Just once, If you could go back into time… what year and where would you like to be ??
Spend a weekend with Harrington, Coyne, Egan ??
Perhaps consult with the Taylors or Rowesomes ??
If you could bring one thing back… what would it be?
Go to some horse fair, watch Johnny Doran play.
If i could bring one back.., it would be him!!
The man himself,
I being a Northumbrian, Like Dennis Harrington, Who’m started
his carrier as a Northumbrian Pipe maker has to be my man, brilliant Craftsman, the Harrington pipes sets have there own distinct features & sound. 
Sure you meant to say Robert Reid there [who started out as an umbrella maker before he got into Northumbrian pipes]. Denis Harrington was from Cork and I don’t think he ever made a set of NSP.
Hi Alan,
From what I’ve seen of Harrington sets they certainly have the
characeristic’s that resemble NSP pipes, it is believed that he may
have come to Northumberland to train as NSP maker, either
before or after he had trained as a Uilleann pipe maker, there
seems to be quite a few sets of his in this area, eight or nine sets
from what I’ve been told, then he returned to Cork, and later he
went out to Australia, as believed.
Alan who?
Sorry Guys, I meant Peter, 
I was wondering that too, I don’t see any NSP influences i nthe Harringtons I have played but that doesn’t mean anything. The generally accepted tally for Harrington sets worldwide is around [or under] a dozen, few of these are complete and un-interfered with. Eight or nine in in Northumbria would be news, it seems unlikely though.
Geoff Wooff speculated about the departure to Oz. No proof ever emerged so ‘it is believed’ is a bit fancyful. Really.
Hey guys,
I’m just saying what Peter Hunter said to me one day Chatting, that there seemed to be a few sets by Harrington in Northumberland that he had
come across, whether for restoration or reeding I don’t know, anyway he
still the number man, Dennis Harrington.
I wouldnt mind riding around Ireland with Séamus Ennis and meeting all the characters he knew.
Paul, you could tune his pipes for him! 
djm
If he’s really out of tune that bad, say M# or V# or something like that, I’d say that the rest of the music world has something to learn. 
He was really awesome. I would be happy to be his full time shoe shiner just to ride around with him.
RTE had a little documentary on piping, Leargas was the name of the show. (Is it a weekly show, or…?) They played a bit of Seamus Ennis, he starts off by blowing his nose pretty hard. “That now, is N Flat Minor…” (Heaps of laughter). “You can all beam in on that note, now…” Then he plays Thomond Bridge, a hornpipe which is good fun if you’re bored with elementary little tunes like the Bucks of Oranmore.
Nice show, they talk a bit with Geoff Wooff, Cillian O’Briain, Maire Ni Ghrada, Sean Potts & Og Potts, Gay McKeon & Sons. Like that.
I’d go back to the 1820s, maybe. They had pipers who could talk and play at the same time. And millions of 'em, too.
Ah, but the true test of genius is to be able to play the full set, regs and all blaring away, and still be able to make funny faces at the camera.
djm
Brave man yourself, sitting in the famous Ford Zephyr was risky at times.
I have a tape where Liam O Flynn is tellign about an overnight drive with Seamus. The ywere driving along and Seumus asks ‘Liam can you see a line on the middle of the road’ ‘Yes Seamus I can’ ‘Well,’ says Seamus ‘I can see two…and they are not paralel’.
I’d go back in time far enough to tell Johnny Doran not to park his caravan next to dilapidated walls!
No E
But, if you went back, and met up with one of these guys and had a discussion with them and somehow let on that their sets were highly revered in our age then you’d change the piping world as we know it today…possibly in an adverse way.
I just listened to my Patsy Touhey tape and I would love to hear him in person, so I guess I would choose to go back to his prime.
I hear a definate Northumbrian influence in his playing. It is awesome how he plays without a single roll that I could hear in any of the tunes.
I think I found out who Paddy Keenan stole from to get most of his licks for his party piece version of Harvest Home.
If we are having time travel, what’s to stop me from visiting W. Clancy, Garret Barry, etc? I wouldn’t be satisfied with just one. I would want to visit all the UP players, known or unknown.
I’d be interested to go back to the time of the Kerry pipers… that’d probably be around 1750 or thereabouts. With the reverie they are remembered with it’d really be interesting to hear and see their world as it was and how much their music related to ours today.
Patrick.
Pat, that might be a bit of a surprise. I have heard that when the last of the Cape Breton GHB players went to England in WWI for military training, they were still playing in the original highland style, which drove the anglicized GHB players nuts. Apparently the old style pipers tended to be more musical, but were nowhere near as accomplished technically as the newer GHB military style with its cuts and crans and strict tempo. That story made me start wondering what the older UP players might have played like, whether what they played then was anything like what is played now, or considered standard method. Something to ponder …
djm