still of interest.

The pipes he’s holding are an old 3/4 flat set, too - chanter tied into the bag, straight bass drone. There are more pictures of Goulding in Reg’s paper, and as can be see he played a concert set, often in a kilt. Later in life he was gifted a Coyne set by another London piper, Seamus Carroll, and there’s a picture of a rather unlikely quartet in the paper on page 803, consisting of Bob Rundle (Northumbrian small pipes), Seamus Ennis, Mick Gannon (fiddle) & Pat Goulding. Bob wrote of making music with Seamus; were they all playing together here? There’s a clearer picture on the next page of the same, minus the NSP, and that does look like a flat set Pat has.

2

Who knows.

But it brought to mind a story I heard Eugene Lambe tell last Friday night (the conversation, with Paula Carroll, was recorded for Clare.fm). A Connemara piper, singer and fluteplayer (who I will not name here) and his father playing together: the father on concertina,in regular keys, and the son on a Clarke whistle, in C. When asked how they could bear playing one tone apart the reply was ‘ah sure, that’s what we have’.

Now, that may be an apocryphal story, I was told a very similar one by Jackie Daly, involving, again, a Connemara piper, albeit a different one, in duet with his brother playing an accordion in Eb.

But it goes to show odd combinations did perhaps occur sometimes, out of necessity, if you like. And it wasn’t always pretty.

3

A ‘tina played “on the row” would come out in C, as you well know. Perfect for a Clarke’s. But polytonal tunes, that’d be pretty strange.

Your Connamara brothers aren’t Tomás and Seosamh Ó Ceannabháin, I assume. I was given a dub of their cassette a long time ago, the tuning is right there.

There’s a 78 of Tom Morrison and PJ Conlon, the flute is in Eb. Peels paint, that sound…

The piece by Bob Rundle is in An Piobarie Vol. 8 #1. Here’s what he has to say about having some tunes with Seamus:

My professional career took me to London in
the 1960s so, again, I was able to get back in
touch with Séamus. This time, though, I was
able to play along with him – but on the small
pipes. I wish you could have heard us rantipol-
ing through the “The Bucks of Oranmore” or
“The Gold Ring”. Well, there’s no harm in wish-
ing. In truth, I remember I managed “Hogan’s
Favourite” and “The Fairies’ Hornpipe”, which
I learned from him, and “The Cuckoo Horn-
pipe” and a subtle variation of “The Boys of
Bluehill” on the whistles. Most of our shared
tunes were, however, Northumbrian pipe tunes
that I knew. I kept The Northumbrian Pipers’
Society’s tune books in my pipes case so that
others could read the music and play along with
me, usually fiddlers. Jack’s pipes were in the old
pitch, I believe nominally in ‘G’ but sounding
nearer to ‘F’. I have to rely on what I was told
about this by fiddlers who had to “tune down” to
play along with me. Séamus’s very old pipes
must have been similarly pitched because we
went along together all right. I don’t know what
trouble it caused him but he never complained
anyway!

Now, the traditional tuning for the NSP is between F and F#, I think that would have matched the pitch of the Coyne set pretty well.

A friend told me about Paddy Reynolds visiting San Francisco, and played a few with my friend on his smallpipes. Paddy just retuned slightly and played everything in F - those fiddlers in NYC were always big on the flat keys.

4

Yes, I know but the point of the story, as told, was that they were playing a tone apart.

And, obviously, the story was fresh on my mind. Top of the pile so to speak.

Jackie didn’t name the brothers although the suggestion of them being the Ceannabháins,was there. But perhaps because my mind, like yours, immediately went there.I have the Ceannabháins’ recording somewhere as well, albeit om CD.