Uilleann Winter

It always comes back to the sound...

1976...A Coyne set in a summer garden in Uppsala, Sweden, secretly “borrowed” from the dephts of the museum of musical history in Stockholm. Impossible to figure out, the screeching sounds driven from a leaking bag still logged in my memory...

...Paddy Moloney playing the pipes in the kitchen of Uppsala castle, answering my questions at the same time. The other Paddy, Keenan that is, looking down deep into his set, not in the mood for talking, even less so to a Swedish journalist, backstage 1978 at the former parliament in Stockholm converted for the evening into a folk music concert hall.

...And there was a time before that, when the uilleann pipes were something you might hear, but not see, even less touch. Pipers like Moloney, Keenan and (of course!) Liam O’Flynn made the instrument known to the world.

...Behind the pipers, the (mostly) unknown faces of the makers. Some of the elder generation pipers were famous both for playing and making the instrument. These pages are for those who carried forth the tradition of making one of the most fascinating instruments in the world, each one in his own way.

Two traditionalists, two inventors, what do they have in common...?
The sound, of course, definitly the quest for the sound.

the makers

Jan Winter is a journalist/Musician living in Uppsala, Sweden. He hasn’t found the perfect bagpipe yet...