Great Irish warpipes
[1] One of the earliest references to the Irish bagpipes comes from an account of the funeral of Donnchadh mac Ceallach, king of Osraige in 927 CE.
[4] and according to an entry in Holinshed's Chronicles (1577) for May 1544, "In the same moneth also passed through the citie of London in warlike manner, to the number of seven hundred Irishmen, having for their weapons darts and handguns with bagpipes before them: and in St. James Park besides Westminster they mustered before the king.
"[4] In a 1581 volume, musician Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the astronomer Galileo, wrote that the bagpipe "is much used by the Irish: to its sound this unconquered fierce and warlike people march their armies and encourage each other to deeds of valor.
In the same year, John Derricke published the poem "The Image of Ireland", in which the pipes are already used to convey signals in battle: Now goe the foes to wracke The Kerne apace doe sweate And baggepype then instead of Trompe Doe lull the back retreate One famous description of the pipes from Richard Stanihurst's De Rebus Hibernicis (1586), reads as follows in English translation:[4] The Irish also use instead of a trumpet a wooden pipe constructed with the most ingenious skill to which a leather bag is attached with very closely plaited (or bound) leather bands.
This sort of instrument is held among the Irish to be a whetstone for martial courage: for just as other soldiers are stirred by the sound of trumpets, so they are hotly stimulated to battle by the noise of this affair.The pipes seem to have figured prominently in the war with William of Orange.
When the exiled King James II arrived in Cork City in March 1689, he was greeted with “bagpipes and dancing, throwing their mantles under his horse’s feet”.
Business directories of Dublin in 1840 show a Maurice Coyne as a maker of Union and "Scotch" bagpipes at 41 James Street.
In the second half of the 19th century, however, the general revival of Irish nationalism and Gaelic culture seems to have coincided with a return of the popularity of the warpipes.
The notion that Irish warpipes were a clearly distinct instrument from the Scottish Highland bagpipe before the revival is based on evidence which may be suspect.
[9] The main problem when comparing the instrument in Scotland and Ireland lies in determining such technical points as the number of drones and the tuning of the old Irish pipes.
Now in the library of the University of Ghent, it bears the caption "Irish Folk as they were attired in the reign of the late King Henry", and shows a group of people which includes a boy playing a bagpipe.
[12][page needed] Like the missal picture, this too is roughly executed; what should be a tenor drone projects from what seems to be a bass, and the chanter again seems disproportionately long.
