Talk:Great Irish Warpipes

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[edit] Which Direction

Should Irish Warpipes direct to Great Irish Warpipes (this is the Status Quo at present)? Or should it be the other way round? Red blaze 17:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

At the risk of irritating the Irish contingent, I would say that the article should be directed to Great Highland Bagpipe, as the instruments are identical apart from some dubious revivalist tinkering by the Grattan Flood crowd. The original mouth blown Irish warpipe we know practically nothing about, not enough for a meaningful article IMO. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.62.204.75 (talk • contribs) .

Not irritating in the slightest. There is such a lack of detailed documented history of both Irish and Scottish pipes. We know they were there alright, but we lack the photos :-). In fact they are both the practically same instrument. Red blaze 15:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, they aren't. The surviving evidence suggests that the original Irish warpipe was rather larger and lower pitched than its Highland cousin. We know nothing about the scale or playing methods, though I suspect the chanter would have been structurally similar to the GHB. The idea that the modern GHB is in some way the same thing that was played at Fontenoy is attributable to the above mentioned Grattan Flood crowd. There is no continuous tradition of Irish warpipe playing (sadly) and no survivng instruments, and lastly very little hard detail on them - as the above post says, just not enough to justify a seperate article. Calum 20:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

The GHB pipes have a questionable past too. The name seems to have been an invention around 1900 by the British Army. The name GIW appears some years later. Unfortunately there is very little original history on the WWW as it's a case of the internet feeding from the internet for relevant material. Pre 1900, they were just called the pipes, or great pipes, whichever was easiest to say. There were many different pipes about, depending on the makers, and now everything is (sadly) standardized to suit modern times. I believe we should go back pre 1900 and have the article called The Great Bagpipes, and to hell with all this modern nonsense. Red blaze 01:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] rv 01-July-2006

As it stands now, the article needs expert update with citations etc. The additions which I have deleted, although very interesting, is more of an essay on the subject and is not the way forward. Please correct me if I am wrong. Anon user 71.242.134.24 writes about pictures in manuscripts etc, well surely history is not only about pictures and carvings to prove the point. Nobody is writing that the bagpipe originated in Ireland, (although the world's oldest musical pipes are from Co. Wicklow, Ireland,) but the Piob Mhor is as much part of Irish history as the piano is to Italian history. Below and quoted in italics are the removed edits of user 71.242.134.24.Red blaze 22:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The Irish great pipe (often called "war" pipe) probably entered Ireland from the province of Galicia in Northern Spain. Galicians and Irish sailors and fishermen have always had close contacts and are well documented in the early Norman period in Ireland when they probably were introduced to the country. While there is a romantic desire to claim great age for bagpipes in Ireland, there is little evidence to support the notion that bagpipes were played anywhere in Europe much before the 11th or 12th century, much less in Ireland. There is in fact evidence in Irish Gaelic literature from the 15th and 16th centuries which demonstrate that some musical professionals in Ireland considered bagpipes an innovation, and not always a welcomed one.

Illustrations from this period invariably show a one or two droned, moth blown instrument. The more realistic illustrations suggest an instrument which in design is quite reminiscent of the contemporary Gaita Galega of Galicia. The last known form of the traditional Irish Great Pipe (Píob Mhór) had two drones, probably tenor and bass. It was often, but not always depicted as having a common stock to mount the drones in the bag, and was probably not much different from Scottish instruments of the time. It must be kept in mind that the best professional musicians among the Scots Gael were trained in Ireland until the 1600s and this promoted a measure of standardization up to that time.

After the fall of the last independent Irish kings, the bagpipe was subject to repressive laws and gradually died out in Ireland. At about the same time a new bagpipe (the Uillean pipes) was introduced and in the folk memory, this was seen as a modification of the old to allow it to be undetected. Contemporary records and musical commonsense argue against this view, but it holds a strong emotional tie for Irish musicians.

The Irish pipes were documented as having been played by the Irish in the French Army at the Battle of Fountenoy and also by an Irish brigrade during the American revolution. It this last was true, it was probably the last time the Old Irish Warpipes saw active duty.

Only a few decades later, when an Irish regiment of the British Army decided to mount a pipe band, they modeled their instrument upon the contemporary Scottish instrument, removing one tenor drone. This convention demonstrated a recollection of the old instrument but also that there were no existing instruments available to replicate. Since that time a variety of fanciful replicas have been invented including the so-called "Brian Boru" Pipes, a late victorian curiosity.71.242.134.24