Tom Busby uilleann

Lives of the Pipers Home

Tom Busby

player, reedmaker; private recordings exist

b. Derrygonnelly, Co. Fermanagh, Ireland Aug. 5, 1912
d. Massapequa Park, New York Sep. 9, 2000


Tom Busby in his parlor, 1958. From Ed Harrison via Kathleen Cavanagh.
Also published in An Píobaire Vol. 4 No. 9 March 2001 p. 14


Busby in the basement "music room" with Edison cylinder phonograph, unknown date. From Jimmy O'Brien Moran.

Other photos of Busby are:
with the biography of Michael Carney
with the biography of Paddy Lavin


Tom Busby was born in County Fermanagh, came to the United States as a teenager, and was unaware of the existence of Irish bagpipes until he was about 20 years old. He was fascinated with the instrument for the rest of his life, and did his best to sustain and promote it during the 1940s, 50s and 60s, when interest in it was at its lowest ebb. Busby was also custodian of remarkable piping materials from earlier eras: instruments, recordings, photographs.

Thomas Henry Busby was the son of James and Gertrude Tevlin Busby. Tom Busby emigrated to New York in 1930. The passenger list of the S. S. Transylvania shows him as a laborer, age 17. His mother is listed as closest relative, and he was going to join his aunt Kathleen Tevlin in Brooklyn. Busby's aunt paid for the passage; according to the passenger list he had no intention to return to Ireland. Busby was naturalized as US citizen in 1936.

Busby described his first encounter with Irish pipes, in 1932, in a letter written many years later:

Busby's uncle was the husband of Kathleen Tevlin but I have been unable to determine his name.

Michael Carney (1872-1938) was among the best Irish pipers of his generation, and probably the most popular and well-liked piper in New York City in the 1930s. Busby became one of his students.

By 1936 Busby was living at 168 Pacific Street, Brooklyn. Michael Carney and his wife Agnes were living at 164 Pacific, two doors down. With them was their niece Anna Hollwitz (1916-2012), daughter of Agnes' sister Katherine, who died when Anna was six months old. Anna began playing whistle by age six and later took up the pipes, presumably in adolescence. This was a musical household. The environment appealed to Busby and he was accepted into it. Years later Busby recalled, "All the flute players and fiddlers in New York and from all over the country came to hear him. Many a time there would be as many as ten of them in the kitchen, playing their hearts out."

Tom and Anna became close, and Tom asked Michael Carney for permission to marry Anna. He said yes. Carney died May 12, 1938, a month before the wedding date. Once married, Busby moved to 164 Pacific Street. The marriage endured, and the Busby's had four children. More than one correspondent has told me that Busby wanted there to be only one piper in the family, and with the arrival of children Anna's piping days were over.

The 1940 US Census lists Busby as a "night porter" or doorman at an office building. In later years he worked at American Machine and Foundry, later known as AMF, in Brooklyn. AMF made recreational equipment. The nature of his work is unclear; he may have been a machinist.

Busby had an abiding interest in Ireland, particularly Fermanagh, the county of his birth. He was active for many years in the Fermanagh P & B Association of New York, a social and benevolent organization. Busby was president of the Association for several years in the 1950s and 60s. In connection with the Fermanagh Association Busby participated at least a few times in the enormous St. Patrick's Day parades in Manhattan.

By 1947 Busby was performing in public. Several early newspaper references are to concert or concert-like engagements. Around this time he began to be associated with, perhaps started, the Innishowen Celidhe Band, of which he was the conductor. The band competed at feiseanna, Irish music and language festivals, at least to 1962. Busby also competed as solo piper and sometimes in duets and was active in this way from 1950 to 1972, perhaps later. He was usually the only entrant in the solo piping category. Breandán Breathnach wrote in An Píobaire, 1969, "He himself enters regularly for pipe competitions from a desire to keep the instrument before the public."

Busby was a founding member in 1957 of the Patsy Touhey Branch, Brooklyn, of the Irish Musicians Association, which later became a branch of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann. He regularly attended their monthly sessions.

