Luke McEvoy uilleann

Lives of the Pipers Home

Luke McEvoy

performer

b. Co. Roscommon, Ireland circa 1841?
d. Liverpool, England April 6, 1904


Illustration from unknown undated newspaper, probably April 1904, in scrapbook in possession of Na Píobairí Uilleann, Dublin.


Luke McEvoy had an unusual career. He was born in Ireland, moved to Liverpool, England and was musically active there, then in the United States from 1882 to perhaps 1895, then back to Liverpool at least from 1901 until his death in 1904.

McEvoy was born in County Roscommon; when is not certain. Michael Kelly of Dublin has done careful research on McEvoy and has found evidence indicating he may have been born as early as 1827. An obituary and ship passenger lists suggest he was born around 1840. He may have looked older than he was. In 1882 he was described as having "snowy white" hair and defective vision. Also as "less than 50 years of age" at that time.

When in the United States he was the subject of two lengthy newspaper articles. This was remarkable. Many pipers with longer and more active public careers never enjoyed such coverage; William Taylor, Eddie Joyce and Barney Delaney might be cited as examples. He was in the right places at the right times, and presented himself to the writers as a classic example of the Irish piper, representative of a vanishing profession. This appeal to writers continued: years later an obituary published in England was unusually effusive. The one piper whose quality of newspaper coverage approached McEvoy's was John Egan, and Egan also had the right look: white hair - he was an albino - and he was "nearly blind."

McEvoy married Cath. Holland in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, Oct. 31, 1878, his second marriage. The marriage record says he was then living in Liverpool. In May 1882 Luke McEvoy, musician, and his wife Kate sailed from Liverpool to New York. They settled in Albany, New York, the state capitol. He brought his bagpipes with him.

On May 22 he played at a meeting of the John Dillon Land League in Albany. The attendees were well pleased and passed the hat for him; an $8 donation (equivalent to about $180 in 2015). This is the first mention of him in the United States.

By August he was traveling with a theatre company as the piper in the play "The Irish American," starring James W. McGrath. The company toured the northeast states and as far west as St. Louis, Missouri. He was with the company at least to November 1882. A review from a show in Rochester, NY says '-The Irish piper who was introduced in "The Irish American" last night, was not given many lines, and very little business, but he made a decided hit nevertheless by his unique appearance and heel and toe music.' Promotional material described him as being transferred directly "from the streets of Dublin," and once as "from the streets of Galway."

"The Irish American" company had a week-long engagement in St. Louis, September 1882. During that time McEvoy was interviewed in his hotel room by a reporter from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The interview resulted in a lengthy article published in the newspaper mid-week, with much about McEvoy's life, character, and his opinions about Irish music. Portions of the article were reprinted in several newspapers throughout the country. [It is transcribed in full, below.]

The unnamed reporter was much taken with McEvoy, considering him "a character in his way."

McEvoy says that there are no more pipers left in Ireland, "that is, no respectable pipers. Those who are there are too fond of the dhrop; they take too kindly to liquor, and they're few and far between." The harp is almost extinct, too. "They've put it into a box and called it a piano, and although they keep the people's fingers off the sthrings its chords still vibrate, and they'll never be able to silence it."

He claimed to have owned two houses in Tuam, a town in County Galway. On St. Patrick's Day, presumably in 1882, a constable came to him and advised him to watch out for trouble. The constable told McEvoy, " 'They suspect you,' says he, 'of bein' an insthrument for the Land League.' " He sold out and moved to Albany, NY with his wife and children.

So far no evidence has surfaced to confirm his activities in Tuam. His support of the Land League at Tuam is in keeping with his playing for a Land League branch meeting in Albany, 1882. Over the years he played for organizations supporting Irish nationalism. For examples, in later years in England he was said to have played at the Feis Ceoil and Pan-Celtic Congress, and at least one Gaelic League event in 1902.

"The Irish American" company had a week-long engagement in Providence, Rhode Island, October 1882. Again McEvoy was interviewed by a journalist and the result was an article in a Providence newspaper. [It is transcribed in full, below.] This author gives more attention to the music that McEvoy played, and mentions tunes familiar to a present-day player: "Foxhunter's Jig," "Miss McCloud's Reel," "The Blackbird."

Luke McEvoy or McAvoy is listed in various Albany city directories as a saloon proprietor 1883-94. During this time there are a few newspaper announcements mentioning him as performer at engagements in New York State; church fairs, Irish nationalist organization meetings. The last known mention of McEvoy in the United States is at a church picnic in Clayville, New York July 4, 1895.

Between 1895 and 1901 Luke and Catherine McEvoy moved back to Liverpool. They are shown in the 1901 England Census as running a lodging house at 33 Standish Street. At the time of the census they were hosts to eleven boarders, mostly dock workers.

McEvoy continued to play pipes. He apparently busked in the Old Haymarket area of Liverpool, and participated in concert programs of various kinds. He performed in London, Wigan, Bristol. In 1903 McEvoy toured England as piper with William Ludwig and company. Ludwig was an opera singer, born in Dublin, a baritone, who worked up a program of "older folk-songs and melodies of the Irish nation in the native manner."

Luke McEvoy died at his home in Standish Street April 6, 1904 and was buried at Ford Cemetery, Lancashire.

