Just curious if anyone knows what pipes Finbar Furey plays, more in terms of his early recordings (such as “Irish Pipe Music”, and “The Irish Pipes of Finbar Furey”).
thanks,
Baen
As far as I know he plays a Dave Williams set… Thomas may know more?
Patrick.
Finbar Fury plays a C set he’s had the set a while, he’s had the same set
since the seventie’s a least, 
Patrick,
I think you’re wrong on this one. Dave has never mentioned that he’s made a set for Finbar.
The old LPs that Finbar made have a few photos of the concert pitch pipes and they look like Crowley to me. never heard him play in C.
I’ll scan one of the covers and send it to Patrick to put up on his website.
Ken
Hi kenr,
The most recent reference of Finbar’s playing is on a video called “The Pipes the Pipes Are Calling” by a Canadian musician. It’s a great video. But by the looks of the set he is playing in that it’s not the Kennedy and looks remarkably like a Williams. Maybe ask Dave Ken… I’m sure he’d be glad to pass on the info!??
Also, I have him playing on The Late Late Show tribute to the Dubliners which doesn’t look like the Kennedy set either… maybe one from that era (mid 80’s?) a pipemaker du jour perhaps? Is this the cover you’re talking about Ken? http://www.concentric.net/~pdarcy/photos/memorabilia/finbar_furey.jpg
'Fraid I’ve never heard him play in C either 
Patrick.
I’ve an album of the Fureys and Dave Stewart, where the liners explain that the genesis of the album was Fin trading his Taylor set for Dave’s Coyne set. Gawd! Hence this C set bizwax, maybe? Sean Folsom told me about the Fureys showing him Patsy Touhey’s Taylor set. Well, they said it was Touhey’s, anyway. If you have an old set it’s nice to have a story to go along with, right?
Fin played a Kennedy set on his early records. I have a tape with him playing at the Oireachtas in 1964, nice gargly bottom D. Slow tempos except for the reels. The Come West Along the Road has a bit of the Fureys, Fin George and their Da, Ted. A friend has a Ted Furey LP, the liners to that one are hilarious, it says the tape was lost until recovered from the rubble of a demolished building! The Finzig plays a Froment now, right? Sure looks like a Froment. Isin’t Froment a word for cheese? No wait, that’s Fromage…
Patrick,
you should have the cover for Fin’s first LP by email by now.
Crowley/ Kennedy it’s just a matter of dating the set I suppose. Don’t think the Fureys ever had their hands on Touhey’s Taylor. Somebody needs to check with Sean McKiernan. I thought he’d got the set from the states.
Ken
Last I heard (very recently) the set is safe and sound in Seán’s hands Ken.
Here’s the scanned image that Ken sent me. It’s on the UPOP aswell. This set is his Kennedy set alright. I am sure he has a new set though. The one on that vid was very streamlined and tasty looking… almost like one by Spillane… could that be an option?
Do I remember rightly that B. Howard was in there somewhere at sometime? Regs?
And that’s a really scary LP cover!!
Alan
This one Alan? I know it freaks me out 
Pretty serious do happening there Finzer!
Whoa! Sweet Nellie, Buy Me a Saxophone!!..his tie is succumbing to the gravitational pull of his hair!
Can someone identify those other old pipers surrounding the Prince? I see names under the pics I think.
Sweet Nelley is right! 
On the left going L - R, L- R we have:
Thomas F. Kerrigan - Pat Fitzpatrick
Patrick Ward - Mr. Nicholas Burke
Dennis Delaney - Turlough McSweeney
Bernard Delaney - William Andrews
Below Finbar we have:
John S. Wayland - John Rowsome - Miss May McCarthy
On the right we have:
Ned Hogan of Cashel - Miss Molly Morrisey
Prof. Denis O’Leary - Patrick J. Touhey
Robert Thompson - John Flanagan
John Cash - Thomas Rowsome
These photographs are all available in Francis O’Neill’s “Irish Minstrel’s and Musicians” a treasure trove for anyone interested in piping history and lore.
Patrick.
Thanks for the trouble Patrick, I owe ya one. I recognize about 1/2 the names.
Would Dennis Delaney be associated with the well know tune, Dinny Delaney’s? And Molly Morrisey AKA Maggie, after the HP?
The first album above, with the Kennedy set, interesting the way Finbar holds his left hand against his left leg, like Keenan. That other picture, with the hair and tie, also interesting ergonomics!
Just to apologise for the relatively poor quality of the photo of the first LP. I did it in a bit of a hurry to get it on promptly.
Ken
Brian Howard told me personally that he made Finbars set.
The album I have is “Finbar & Eddie Furey”, The Collection, Finbar on
Pipes & whistle and Eddie on the Guitar, the 23 tracks are mainly
traditional tunes e.g Rankish Paddy,Pigeon on the Gate,The fox chase
the full Pipe version Solo, My mothers friend has three or four of his
albums from the seventies & eighties, it has a compact Disc number on
the back of the cover, here it is, Disc number CCSCD 165, Castle
communications PLC,Unit 7, 271Merton Road,London SW18 5js, Don’t
know if this music Company is still going but you could give it a try,
this is the album he plays Pipes in C on, all the best.
Dinney Delaney was a piper from Ballinsloe, Co. Galway, who recorded a set of four tunes on wax cylinder at the Dublin Oireachtas, in 1899, I think, which were circulated on tapes NPU would pass around at tionols in the 1970s; one of these tunes was a single jig, announced as “Number four: The Old Hag in the Kiln.” Pronounced “Kill un,” too. Seane Keane recorded on his Gusty’s Frolicks album, I think that was the earliest it made it on to wax, and it was called simply “Dinney Delaney’s” there, setting a trend. Kevin Burke called it such on his Cap Fits record, for instance. Delaney’s Bb M. Egan pipes wound up in Perth, Australia, where they were copied by Geoff Wooff; and now I play a copy of those, too. Here is something Caoimhín Mac Aoidh wrote that wound up in an article at irishfiddle.com:
"Paddy Fahey often told me that during the end of the last century and the first decade or two of this century the local fiddlers of east Galway were always very anxious to play with the famed uileann piper Dinny Delaney. Dinney’s chanter was pitched in B flat. Rather than tune the fiddles down to the chanter, the players regularly re-learned the tunes in flat keys to play with him without tuning down. As such, the local players became highly conversant in playing flat keys. When they started to compose themselves or re-arrange tunes in more common keys, they would often opt for playing them in flat keys as after only a few years, the “wistful flat key sound” was very much the aim of players. "
The picture of Fin on the cover of Traditional Irish Pipe Music was used on the back of the American Nonesuch releases, but with the frame compressed so you couldn’t see the baby, which is good, it’s altogether disturbing looking, Fin looks like he’s smacking his lips…
I heard a story once about Felix Doran visiting the Fureys in the late 60s, he wanted to hear this hot young piper. He was pretty impressed, when another young lad walked in and played a set himself, and Felix about crapped his pants it was so amazing. The new piper? Paddy Keenan.
Kevin, I think I almost did the same thing when I heard Patrick Murray play, at the San Francisco Tionol!
And just the way P. Murray treats “The Old Bush” on the soundbite on his website, shows he knows. 