Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
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COURTNEY’S ‘UNION PIPES’ AND THE TERMINOLOGY OF IRISH BELLOWS-BLOWN BAGPIPES 48<br />
Courtenay’s Funeral. This celebrated performer died of a dropsy,<br />
which he was supposed to have contracted by hard drinking. The<br />
body was yesterday interred in the church-yard of St. Pancras.<br />
The procession that attended the body was exceedingly numerous,<br />
and extended from the Hampshire Hog, in Broad-street, St. Giles’s,<br />
a considerable way into Tottenham-court-road. The number of<br />
those in mourning could not be less than eighty or ninety couples,<br />
who were preceded by two <strong>Irish</strong> Pipers, one of whom played on the<br />
<strong>Union</strong> <strong>Pipes</strong> used formerly with such wonderful effect by the<br />
deceased.<br />
The body was waked at the Hampshire Hog, and all the expences<br />
of the funeral and it, were defrayed by Captain Leeson. The motive<br />
that induced Capt. Leeson to order the wake to be held there, was<br />
his great success in recruiting by means of the deceased, who had<br />
some time since enlisted in his corps, and had, by that Gentleman,<br />
been appointed a Serjeant.<br />
Courtenay was a wet soul, and every thing about the body, to its<br />
interment, was entirely correspondent. During the continuance of<br />
the wake, the greatest profusion of liquors was distributed.<br />
At the church-yard the same liberality in the distribution to every<br />
one who chose to drink, was observed; and the company happily<br />
parted without any fighting. 145<br />
Through his musicianship and general celebrity therefore Denis<br />
Courtney had won over the public, from the lowest to the highest<br />
social levels, to his ‘union pipes’ – a term unique to him during his<br />
lifetime – and had firmly established their name in contemporary<br />
musical consciousness by the time of his early death.<br />
He was not immediately forgotten. In London in 1795<br />
Oscar and Malvina renewed its attraction on Thursday evening...<br />
with encreased effect. A new Performer, much resembling poor<br />
Courtney, both in figure and execution, enlivened the opening of<br />
145<br />
The Sun, London, 6 Sept. 1794. This obituary notice is unusually long by<br />
contemporary standards; it was much copied by other publications.