Great Irish Warpipes
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The Great Irish Warpipes, (Irish: Píob Mhór - Great Bagpipes), played at least for over 1500 years, are closely related to the Great Highland Bagpipe, with which they are essentially synonymous. The first references to the bagpipes in Ireland are found in the 5th century Brehon Laws. Mention is made in a dinnseahchas or topographical poem, “Aonach Carman”, the fair of Carman, a composition of the eleventh century found in the Book of Leinster. The earliest representations of pipe-playing are to be seen on the High Crosses some 1500 years ago, and illustrations are further recorded in the 16th century. A rough wood carving of a piper formerly at Woodstock Castle, co. Kilkenny. The pipes depicted are obviously the prototype of the present day Píob Mhór or war pipes. In form they are one with the types depicted on the Continent about this time (e.g. Dürer’s piper, 1514). There is no record of the pipes or any other musical instrument being played on the field of battle in pre-Norman Ireland. In later times the pipes were regarded by foreign commentators as being peculiarly the martial instrument of the Irish.
Historically after the late 1800s the Great Irish Warpipes differed slightly from the Great Highland Bagpipe by having two drones instead of three, a tenor drone pitched one octave below the chanter, and a bass drone pitched two octaves below the chanter. In fact, the Great Highland Bagpipe also had two drones until well into the 1800s when the present three drone configuration can be seen. Historically the two drone bagpipe predates the three drone type. Nearly all players of Irish warpipes today play the three-drone pipes with two tenor drones and a single bass drone, the two-drone pipes having nearly died out.
