Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
COURTNEY’S ‘UNION PIPES’ AND THE TERMINOLOGY OF IRISH BELLOWS-BLOWN BAGPIPES 46<br />
Mr. Courtenay respectfully begs leave to inform his Friends, and<br />
the Public, that Mr. Lingham [the manager] has kindly given him a<br />
Benefit on the above-mentioned Evening, to extricate him from the<br />
difficulties he now labours under; and humbly flatters himself his<br />
Endeavours will secure him the Honour of their Patronage.<br />
His domestic circumstances have altered: he has by now moved from<br />
1 York Street, St James’s Square, to 12 Danmark Street, Exeter<br />
Street.<br />
By the end of May 1794 Courtney is again playing ‘a Solo on the<br />
<strong>Union</strong> <strong>Pipes</strong>’ and he and Weippert are playing ‘a Duetto on the<br />
<strong>Union</strong> <strong>Pipes</strong> and Harp’ in the newly rebuilt Covent Garden, 138 which<br />
can now hold audiences of 3,600. On 2 June they are performing<br />
‘several much admired Pieces on the <strong>Union</strong> <strong>Pipes</strong> and Pedal Harp’<br />
between theatrical performances at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. 139<br />
This is Courtney’s last advertised stage appearance, although he may<br />
have finished out a run of Oscar and Malvina in Covent Garden on<br />
11 June. 140<br />
It would seem that by this date Courtney was in the final chaotic<br />
stages of alcohol-induced illness. An associate in his last months was<br />
another notable character, Captain Patrick Leeson (1754–c.1810s), a<br />
somewhat older <strong>Irish</strong>man born in Nenagh, Co Tipperary. From a<br />
modest background and after military training in France, Leeson had<br />
become a British army officer and a famous gambler with a stable of<br />
horses at Newmarket. Enlisting Courtney and the ‘sweet strains of<br />
his pipes, added to copious draughts of whiskey’, he raised an<br />
independent regiment in such a short time that he won a great bet on<br />
it. 141 Some of the work of recruitment was carried out in April 1794<br />
138<br />
Morning Post, London, 26 May 1794.<br />
139<br />
The World, London, 28 May 1794.<br />
140<br />
Hogan 1968: 1575.<br />
141<br />
Egan 1820: 142–3.