Patrick O'Neill uilleann

Lives of the Pipers Home

Patrick O'Neill

janitor, piper

b. Baltimore, County Cork Jan. 28, 1898
d. San Francisco, California August 24, 1980


"...a photograph of the late Paddy O'Neill, RIP. Paddy died in San Francisco in August of 1980. The photo was taken probably about 1950." The Pipers' Review vol. V no. 2 Dec. 1985 p. 8


In North America, interest in the Irish or uilleann pipes began to decline in the 1920s. Piping was at it lowest ebb in the 1940s and 50s: the fewest players and recordings; a sense that the instrument represented unappealing out-of-fashion music from the past. It was not until the 1960s, at the time of the folk music revival, that new players began to appear in numbers sufficient to reverse the trend.

Some few players had started in the 1920s or 30s and kept at it through the lean years. In their various ways they became resources for the pipers who followed. They were bearers of playing traditions very much at risk. Tom Busby of New York and Joe Shannon of Chicago come to mind. In a similar way Paddy O'Neill and one or two others in San Francisco helped sustain Irish piping.

Patrick (Paddy) O'Neill was born at Baltimore, near Skibbereen, County Cork, son of Patrick Neil, a farmer, and wife Kate. He had at least eleven surviving siblings. Several of them emigrated to America in the 1920s. One after another at least four, including Paddy, ended up in San Francisco, a good example of chain migration.

O'Neill played Highland bagpipes in Ireland. Denis Brooks wrote that "As a youth he played in a brass band. On an outing in Skibbereen, the Tans attacked the town and the band, and he got a bash down on the head of the bass drum." This would have happened during the Irish War of Independence, 1919-1921. Black and Tans were members of the Royal Irish Constabulary [RIC], most of them brought in from Britain to forcibly support British rule.

O'Neill's older brother John emigrated to San Francisco in 1923. Patrick O'Neill emigrated to Canada in 1924, spent a couple of years there, and crossed into the United States in 1926. He went to San Francisco and moved in with Dennis McCarthy, perhaps an uncle, and brother John.

Denis Brooks recalled O'Neill as an "IRA [Irish Republican Army] man." Michael Kelly suggests that Patrick O'Neill's eldest brother, Denis, "was probably the Denis O'Neill of Baltimore who was one of 36 IRA volunteers who took part in the famous Kilmichael Ambush in November 1920 in which 17 members of the RIC's Auxiliary Division were killed." Like Patrick, Denis left Ireland and spent time in Canada before emigrating to San Francisco, then later moving to the Bronx.

The Irish War of Independence ended with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which allowed partition and the creation of Northern Ireland. The Irish Civil War followed (1922-23), with the pro-treaty Provisional Government fighting the anti-treaty IRA. The Provisional Government prevailed. The timing and circumstances of Patrick O'Neill's emigration suggest that he - and his brothers - may have supported the anti-treaty IRA. That, coupled with bad economic conditions in Cork, may have motivated their exile.

O'Neill did not play Irish pipes until after he came to the United States. With a decent-paying job, this was likely the first time in his life he could afford a set. Over time he bought two or three sets from William Healy of San Francisco, an Irish dance teacher and piper who had earlier bought up sets of uilleann pipes as they became available. Denis Brooks says that O'Neill had first instruction in pipes and reedmaking from Patrick E. McCormack. McCormack may have lived in San Francisco for a time and was once active in the old Irish Pipers' Club of that city, before the great earthquake in 1906. By 1917, though, McCormack's address was in Seattle, Washington, 680 miles (1100 km) north of San Francisco.

I have found only two newspaper mentions of O'Neill's playing, but the first is from 1929, less than three years after he had come to San Francisco. He played pipes for dancers with one or more of his brothers at the annual ball of the Cork Rebel Benevolent Association. In March 1930 he played pipes on a radio broadcast with Dennis O'Neill, violin, presumably his brother and known to be in San Francisco at the time, and Miss Julia Lucey, piano.

Evidence is slim, but once in a while something turns up that suggests a network of players, or at least an awareness of other Irish musicians, however few. In 1937 David J. O'Brien of Seattle, retired as a street-car operator. With retirement he "brought out his old Irish fiddle."

After this, nothing was written about Patrick O'Neill for more than 30 years.

Denis Brooks, raised in Seattle, was among the first of a younger generation to become fascinated with Irish pipes and seek out more information. In 1954, at the suggestion of his Highland pipe teacher in Seattle, Brooks contacted O'Neill and bought a set from him. Brooks moved to San Francisco in 1957. There he reconnected with O'Neill and met Dan Sullivan, another Corkonian who had played Highland pipes in Ireland and took up Irish pipes in America. O'Neill and Sullivan sometimes played together in public; they were apparently the only active Irish pipers on the West Coast for many years. As Ted Anderson wrote, for his part Brooks was later to become "the spark plug behind the modern revival of the San Francisco Piper's Club [organized 1979] with it's newsletter, and getting many players their start on the pipes."

Brooks wrote of O'Neill in 1974, "His style is plain, like [Tommy] Reck's; he is a very good steady player and an excellent reed-maker. His devotion to our instrument has been phenominal...." O'Neill and Sullivan were among the first, if not the first, to use California-grown cane to make reeds.

