Danny Boy might not recognise the tune, but Irish pipes will be calling on Saturday night in Amsterdam. The instruments in question have been made from lengths of Wavin piping and they are to be played at a farewell dinner for the Dutch company's president.
This unusual concert performance is being co-ordinated by a Dublin music teacher, Gordon Douglas, who first began working with Wavin in 1984. Since then, he has devised a range of 20 wind and percussion instruments using the industrial material, as well as a dulcimer which has strings hung over a drain.
Mr Douglas has now arranged to take all these pieces to Amsterdam where they will be heard at a dinner in the city's Hotel Okura.
Marking the retirement of the company president, Mr A.J. Driessen, the event will culminate in a Wavin Pipe Band concert. Although some 70 senior executives are expected to be on stage, their performance will last a mere four minutes because only an hour the previous day has been allotted for rehearsal time. Mr Douglas has therefore had to keep his musical requirements as simple as possible.
Fifty of those participating will play instruments, and the other 20 will sing. The piece being performed is called Mine Ears Have Heard The Glory Of The Euro Wavin Pipe Band which, both in lyrics and music, owes a debt to a well-known Salvation Army hymn.
Mr Douglas initially employed Wavin piping 16 years ago when he found many of his music students in school "could not afford to buy regular musical instruments and were not turned on by them anyway. But the unorthodox had a great fascination for them".
The advantage of his Wavin pipe versions is that they are very inexpensive; a whistle costs about 40 pence to make although, according to Mr Douglas, the sound produced is just as good as one selling for £20. He now regularly runs school-based courses.