Sir, – Gerard Manners (September 27th) is quite right to highlight the activities of the Dublin Pipers Club (founded in 1900), and of one of the activists involved, his relative Pat Nally. Nally seems indeed to have had a selfless devotion to Irish music and, for instance, was the one who brought to the attention of Dublin pipers to the phenomenal Martin Reilly, whose piping caused a sensation when he was brought to Dublin to play for the feis ceoil in 1900.
However Mr Manners’s letter does not give the full story. For a start the Dublin body was not the first pipers club to be established in Ireland. That honour belongs to the Cork pipers, who got together in 1899. Nor was that 1900 Dublin Pipers Club very long-lived, as it had ceased to exist before the outbreak of the first World War. A tentative restart in 1919 was cut short by the repressive measures of the Black and Tans, which singled out Irish cultural activities for special attention.
The Irish Union Pipers Club was established in Dublin’s Thomas Street in 1921, but this effort was, again, frustrated by the military realities of the Civil War. In 1940 Leo Rowsome, the mainstay of uilleann piping for most of the 20th century, decided to try again and established Cumann na bPíobairí Uilleann, which became well known through its Saturday night sessions at its Thomas Street premises. In 1951 that club took the initiative that led to the foundation of the all-Ireland traditional music body Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, and subsequently functioned as a branch of that organisation.
Seventeen years later, however, pipers were still concerned that the unique Irish bagpipe seemed destined to follow the Irish harp into oblivion, and, at a general meeting of pipers in Bettystown, Co Louth, in 1968, decided to establish a new organisation for pipers – Na Píobairí Uilleann (NPU). Comhaltas had had a hand in convening the 1968 gathering, but probably did not anticipate that the pipers would go on to establish their own independent association.
Leo Rowsome, the moving force behind several of the previous organisational initiatives, was at Bettystown and was an enthusiastic supporter of the establishment of the new body, and he and Seamus Ennis were acclaimed as the first patrons.
So, in defence of Frank McNally's account (An Irishman's Diary, September 24th) of the progress of that odd species – piperus hibernicus – it can be fairly claimed that NPU is the legitimate descendant of the previous organisations, but also, and more significantly, the most successful.
We have been established since 1979 in a Georgian house in Henrietta Street (a ruin when we occupied it but now completely restored). We have have promoted the appreciation of Irish piping to such an extent that there are now an estimated 6,000-plus players of the instrument worldwide, from Tokyo to Havana to Kuala Lumpur. A great deal of the credit for these developments must go the Arts Council, which has been supporting us since the 1980s. – Yours, etc,
TERRY MOYLAN,
Archivist,
Na Píobairí Uilleann,
Henrietta Street, Dublin 1.