The Great Northern Irish Pipers Club

Great Northern Irish Pipers’ Club to Hold its Sixth-Annual Tionól
May 19th and 20th, 2007
The Great Northern Irish Pipers’ Club (GNIPC) held its sixth-annual Tionól May 19th and 20th, 2007. Tionól (pr. “chuh-nole) is Irish for “gathering” - in this case- a gathering of uilleann pipers. A full two days of workshops were planned with this year’s guest pipers/instructors being Michael Cooney and Eamonn Dillon. Paddy Keenan also took time out of his busy schedule to join us in the afternoon on the 19th and 20th. Michael and Eamonn (along with other guests) were part of a concert Saturday May 19. The weekend workshops consisted of two days of piping instruction, reed making, and pipe maintenance classes. The workshops were once again held at the beautiful and historic Landmark Center in the heart of Downtown St. Paul (the Saturday evening concert will be at the Cherokee Park United Church).

The 2007 Great Northern Irish Pipers' Club Tionól was supported in part by a grant from Na Píobairí Uilleann (NPU).

Video coming soon!





The beautiful and historic Landmark Center in St. Paul -- the site of the 2007 tionól.

Instructor Bios

Michael Cooney

Michael Cooney
Michael was raised in a family of Highland pipers from Co. Tipperary. His father, Martin, and his uncles played in the Sean Tracey Pipe Band in Littleton that his grandfather and great uncles founded. Irish dancing and singing also ran in the family. Michael defined his piping style by listening to his father’s tapes of Johnny Doran, Willie Clancy, Felix Doran, Leo Rowsome, Patsy Touhey, and Seamus Ennis. He was also a big fan of Planxty and the Bothy Band, two groups from the folk revival that featured pipers. In the 1980s, Michael “Piper” Cooney made a name for himself, winning multiple All-Ireland championships in pipes and whistle. He also spent some time in the US, where he played music with legends like Andy McGann, Paddy Reynolds, and Joe Burke. His solo recording A Stone’ Throw has been greeted with much acclaim by pipers and all stripes of Irish music enthusiasts.
http://www.michaelpipercooney.com/

Eamonn Dillon

Eamonn Dillon
Eamonn Dillon was born and raised in West Belfast, Northern Ireland. He started on the tin whistle at age 10 and eventually moved on to the uilleann pipes at 14. He spent his first few years playing pubs and traveling around the country attending many music festivals with his family. He received his first set of pipes from his father Eamonn Sr. Being a great lover of the Irish Musical tradition, he brought up all his children to respect and appreciate their own culture through playing music. By the age 18, Eamonn had acquired 5 titles in the annual All-Ireland Competitions, two of which are first place. Eamonn has a wide range of influences from Paddy Keenan to Leo Rowsom, Liam O'Flynn and Willie Clancy.
http://uilleannobsession.com/review.html

Paddy Keenan

Paddy Keenan was born in Trim, Co. Meath. The Keenans were a Travelling family steeped in traditional music; both Paddy's father and grandfather were uilleann pipers. Paddy himself took up the pipes at the age of ten, playing his first major concert at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, when he was 14. Paddy was a founding member of one of the most influential Irish folk bands of the 1970s, The Bothy Band. He has made several solo recordings in addition to collaborations with the world’s top Irish musicians. Paddy's flowing, open-fingered style of playing can be traced directly from the style of such great Travelling pipers as Johnny Doran; both Paddy's father and grandfather played in the same style.
http://www.paddykeenan.com/

About the Uilleann Pipes
The uilleann pipes are a wholly indigenous bagpipe of Ireland. The word uilleann (pronounced ill-en) is Irish for elbow - reflecting that these pipes are powered by a bellows strapped under the player’s arm. Compared to the ubiquitous Scottish Great Highland Bagpipes, the uilleann pipes play a greater range of notes and have a softer, sweeter tone. They are played solely in a seated position. The uilleann pipes are as much a part of the traditional music tapestry of Ireland as the fiddle, flute and accordion. Their lineage can be traced back to the mid 1700s. The instrument reached its zenith in refinement of design by the mid-1800s. The tumultuous cultural and social upheavels created of the Famine Era in Ireland closed the chapter on this Golden Age of uilleann piping. Still the pipes continued to be played by the Irish diaspora right up through the vaudeville and music hall days of the early 20th Century. The pipes would have died out in the 1950s had not a few individuals kept the art of the pipes (and especially pipe making) alive through those grim years. The resurgence of the folk revival of the 1970s saw a renewed interest in the uilleann pipes. New craftsmen sought out the few old makers of the day and attempted to learn methods of construction from these valuable resources. There are now dozens of qualified makers of the instrument worldwide. The mid 1990s saw an explosion in the popularity of Irish music via the pan-global cultural conduit of Riverdance. In addition to tradional music venues the uilleann pipes can be heard in TV commercials and in movie sound tracks such as Titanic, Brave Heart, Rob Roy and Road to Perdition. There are believed to be about three-thousand players of the uilleann pipes currently.