Busby was a decent amateur piper. Exposed to the highest level of Irish musicianship, he was aware of his shortcomings. He often signed-off letters with "Tom Busby, bum (bad) piper." He was participating in a musical tradition in which players learn most tunes by ear, and the best of them usually know - or seem to learn on the fly - hundreds and hundreds of tunes. The ability to read music is not a requirement. For Busby, learning tunes was a struggle and he required written-out music to assist. In a 1981 letter to The Pipers' Review he wrote, "Another point for the person with a small amount of talent to remember is, that it is possible for him to learn to play even though he cannot carry a tune. I can only whistle or hum about six tunes but I can play about 100 after a fashion. I know if a tune is being played right or wrong."

He played pipes in the style of his mentor Michael Carney. Today many think of this as the "American" style, that of Patsy Touhey, Barney Delaney, Carney and others. Busby insisted it was the "Connacht" style. Though it survived in America it was developed and first enjoyed in that province of Ireland; for Busby a critical distinction.

With marriage to Anna, Busby became custodian of the piping materials left by Mike Carney. These included the Taylor set of pipes used by Pat Touhey. Also a collection of non-commercial one-of-a-kind cylinder phonograph records, many of them of Touhey and some of Carney playing pipes. Further, a collection of photographs of Irish pipers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In subsequent years Busby acquired several sets of pipes which came his way, sometimes at no cost. Towards the end of his life he wrote "As you may or may not know, I have sent four sets of pipes home [to Ireland]. ... I bought them to save them from the dump. I did not need them. I could have sold them for much more than I paid for them but I did not want the wrong people to get them...."

Busby and family lived at the Pacific Street Brooklyn address until 1950. In the 1950s they may have lived in the borough of Queens. By the late 1960s he was retired from work and living further east on Long Island in a suburban house at Massapequa Park, where he and Anna made their home for many years.

He became known as a reedmaker and source of information about old pipes and pipers. I am willing to speculate that in the 1940s and 50s requests for information were not common. That began to change in the mid-1960s, with the broad revival of interest in folk music. Where previously he was likely to have been contacted by Irish and Irish-Americans, a new class of interested parties began to appear. Some of them he viewed with suspicion. They were not obviously Irish or Irish-American, mostly young, many were college graduates, and, as he told one correspondent, they "looked like hobos!" At the same time he was generous and supportive to many. Over the years he welcomed correspondence with several pipers, and with organizations and publications supporting Irish piping. Too much attention may have been a strain. In 1983 Jackie Small visited him at his home. "... at that time I was aware that there were many people hounding him for recordings, sets of pipes, etc., and I made a firm decision not to be one of those. Accordingly, I just went along with what HE wanted to do during my visit...."

With Pat Mitchell, Jackie Small was working on the book The Piping of Patsy Touhey (1986). This is a monumental analysis of Touhey's playing with transcriptions of most if not all the recordings of Touhey then known to exist. "Of the 58 tunes in this book, 49 come from cylinder recordings. 42 of these are from the private collection of Tom Busby in New York." (p. 108) From Busby the authors learned the name of an ornament typical of Touhey and other "American" pipers, "a spectacular cascade of descending triplets. Tom Busby has supplied the apt name 'backstitching' which the older pipers in America had for this figure." (p. 25)

When portable cassette tape recorders became broadly available in the mid-1960s, Busby was at last able to make recorded copies of the Edison cylinders. More than one correspondent told me that Busby would record and give out only portions of a cylinder. He might record only the first of two tunes, for example. This annoyed some recipients, who wanted to hear the whole cylinder. He is said to have used "really cheap" tapes. Some perceived this as Busby closely guarding his collection, as selfishness. Just as likely his behavior had something to do with his own frugality, and with his earliest recollections of how expensive and fragile the cylinders were. He was certainly aware that cylinder sound quality degraded over multiple playings. He may have been trying to keep their use to a minimum. Likewise he may have thought of cassette tapes as a "precious commodity."

There is every indication that Busby gave considerable thought to what should become of the treasures he had. In 1988 he gave two historic sets to Na Píobairí Uilleann, Dublin, along with a remarkable collection of about 36 photographs of pipers. Around 1990 Busby gave the Pat Touhey Taylor set to piper Seán McKiernan, now of Galway. McKiernan has vowed that the set will never leave Ireland.

