Tom’s set could well be a trade in or a just a set that was in playing order and that he had access to at the time. The reg keys look to be “Taylor style” but other than that who knows. I bet there were quite a few bits and pieces of pipes by various makers lying around Leo’s workshop at the time. Could even be Paddy Lavin’s Carney set or part of it - if I remember rightly Paddy played at some point with Leo. Andrea, a fiddler, big mate of Jim L., told me that they had have had two Carney’s when Paddy was alive, and one is used nowadays used for spares. She has also told me that the working set is not running at 440 Mhz last time she had a tune with Jim L., which would have suited Leo’s quartet prehaps, at the time, that is if it is indeed Paddy’s Carney Tom R. is holding in the photo? Wouldn’t Kevin R know?
I was just concentrating on that period but the main pipemaking line is Kenna(2)–>Coyne(2)–>Egan–>Taylor(2)–>Willie Rowsome–>Leo Rowsome–>Froment/Wooff. Others, of course, are in there and several making absolutely great pipes but those are the main impact pipemakers with significant outputs (and they do not represent a direct lineage or connection).
I’d see a clearer connection Harrington/Wooff than Rowsome/Wooff to be honest and given the shape of Liam Flynn’s endcap on the bass reg Leo saw Harrington’s work as well.
Also re your remark ‘drones are drones’ I beg to differ, there’s a clearer link between the earlier maker’s and the Taylor’s drones than between the older and the Rowsomes.
Last september I played a Coyne set which had drones that could have been Harrington. Hearing those drones you’d realise not all drones are made equal. They were absolutely gorgeous sounding.
Many makers make a nice set of drones. They are different and distinctive. That seems to be the least of anyone’s worries. I think Taylor sets have a great sound in their drones but no one copies or emulates the sound. So, some of these makers are different and not ‘better’.
I was not talking about a direct lineage. Harrington was a derivative maker with a low output (and thus the low survival rate - less than 5?). The others on the list are full-time makers with long runs of signifcance. Who cannot admire the Moloney Bros, Colgan, Reid, Harrington, Quinn, Crowley, O’Meally (where’s more if his stuff?), Williams, and others?
A friend collects vintage/antique cars. They map surviving autos against production line totals to estimate rarity and how many more might be out there. I read that Willie Rowsome had made over 300 sets of union pipes. We do know that all sets of pipes do not survive but there must be more out there.
Come to think of it, maybe I’ll get out there and look for some of these old pipes!
Hi Everyone, I just got a response from Kevin. The pipes were swapped for the photograph. The pipes pictured with Tom are indead a Taylor set of pipes but they are owned by Mr Paidin. Tom played a set made by Willie Rowsome. Both sets Kevin belives are owned by both families.
Cheers L42B 
Well, Taylor it is then.
What was so “Harrington” about that Coyne set, Peter? Do you mean the turnings or metalwork, or the sound? At the Seattle tionol Dave Daye was
saying something about his D drones being “Harrington B” scaled up - uh, ok! - but on the outside they looked like huge ebony knitting needles.
Reeds go a long way, too. I notice Tommy Reck seems a bit sharp on the Stone in the Field than on earlier recordings - Pat Sky said he reeded up the whole set a week before recording began, and the chanter got a wiff of helium perhaps! The drones sound a bit less growly than on the earlier tapes, too.
Sometimes I’ve used the Northumbrian trick of putting a bit of straw in a drone’s exit to quiet down a yackity drone or reed.
Willie Rowsome obviously was familiar with Harrington, Egan, and all the rest. John Cash played a Harrington set, he was a close family friend. Willie’s own Bb set has Harringtonesque reg caps, for instance. Dunno if Rowsomes knew the Coynes - I think Sean Donnelly says Coynes vanished from Dublin directories about the mid-1860s, and Willie came to town maybe mid-1880s. Willie’s early work is very rough, too. Perhaps he was too poor to afford a decent lathe.
They looked like they had bee nmade by Harrington, a bit like that one drone i nthe middle on the back cover of the SRS journal vol2 that Ken insisted on being a Coyne while really it is identical to the drone in Geoff’s set.
Anyway, the two regs in the set were very clearly Coyne but made slightly longer at the reed end with a piece of brass tubing, probably to bring them down from C sharp to C. The chanter was an 19th or early 20th century lump. The drones were very very lovely sounding.
Not much of the drones in there but a bit of a peep at chanter and regs:
When I first read this, I though, “The photographer must have been one heck of a negotiator”
Thanks for clearing this up.
“The photographer must have been one heck of a negotiator”
Or it was a very dodgy photo of him doing something he shouldn’t be doing…
T