Michael J. Anderson
performer, pipemaker
b. near Ballymote, Co. Sligo, Ireland Oct. 9, 1865
d. Co. Sligo, Ireland April 15, 1947
From the Northants Evening Telegraph May 28, 1904
Photo of Michael Anderson taken shortly before he died, from Na Píobairí Uilleann website, accessed Aug. 2017. To NPU from Pat Broderick.
See also the entry for Anderson as a pipemaker.
Michael J. Anderson emigrated from Ireland to the United States at the age of 14, and learned playing and pipemaking there. US Census records list his occupation as plumber, but he spent several years apparently earning his living by performing and making Irish pipes. He returned to Ireland at least four times for extended visits or with the intention to settle there. His plans for pipe making, playing and teaching were ambitious, and not entirely realized. The willingness to establish himself as a maker was unusual, as was the ability, or perhaps a compulsion, to travel back and forth between Ireland and the United States.
Anderson was born in Sligo in 1865 and emigrated to the United States in 1877 or 1880 according to US Census records, about 1879 according to a 1903 newspaper article. He lived in New York City and Brooklyn. According to the 1903 article Anderson "was fortunate in being apprenticed to the late Mr. William Taylor.... Mr. Anderson, having an excellent mechanical and musical taste, made rapid progress, and effected many improvements in the instrument, and, indeed, it was he who saw the necessity for having the instrument constructed so that the sounds produced would fill those vast American halls, and hence it is that nearly all the instruments he now makes are concert pitch, although he can easily make low-tone pipes.' Here Anderson is taking credit for qualities generally credited to the Taylors themselves. This casts a bit of shadow on the veracity of his assertion that he was their apprentice.
In an article about Anderson in An Píobaire, Rick Lines says that he "learned to play and make uilleann pipes, both arts taught to him by the Taylor brothers of Philadelphia." William Taylor died in 1892, when Anderson was about 26 years old. Whatever the truth of the Taylor connection, Anderson's sets were Taylor-like in style, and "said to equal the Taylors' in quality" according to Mark Walstrom.
There is an ad in the magazine The Gael (An Gaohal), Jan. 1900, for Anderson as "Champion Irish Piper" and "Manufacturer of Union Pipes." Earliest newspaper mentions of Anderson are from 1901. Anderson had engagements in northwest Pennsylvania at restaurants, hotels, on excursions. An excursion announcement from August 1901 describes him as "The champion Irish piper of the Unided States and Canada...." He often returned to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA region in subsequent years; the last known gig in Pennsylvania is from August, 1915.
Anderson was back in Ireland by November 1903. A newspaper announcement says "He has only just returned from the United States to his native land and intends to reside in Cork, where he will carry on bagpipe making...." Francis O'Neill writes that in 1904 Anderson spent a year in Cork, Ireland, but returned to America "with all his plans unfulfilled." O'Neill implies that the plans included long-time establishment as pipemaker and teacher. By this time the Cork Pipers' Club was active and Anderson was listed as a member. Another reference to Anderson in Ireland at this time is an article in the Northants Evening Telegraph, an English newspaper, May 28, 1904, which points to circumstances different from those described by O'Neill. He was "on a visit to Ireland," and making a set of pipes to "be finished about the end of August, and this is the only set which Professor Anderson will make while he is in Ireland."
From April 1911 to March 1912 Anderson ran an ad in the Irish American Advocate, a New York weekly newspaper. "Irish Piper. Music furnished for all occasions. Also manufacturer of the Irish bagpipes. Residence: 1956 2d Av., 101st St."
He was "adjudicator in the pipers' competitions" at the huge Feis at Celtic Park in Queens, NY May 19, 1912. In July, according to an article in the Irish American Advocate, he "sailed for his home, at Ballymote, County Sligo. After a short stay at the old homestead he will go to Dublin to compete at the Gaelic League Feis held there July 22. On his return he will have with him six sets of pipes for the Gaelic League Band, of New York." By August 22 he was back in America, if an advertisement announcing his participation in a parade Wilkes-Barre, PA is to be believed.
