Does anyone know what year Soodlum’s changed their name to Walton’s?
Also, I’m looking at my old Soodlum’s whistle and it looks the same as my Whaltons. Did the company just change the sticker? Are there older Soodlum’s that have a different head, in the same way the old Feadogs had different heads than the new ones?
I have no definitive info but I’ll take a stab at it. It wasn’t all that long ago. My recollection is the mid-late 1990’s - maybe 1995-97. It’s hard to tell over here in the US since a lot of Soodlum’s branded whistles remained in stock on retailer’s shelves. It could have taken place somewhat earlier in Ireland. So that’s just my estimate to get discussion started here. And as far as I know the Soodlum’s whistles only emerged in the late 80’s anyway (again the US market may have lagged behind the Irish market) so they are not a long lived brand in comparison to Generation or Clarke. I’d be happy to be corrected if anyone has a better date.
There were Soodlum’s models that did not survive the Walton’s re-branding if my memory serves me right. My recollection on which ones is sketchy since I never got on particularly well with many of the Soodlum’s products. I may have one or two among my box of cheapies. The change was mostly a branding/sticker change though not a total re-manufacturing move. I think Walton’s Music was the distributor for Soodlum’s products before the name change anyway. You could dig through the archives of Dale’s C&F Newsletter on the main Chiff site to see if you can dig up details. There is also some info on the different Walton/Soodlum models on the main site.
Feadogs have used at least three designs judging by my meager collection and they are each distincly different whistles. I like the older Mark I Feadogs myself.
Pretty much. You know how those mega corporate takeovers go.
Feadoggie
Walton’s is a long-established retailer which has been selling musical instruments and sheet music since before the era of those new-fangled gramophone things. I believe it existed in the 1930s at least, if not earlier. It was never to my knowledge a manufacturer of any kind of instrument.
The 1960s-70s boom in ballads and then trad led to increased demand for tin whistles, and the Microsoft/Apple duopoly of Clarke’s and Generation began to be modestly challenged by some small Irish manufacturers including Soodlum and Feadóg.
Walton’s identified strongly but not exclusively with Irish music. In the 1950s, in the days of sponsored programmes on the steam radio it used to have a weekly programme on Saturday afternoons whose slogan was “And remember, if you want to sing a song, do sing an Irish song”. On St Patrick’s day, it would inevitably have special display with a harp in the window.
It would be in keeping with its values - which drew on the same Sinn Féin ideology that gave rise to industrial protectionism in the emerging Irish independent state - to support Irish industry in producing an instrument as strongly associated with Irish as the tin whistle, but which up to the emergence of the smaller brands could only be sourced in the UK. There may too have been some demand from tourists for an Irish-made whistle. So at some point Soodlum’s became effectively the own brand producer for Walton’s. I don’t know the inside story, so cannot say if the relationship between Walton’s and Soodlum’s was ever any closer than that.
Your post is interesting reading, Roger. 
Thank you for the information everyone.
The history of the different whistles, and how the whistles have changed over the years has always fascinated me.