Quote Originally Posted by Mike_Oettle View Post
This thread has taken a most interesting turn.
Might I ask what uniform the London Irish pipers wore?
If they had saffron kilts, it might be a better explanation of the uniform of the South African Irish band than deriving it from the Irish Guards.
Regards,
Mike
No problem Mike, yes indeed, they wore and still wear, (what's left of them), saffron kilts. Recent army shake ups mean that the London Scottish and the London Irish are now mere companies of the same regiment, the 14th London Regiment, and often parade together. [/QUOTE]

Richard, interesting post but of course there's no evidence that the "Irish warpipe" ever existed.
The Gaelic League took the name from the poem of an Englishman, John Derrik. The illustration accompanying the poem was engraved by a Dutchman working for the English printer John Daye in Fleet Street, London. Derrik, who was a customs official, had been to Ireland but the illustrators had not. It seems fairly likely that the "Irish Warpipe" that was later copied by Henry Starck as the "Dungannon" model was in fact taken from Daye's engravers, who in turn copied it from Durer's German Doodlesacker engraving. At the same time the Englishman Edmund Burt writes from Scotland about bagpipers there using the exact same phrase, "warpipes". It seems to be an English term and it exists neither in Irish or Scottish literature or records until the Gaelic League "revival". Even the Irish Pipe Band Assocaiation didn't officially recognise the term until 1930. I imagine that, just like anywhere else, Ireland had several different types of bagpipe, including the ones that were actually used in war, the simple "no-drones" bagpipes seen in the eyewitness illustration of Irish troops at the Siege of Orlean.
But, of course, that is yet another topic that seems to create ire in the USA and probably not suited for this forum, never mind this thread.