The US Census shows Anderson living in Manhattan in 1900, and in Brooklyn in 1910 and 1930. The last newspaper reference I have found is from 1918. Rick Lines says he was active as a musician in the NYC Irish-American community and that "Piper Anderson visited Sligo again in the 1930s, and stayed for several months."
In 1972 Barry O'Neill interviewed Mrs. Roland, nee Gardiner, sister of Kathleen Harrington, a well known fiddle player. Roland was also from Ballymote, Co. Sligo. She was friend to Anderson and considered him a "great maker and piper - never recorded - always refused. 'I won't let them have my music.' " She told the following stories:
"M.A. [was] visited by an old man who asked him to play tune. Dipped his finger in hot water so he would play it through. fellow said 'You're a wonderful piper'. MA folded his pipes and put them away. Never accepted that compliment except from expert.
The great fiddle player "Michael Coleman came to see him to get his new version of Ivy Leaf. Came back to get more, but MA refused to let him back in ...
"Roland got in after explaining 'It's me!' "
Coleman (1891-1945) is said to have had a fearsome reputation, no good to be around when alcoholic drink taken; this is the reason he was denied entrance. Still, there is evidence that each admired the other. "But Anderson always deemed Coleman to be a genius playing the fiddle," said Tommy Hunt. Fiddler Hughie Gillsepie, "Coleman used to always talk about Michael Anderson. He said he was the greatest uilleann piper there was."
It is unclear when the incidents described by Roland happened and if in Ireland or America. Roland lived in Brooklyn for a time and in Ireland Anderson "stayed with her for a few months ... Went back to Ballymote after gone to Dublin for an operation. In Dublin he met S. Ennis' father [James Ennis] - gave or sold him his tools (he had brought a whole trunkload of finished + unfinished pipes from America)." Another source recorded by Barry O'Neill says the tools were in possession of John or Tom Foy of Ballymote, Sligo, perhaps some years later.
Anderson composed tunes on the fiddle and "after words he would fit them to the pipes."
Roland's assessment, "No sense of humour, self-taught in his technique."
"'Piper Anderson came home to Sligo for the last time for good in 1946" and died at the County Home in Sligo in 1947, says Rick Lines.
Selected References
Bradshaw, Harry Michael Coleman 1891-1945 Gael Linn/Viva Voce 1991 5th edition 2011. booklet for 2 CD set. pp. 57-8
Lines, Rick "Piper Michael Anderson 1865-1947" An Píobaire vol. 4 no.16 July 2002 pp. 21-22
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1013&mediaId=26002
"M. J. Anderson, Champion Irish Piper" [advertisement] The Gael (An Gaodal) New Series vol. 19 no. 1 Jan. 1900 inside front cover
HathiTrust Digital Library
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044015365877;view=1up;seq=8
"M. J. Anderson, the Irish Piper, Going to Sligo." NY Irish American Advocate July 13, 1912 p. 7 column 3
New York NY Irish American Advocate 1911 - 1078.pdf
"Musical Instrument Making in Cork." [to US at age 14; apprenticed to the Taylor brothers] Dublin Ireland [Evening] Saturday Herald Nov. 28, 1903
Irishnewsarchive.com
Brought to my attention by Emmett Gill of NPU
"News From Ireland" ["only just returned" to Cork] Rochester NY Catholic Journal Dec. 19, 1903 p. 3 column 2
Access Newspaper Archive
O'Neill, Barry "Conversations with ... Mrs. Roland ... Je 10/11, 1972" Barry O'Neill notebook no. 2, early 1970s, PDF pp. 43-5
O'Neill, Francis Irish Minstrels and Musicians Chicago 1913 pp. 319-20
"Seanchas Irish Pipes and Pipers" reprints article from the Northants Evening Telegraph May 28, 1904, An Píobaire vol. 10 no. 5 Dec. 2014 p. 28
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1019&mediaId=26064
Walstrom, Mark "Early Pipe Makers in America" Pipers' Review vol. 22 no. 3 Summer 2003 p. 20
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1036&mediaId=26390
Nick Whitmer
Sep. 2018, additions Sep. 2020