First of all ,my question sounds grammatically strange, is it correct or how should I have worded it.
Secondly has anyone here ever had a conversation with Liam O’Flynn about the pipes he owns and if so what pipes does he own ?
RORY
I think he just has the loaner set from NPU
Liam was a student of Leo Rowsome, so one set would be a Rowsome set in “D”. Liam was also bequeathed the Coyne set played by Seamus Ennis. Others can add to the list, as I’m sure Liam may have added another set or two since his early days. So besides the Rowsome set and the Coyne set, what else has Liam O’Flynn been playing and recording with in his lifetime of piping?
Liam was a student of Leo Rowsome, so one set would be a Rowsome set in “D”.
I don’t think the one thing necessarily follows from the other.
I think his concert playing is on a Rowsome - I think he says something to this effect on the liner notes to The Given Note - there’s also a picture of a Rowsome set and a dedication to Leo
Not necessarily, no, but accounts agree that he had the Rowsome set at one point. I’m sure all future Leo Rowsome students have been suitably cautioned against unreasonable expectations of similar bounty.
Not necessarily, no, but accounts agree that he had the Rowsome set…
My point was ofcourse that the way the set came into his hands, with the outlines of the process and the provenance of the instrument well known and well documented, did not follow from him being taught by Rowsome, as the earlier post seemed to suggest.
Perhaps a more pertinent way of wording such a question ( from a pipemaker’s viewpoint) would be:
What Pipes has an influencial piper actually purchased… has thought sufficiently well of to lay out their hard earned sheckles on ?
And, to follow the Rowsome teaching connection, here he is playing, seventeen years old, still untouched by his later influences.
The Rowsome set which Sean Reid is holding in the Bettystown 1969 photo doesn’t look like the Rowsome set LOF currently plays. The chanter (upper mounts/ferrule and what looks like popping valve), mainstock, reg caps and pins and bass reg reed-cap all look different, compared with this photo.
According to an interview with Fiona Ritchie, Liam O’Flynn began his master classes on the uilleann pipes with Leo Rowsome at the age of 12.
In the same interview, we learn that the Rowsome set he now plays was obtained from Willie Clancy. I’m not sure if Willie gave him the pipes before dying or perhaps Liam obtained them following Willie’s death.
So Liam does indeed own and play a Rowsome set, and he did receive instruction from Leo Rowsome as a youth. I also read somewhere that Liam obtained a Coyne flat-set previously owned by Seamus Ennis. I assume he still owns both, but I can’t verify that.
Willie had that particular set on loan (see the Kilrush Fleadh videos on youtube), as did Paddy O Donoghue before him and LOF after him. But again, that was not in any way connected to Leo Rowsome’s involvement or role as a teacher. Which you sort of suggested when you said :
Liam was a student of Leo Rowsome, so one set would be a Rowsome set in “D”.
Here’s a clip of Willie Clancy playing the Rowsome set which LOF currently plays. Again, there are differences (mainstock, chanter) between this set and the one which Sean Reid is holding in the 1969 Bettystown photo.
PJ–
No one said that set was LOF’s or even implied that. Read the article beside the picture.
LOF’s main sets are well known. i think the OP is asking if anyone knows what other sets he may own. Maybe Pat Sky Would know…
…par for the course, Geoff W.'s perspective on it is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this…
Else, what purpose the question? Someone planning to do-over his house while he’s away playing a concert?
Making sure to purloin absolutely all his collection before running out the garden room door? (mind the Rottweiler…)
Appreciate this is likely just idle curiousity, but kind of like asking what Leicas Cartier-Bresson had - or what Les Pauls
Jimmy Page owns - who cares? They’re not up for grabs and their holder is more concerned with their output than the …
Seriously though - publication of what someone owns without their permission potentially puts them at risk.
M
That clip of young Liam O’ vamping up a storm is funny, maybe we should all give a shot at Rowsome type regulator playing just for the practice, like Paddy Keenan here, playing Dunphy’s Hornpipe. Well, I think that’s Paddy, not Finbar, not…glassy enough tonewise, maybe? And some of the note choices. Fin would play a neverending vibratoed back D at the finish, and that “G…F#…” cadence on the middle reg.
O’Flynn has an Egan, and a Fremont or two. Or so rumor has it.
What Pipes has an influencial piper actually purchased… has thought sufficiently well of to lay out their hard earned sheckles on ?
Most of these veteran pipers bought something new, or inherited something old/awesome. Lots of selfless gift giving back when, and prices were so low, what with it being an extremely obscure instrument. I think Gay McKeon actually had to pay some bit of chickenfeed for his Coyne, people like yourself Geoff paid pittances for old sets, how much did Robbie Hannon pay for that Coyne or Mick O’ for that old Willie R? Those were the days.
I did. Did you read the caption under the photo?
According to his Dad , Liam’s first set was made by Leo Rowsome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PfDfC6ML_o
from about 3.55.
RORY
I think he also has an Alain Froment set, and a C chanter by someone else. I am not too sure who made it, though, I heard it could have been Andreas Rogge.
Didn’t Andreas Rogge try to modify LOF’s Coyne chanter supposedly to “improve” it ?