Tom Busby was named a Patron of Na Píobairí Uilleann in 1990. He was the first United States citizen to be awarded this honor.

Busby died September 2000, Anna died July 2012. They are buried next to each other at Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn.

After his death the collection of 48 cylinder records was sold to the Irish Traditional Music Archive, Dublin. It is known as the Busby-Carney Collection and some of the recordings are available via the Web. A set of pipes and various pipe parts were sold or given away. Piping related tape recordings, music manuscripts and photos were given away to friends.


I must gratefully acknowledge the people kind enough to talk to me about Tom Busby, or respond to my written questions about him. Thank you so much.
Kathleen Cavanagh, Emmett Gill at Na Píobairí Uilleann, Seán McKiernan, Pat Mitchell, Jimmy O'Brien Moran, Terry Moylan, Barry O'Neill, Sean Quinn, Kevin Rietmann, Pat Sky, Jackie Small.


Selected References

"Around the Borough" [Innishowen Celidhe Band] Brooklyn [NY] Eagle Nov. 17, 1948 p. 13 column 4
Brooklyn NY Daily Eagle 1948 Grayscale - 5218.pdf

B. B. [Breandán Breathnach] "Tom Busby, New York" [unaware of pipes until 1932] An Píobaire vol. 1 no. 2 Meitheamh 1969 p. 6
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1010&mediaId=25879

Busby, Anna letter to Kathleen Cavanagh, circa 2010 [mother's early death, Busby at Pacific Street by 1936]

Busby, Tom letter to James MacKenzie [he discovers Irish pipes] The Uilleann Piper vol. 1 no. 2 May 22, 1974 p. 1
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1037&mediaId=26432

Busby, Tom letter [play about 100 tunes] The Pipers' Review vol. 3 no. 3 1982 pp. 3-5
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1036&mediaId=26331

Busby, Tom "Michael Joseph Carney [a remembrance] by Thomas Busby, New York." An Píobaire vol. 1 no. 10/11 Aibrean 1973 p. 86-7
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1010&mediaId=25886

Busby, Tom "Two Historic Sets of Pipes" [I have sent four sets of pipes home] An Píobaire vol. 3 no. 37 September 1998 p. 23
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1012&mediaId=25983

"Busby Heads Fermanagh Assn" NY Advocate Jan. 21, 1956 p. 2 column 3
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1956-1957 - 0067.pdf

Harrison, Ed "Tom Busby" [an appreciation] Patrons Na Píobairí Uilleann Website accessed June 2019
http://pipers.ie/about/patrons/tom-busby/

Mitchell, Pat and Jackie Small The Piping of Patsy Touhey Na Píobairí Uilleann, Dublin 1986 113 pp.

"Official Program St. Patrick's Day Parade Celebration Wednesday, March 17th, 1965 [Manhattan]" NY Advocate March 13, 1965 p. 11 column 1
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1965 a - 0247.pdf

Ó Maolagáin, N. "Tom Busby Collection" [Busby gives two sets of pipes, photographs to NPU] An Píobaire vol. 2 no. 41 D. Fomh. 1988 p. 1
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1011&mediaId=25943

"Patsy Touhey, Irish-American Piper on Cylinder, 1900s" [Busby-Carney Collection] Irish Traditional Music Archive Website accessed June 2019
https://www.itma.ie/features/playlists/touhey-patsy

Small, Jackie personal communication April 28, 2019

"Thirty-Three Thousand Attend Feis at Fhordam" [solo piping, only entrant] NY Advocate June 24, 1950 p. 4 column 5
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1949-1951 - 0494.pdf

Wade, Patricia McHugh "Is St. Patrick's Day Still Reserved For The Irish?" [Patsy Touhey Branch of the I.M.A.] Brooklyn NY Home Reporter and Sunset News March 15, 1963 p. 11 column 1
Brooklyn NY Home Reporter and Sunset News 1962 Dec-Jan 1963 00309_2

Nick Whitmer
June 2019