Hello! I have a question for all oldsters in the forum.
When I was very young - around 12 or 13 - I remember seeing a TV program featuring an uilleann piper who played accompanying his own rather slow ornate singing, sitting in a rowing boat. He must have been in his 60s at least, and this must have aired (on Swedish TV!) around '78 or '79, now I suspect that it must have been either Seamus Ennis or Willie Clancy but I’m far from certain. Anyone able to make a qualified guess?
I realise this is a tricky one but it has kept emerging in my memory over the years as being the first time I heard the pipes.
Cheers/Stefan
Singing and playing at the same time was a trademark of Francie McPeake. Ennis and Clancy would sing or play, but not both at the same time.
djm
Sounds like a great bit of footage. Hope the boat didn’t capsize! 
Ennis would sing and play alright… with the drones only that I’ve heard though.
Patrick.
Thanks - I have since heard both Ennis’ and McPeakes singing voices, and Ennis certainly comes closer to what I can recall of the program. If memory serves me right, it could be that he kept drones (and regs?) going while singing, playing the chanter only during breaks between verses. I would LOVE to see and hear this footage again!
/Stefan
did he look like this… only a little bit older?
I cannot say. It was long before I ever heard of Seamus Ennis, and the visual memory of his face is too blurred.
But one thing is for sure: if it was Seamus, he was not as well dressed sitting in that boat!
Was he playing The Rolling Wave, or Out on the Ocean? 
djm
Tee hee! No… And he wasn’t singing “Lovely on the Water” either!
/S 