Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive

53 COURTNEY’S ‘UNION PIPES’ AND THE TERMINOLOGY OF IRISH BELLOWS-BLOWN BAGPIPES
of development prior to 1788, and no element of either was adopted
from the other, then or subsequently.
But this meaning of 1788 is nevertheless a correct one, correct not in
organological but in socio-political cultural terms. The union in
question is the notional union of an Irish form of bellows pipe,
played by an Irish performer, with the Scottish musical ethos
prevailing in contemporary London, the English capital. An
instrument associated with rebellion and war in Scotland and Ireland
is now being used on stage in the capital to perform ethnically tinged
but politically neutral and unthreatening music which is acceptable
to the three kingdoms. It unites the kingdoms in musical taste; it is a
new instrument for a new era of peaceful coexistence, one desired by
Courtney’s patrons. This common show-business tactic of
accommodation to a local audience provides one convincing
explanation for Courtney’s introduction there of a new quasipolitical
term for his musical instrument.
There is support for this view in the little that we know of
Courtney’s repertory as performed publicly in London: it is not at
first Irish but largely Scottish (‘Maggie Lawther with variations’ was
his show-stopper throughout his career) 156 or newly composed in a
156
‘Maggae Lawther’, Courtney’s main cited musical piece, had however long
been associated with both Scotland and Ireland, and the idea of ‘union’ may also
be in play here. The song ‘Maggie/Maggy/Magie Lauder/Lawder/Lawther’
(‘Wha wadna be in love wi’ bonnie Maggie Lauder’) is of course Scottish, but
the origins of its melody have been disputed between the two countries (for an
early discussion see O’Neill 1910: 168–71). Its tune was printed many times in
the eighteenth century, and sometimes with variations, but Courtney’s set is not
identified as such in any source. Since John Lee published music from Oscar
and Malvina about the time Courtney was in Dublin, Lee’s publication of
‘Maggie Lawder with Variations’ is reproduced above. It is undated but
published from 70 Dame St, Dublin, where Lee was from c. 1778–1803 (Hogan
1966: 102). Among others, Courtney’s successor O’Farrell published a set with
variations (O Farrell’s National Collection 1804: 42–3).