Four Courts of Dublin

About this film

Irish bagpipes and violin, Victor 79012. Stack was from Co. Kerry, and is listed as source for many tunes in Francis O'Neill's Music of Ireland (1903). Mullaney was born in Chicago, his family moving back to Co. Mayo before returning to America. Their music is a fascinating blend of Stack's somewhat mournful and wailing fiddle, and Mullaney's clean piping, full of graces and trills, very typical of pipers recorded in America at this time. The Four Courts of Dublin is very much a piper's reel, full of cranning on the bottom notes of the chanter's scale. The Four Courts was a massive building which was destroyed in 1922 during the Irish Civil War. Mullaney owned a massive set of pipes built by the Taylor Brothers of Drogheda/Philadelphia; shortly before his death he passed the pipes on to his cousin Joe Shannon, a great piper who passed away in 2004. The story of how Mullaney acquired the pipes is told in the liner notes of the Shannon/Johnny McGreevy recording the Noonday Feast, on Green Linnet records.

Directors & creators

Eddie Mullaney and Patrick Stack

Subjects

Irish; Celtic; Bagpipe; Uilleann; Folk; Oldtime; 78rpm; Fiddle

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