O'Neill had at least two students in the 1960s, Pat and Dan Cotter. In the 1970s other interested parties began to come to San Francisco, including Sean Folsom and Ted Anderson. To one degree or another Paddy O'Neill had an influence on all of these players.

Sean Folsom recalls spending time with O'Neill in 1973. By this time O'Neill was having health problems and not as active as formerly. Folsom spent a number of hours at O'Neill's apartment repairing and reeding a Leo Rowsome set for him. Folsom's opinion of O'Neill's reedmaking was, "They were rough." Folsom recalls hearing privately recorded "cuttings" (transcription records?) of O'Neill's playing but I have found no other reference to them or their survival.

O'Neill lived with his brother John in the 1930s. The earliest city directories describe them both as laborers and by 1931 working for the San Francisco Board of Public Works. For many years Paddy was a janitor at one of the city schools. Later his job, still for the School Dept., was as a "stockman," perhaps someone who looks after materials at a supply center or warehouse. He retired sometime after 1960.

From Denis Brooks: "Paddy was a quiet, religious man, never failing to make daily Mass part of his life's pattern." He was married for a time but it did not go well. His death certificate gives his marital status as "Divorced." He had no children. By the 1970s he was living in an apartment by himself in San Francisco's Castro District. At the time of his death his main family connection was with a niece in San Anselmo, about 20 miles (33 km) north of San Francisco.

Patrick O'Neill spent his last months as a resident of Laguna Honda Hospital, a facility which provides service for those who cannot afford to pay. He died of acute liver failure on August 24, 1980. O'Neill was buried August 26 at Holy Cross Cemetery, Colma California.


Thank you to Ted Anderson and Sean Folsom for talking with me about Paddy O'Neill, and thanks to Michael Kelly of Dublin for his research on the O'Neill family.


Selected References

"After 32 Years, O'Brien Retires" Seattle [WA] Daily Times Sep. 2, 1937 p. 16 column 2
GenealogyBank.com

Anderson, Ted as "Ted" posting to the Chiff and Fipple Forum Oct. 5, 2004, thread name "The North American Uilleann pipers Scene" [Brooks as the spark plug]
http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22863&p=269147&hilit=patrick+o%27neill#p269147

[Brooks, Denis] "At the left, a photograph of the late Paddy O'Neill, RIP." [played in brass band; IRA man; beaten by Black and Tans] The Pipers' Review vol. V no. 2 Dec. 1985 p. 8
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1036&mediaId=26335

Brooks, Denis "[letter] From Dennis Brooks...." [his style is plain] The Uilleann Piper Volume One, Number Four Sep. 30, 1974 p. 2
NPU Website accessed Feb. 2020
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1037&mediaId=26434

Brooks, Denis "It is with great regret that we must announce the passing...." ["a quiet, religious man;" Brooks here has O'Neill's first pipe instructor as "Willie McCormick," William J. McCormick of Chicago, conflating him with Patrick E. McCormack of Seattle] The Pipers' Review vol. 1 no. 5 Aug. 1980 pp. 7-8
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1036&mediaId=26322

"Cork Rebels to Hold Annual Ball" San Francisco [CA] Chronicle Jan. 10, 1929 p. 9 column 2
GenealogyBank.com

Folsom, Sean as "sean an piobaire" posting to the Chiff and Fipple Forum May 30, 2005, thread name "The Balanced chanter" [played highland pipes]
http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29234&hilit=paddy+o%27neill&start=15

Folsom, Sean as "sean an piobaire" posting to the Chiff and Fipple Forum April 24, 2006, thread name "Californian Cane"
http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=39356&p=511068&hilit=paddy+o%27neill#p511068

Folsom, Sean telephone conversation Feb. 19, 2020 [in USA, enough money to buy a set of pipes; Brooks' background and activities in San Francisco; O'Neill's reedmaking; janitor at a city school; privately recorded cuttings]

Foster, Gavin ' "No 'Wild Geese' this time"?: IRA Emigration after the Irish Civil War' Éire-Ireland vol. 47 issue 1&2 Spring/Summer 2012 pp. 94-122
downloaded thru Project Muse, Feb. 2020
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/479076

Kelly, Michael genealogical and emigration information, emails Feb. 11 and 12, 2020 [quoted: "was probably the Denis O'Neil of Baltimore"]

"KPO [radio] Program To Feature Songs of Erin" San Francisco [CA] Chronicle March 14, 1930 p. 10 columns 2 and 4
GenealogyBank.com

O'Neill, Francis Irish Minstrels and Musicians Chicago 1913 pp. 478, 481 [old San Francisco Irish Pipers' Club; Patrick E. McCormack photo]

O'Neill, Francis Names and addresses of living performers on the union pipes sent by Francis O'Neill in Chicago to Séamus Ó Casaide in Dublin, letters of June-August 1917. From the National Library of Ireland, Séamus Ó Casaide Collection, Ms. 8116. Transcribed by Michael Kelly. [Patrick E. McCormack in Seattle]

Nick Whitmer
February 2020 and corrections September 2021