Early Instruments

Last year, A Collection of the Most Celebrated Irish Tunes: Proper for the Violin, German Flute or Hautboy celebrated its 300th birthday. Published in Dublin in 1724, John and William Neal’s work was the first notated collection of Irish music to ever be published– nearly fifty years before Edward Bunting set about preserving the harp tradition!

By 1724, Dublin was becoming the second city of the British Empire. Home to what was possibly the world’s first designated military barracks, a custom house and busy docks, numerous ballrooms, markets, distilleries, breweries, and Ireland’s own parliament, Dublin was bustling.

In the 1700s, uillean pipes were associated with peasantry - no respect!

While musical instruments are often expensive today, attaining one in the 1700s was even more difficult. There were less instruments being produced (usually craftsmen were in large cities) and were not affordable for most people. In Dublin, music from the European continent was in vogue. John and William Neal’s collection was set for violin, German flute, and hautboy (oboe), while Ireland’s native harp and uilleann pipes were ignored. In fact, the Gaelic harp tradition was nearly extinct by the end of the 1700s and the pipes were associated with the peasantry. Both these native instruments would undergo adaptations in following decades as new instruments were also introduced to the tradition.

John Egan, whose shop was located on Dawson Street beside Trinity College, experimented with the traditional harp, creating a system where the strings could be changed by a half-step (like black keys on a piano) to suit more music in this bustling city. Some talented organ builders, used to preparing tall pipes for grand churches, likely turned their skill to adapting the pipes by adding regulators.

More instruments would come later– and now more people than at any point in history are playing Irish music!

Peoria Irish Fest thanks Bridie Flaherty of the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin for this content. A Peoria native, Bridie now serves as the ITMA Cultural Experience Coordinator and encourages everyone to visit the archive when next in Dublin!