Irish Pipers in the British Army
Information supplied by Michael Doyle ,
Victoria ,Australia.
Originally brought from the Mediterranean by Celtic migrants, the
bagpipe was common in Medieval Britain. By the nineteenth
century, it had died out except in Scotland, Ireland and
Northumbria.
Irish pipes come in two forms , the mouth blown warpipe, and the
bellows-blown union or 'Uilleann' pipe . The warpipe was the
outdoor instrument, while the 'Uilleann' or 'parlour' pipe was
played seated and indoors.
Little is known of the old warpipe. It is chronicled as being
used during the Border Wars of 1540-1550 , described as a mouth
blown instrument with two drones of unequal length with a long
chanter .
Persecution of Scotland and Ireland during the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries meant that the Irish Regiments in the
British Army Judiciously avoided the instrument, though in a
Dublin newspaper 2 November 1793 there was a report of a
warpipers band in Major Doyles Regiment . This regiment was to
regularise as 87th. of Foot ( Prince of Wales ) Irish Regiment.
Pipers at this time were attached to companies and their
instruments and embellishments were provided by the officer
commanding.
Pipers seem to have disappeared from Irish Regiments at the start
of the 1800’s . The revival of the Irish piper can be traced
to circa 1859 when the Royal Tyrone Fusiliers Militia appointed
pipers using the Piob Mor, literally the 'Great pipe' or Irish
pipe. The 87th (Royal Irish Fusiliers) when stationed in
Aldershot in 1864 had a piper who played a 'combination pipe'
which could be played 'as the present Irish pipe', or 'like the
old Irish warpipe'. It must be pointed out that until the 1880s
the pipers did not play accompanied by the drum in the modern
manner. The Royal Tyrone Fusiliers were emulated by the Prince of
Wales's Own Donegal Militia and by the 2nd Battalion Royal
lnniskilling Fusiliers to which both were affiliated.
Colonel George Cox, when commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion
Princess Victoria's (The Royal Irish Fusiliers) between August
1887 and August 1891, is credited with supplying eight sets of
warpipes which were modeled on the sixteenth-century Piob Mor.
Pipes also came to the Leinster Regiment by presentation, to the
4th Battalion (Queen's County Militia) by their Colonel, Lord
Castletown of Upper Ossory in 1903. The 1st. Battalion Leinster
Regiment is known to have started its own band in 1908 and the
regimental journal reported, in 1910, the efforts of the 2nd
battalion to change from the Highland to the warpipe.
The pipers were volunteers from the Corps of Drums and the
companies until 1920 when they were accorded official
recognition:
"PIPERS FOR IRISH REGIMENTS - it has been decided that the
peace establishment of Irish Infantry Regiments (other than the
Royal Irish Rifles) shall include one Sergeant-Piper and five
Pipers. These Pipers will be included in the normal peace
establishment of these Regiments, as in the case of Scottish
Lowland Regiments."
As a Rifle Regiment the Royal Irish Rifles retained their buglers
and did not adopt the pipes until 1948 when they were brought
into line with the other regiments in the North Irish Brigade.
Following the Cardwell Reforms of 1881 the three new Irish
Regiments adopted warpipes to underscore their identity ,followed
closely by the London Irish Rifles . This warpipe differs from
the Scottish type in only one respect - it has one tenor drone
instead
of a pair.
In 1908, the Pipe Major of The London Irish Rifles patented a
bagpipe version named " Brian Boru" . He was Henry
Starck, Bagpipe maker to the British Army . This Instrument has
three drones , tenor, bass and baritone, and a chanter with extra
keys, bringing the chromatic scale within the instrument's
capabilities.The sergeant-piper of the 18th. (County of London)
Battalion, The London Regiment (London Irish Rifles) introduced
this chanter which had four keys. This allowed a fully chromatic
scale, in E, to be played rather than the restricting eight
notes, in A, of the Highland and warpipe.
So, by 1922, the remaining Irish infantry regiments were using
both the Warpipes and the" Brian Boru " pipes . In
1948, The Royal Ulster Rifles took to the Warpipes, joining The
Royal Irish Fusiliers, while The Royal lnniskilling Fusiliers
preferred the "Brian Boru" pipes.
It should also be remembered that the London Irish Rifles had
Pipes & Drums from 1906 and the Tyneside Irish Battalions of
the Northumberland Fusiliers had warpipes from their formation in
1915. All these pipers wore the saffron kilt.
In 1968, at the formation of The Royal Irish Rangers , the
regulation three drone bagpipe was adopted. Meanwhile, following
the formation of the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1970, each
battalion raised its own Pipes and Drums. Today The Royal Irish
Regiment has Pipes and Drums with all its seven battalions.
The first hint we have of Irish pipers' dress as we would
recognise it appears in an indistinct press photograph of the
funeral of the Duke of Abercorn, on 9 January 1913, which
portrays pipers of the 4th Royal Irish Fusiliers in bonnets with
kilts and purses. From 1913, then, there appears an increasing
sense of lrishness which manifests itself in the wider adoption
of a 'national dress' for pipers.
Following the 1914-18 war full dress was, of course, in abeyance
except for a few soldiers, among them musicians, and it was not
until 1922 that it was issued again to Line regiments. But this
same date has particular significance for the Irish regiments for
it marked the disbandment of five of their number and the demise
of several young pipe bands. Many pipers therefore, would never
have worn a full dress uniform, but only a cut-away service dress
jacket with kilt and bonnet.
Whosoever began to introduce an Hibernian dress seems to have
leaned heavily on Caledonian custom. The bonnet or caubeen does
not seem to figure largely in Irish history and, indeed, a
portrait (now lost) of Owen Roe O'Neill wearing what we would
recognise as a caubeen circa 1610 is chiefly remarkable in that
'such a cap does not appear in any other Irish picture and may
have been adopted from association with the Highland MacDonalds
of Co Antrim.
By 1992 the caubeen, and equally the kilt, had become the
standard dress of the Irish piper. Scottish custom seems also to
have been followed, from 1919, in the striking of large versions
of the cap badge for wear by pipers on their caubeens. From being
a purely piper's item of dress the caubeen was adopted for all
ranks of the London Irish Rifles, The Royal Ulster Rifles in 1937
and by the North Irish Brigade in 1948.
From 1922 the service dress gave way to a full dress with kilt
and caubeen of issue pattern with which is now quite familiar.