From an obituary of McEvoy, "the well-known Irish piper of Liverpool:"


Selected References

"Amusements Notes." Rochester [NY] Democrat and Chronicle Aug. 25, 1882 p. 4 column 8
Rochester NY Democrat and Chronicle 1882 (1010).pdf

"Amusements. Pope's [Theatre]." [from the streets of Dublin] St. Louis [MO] Daily Globe-Democrat Sep. 4, 1882 p. 3 column 5
From microfilm owned by Library of Congress.

Death Notice Liverpool [England] Echo April 9, 1904. Cited by Ron Formby on the Scottie Press Website. Accessed July 2018.
http://www.scottiepress.org/gallery/hocross.htm link no good Oct. 2021

Hall, Reg A few Tunes of Good Music: a history of Irish music and dance in London, 1800-1980 & beyond Croydon, London, 2016 p. 182 [London Gaelic League engagement 1901]
https://www.topicrecords.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/few-tunes-reg-hall.pdf

"The Irish American" [from the streets of Galway] Ithaca [NY] Daily Journal Oct. 31, 1882 p. 3 announcement column 4
http://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/lccn/sn83031157/1882-10-31/ed-1/seq-3/

"An Irish Piper." Providence [RI] Journal Oct. 10, 1882 p. 4 column 4
From microfilm owned by Boston Public Library.

Kelly, Michael "Piper Trail Tracing Luke McEvoy, 'the Irish piper of Liverpool' " unpublished paper 2017

"The Last Irish Piper. Luke McEvoy's Story of the Extermination of the Milesian Minstrel." St. Louis [MO] Globe-Democrat Sep. 6, 1882 p. 8 column 1
From microfilm owned by Library of Congress.

"Musical Notes. Bristol." [Feis Ceoil and Pan-Celtic Congress engagements; William Ludwig company] Monthly Musical Record vol. 33 no. 391 p. 136 July 1, 1903
GoogleBooks

"Seanchas Luke McEvoy" [obituary, with drawing of McEvoy, piper of Liverpool] An Píobaire vol. 4 no. 42 Sep. 2007 pp. 26-27
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1013&mediaId=26028

"Vicinity Happenings. Clayville." Waterville [NY] Times and Hop Reporter June 28, 1895 p. 8 column 2
Waterville NY Times 1892 - 1895 Grayscale - 0995.pdf


The Last Irish Piper.
Luke McEvoy's Story of the Extermination of the Milesian Minstrel.

'Luke McEvoy, the Irish piper, who appears in some of the scenes of the Irish American, now playing at Pope's Theater, is a character in his way and has a short history that will prove interesting to all who have any sympathy for the present condition of the people of the Emerald Isle. A Globe-Democrat reporter visited the musician at his hotel yesterday and had a chat with him. He is a very remarkable- looking man. Although less than 50 years of age his hair is white as snow, and the eyebrows and eyelashes being of the same fleecy quality, and the eyes themselves a light gray, while his skin is fair almost as a woman's, there is an Albino-like appearance to his face that perfectly conceals his nationality, and it is only when he opens his pleasant and by no means miniature mouth, and a brogue too rich to be reproduced in type drops from his lips, that the visitor recognizes his Galway extraction or knows anything of his connection with the land of the green. Mr. McEvoy has been in America since last May. He has not changed his wardrobe, which is black and of modern cut, his manners or his language since landing on this side of the water, and is to-day in his general make-up a perfect picture of the genteel Irish piper who years ago flourished in every part of the old country. Indeed, he says, he was the last of the reputable pipers left in Ireland, and he would have remained there, a glorious type of this now extinct class, had not persecution driven him to this land of the free and home of the brave. He brought his pipes out at the invitation of Mr. John F Donnelly, the manager, and played several selections for the reporter, who was more than delighted to listen to one or two operatic selections that floated out through the reed instrument.
'The Irish Pipes
'are very much different from the Scotch article. The latter are cheaper, and, according to Mr. McEvoy's statement, not capable of as great musical possibilities as their Hibernian rivals. The Scotch instrument consists, besides the bag and bellows, of a set of three pipes that are carried over the shoulder, the chanter, or pipe with the notes, and the small pipe into which the player occasionally blows; it has no octave, and the musician finds himself limited to playing a certain kind of music. The Irish pipes are carried in the lap. Besides the bellows and bag there is the chanter, with eight notes, instead of seven, which the Scotch pipes have, and the reeds are so arranged in the long pieces that the Irish instrument boasts of bass, treble and octave attachments. There are numerous silver keys, pressed by the palm or side of the right hand, while the fingers are flying along the chanter, to produce any musical result desired by the player. A good set of Irish pipes costs £20, or about $100. The piper usually repairs his own instrument when the reed is broken or worn out, but there are few who can construct a pair of pipes, and as the manufacture of the instrument has ceased entirely, it is even now a curiosity in all parts of Ireland, and soon will be lost to sight forever there and everywhere else. In playing, not only are the ten fingers kept going, but there is an art in the manner of working the bellows and forcing the wind from the bag into the reeds. When a pupil takes hold of the pipes he must learn the notes as in playing other instruments; he is given the bellows bag and chanter only, the stock, as the bundle of large reeds is called, being kept out of his way until he is able to play upon the single reed, when he is introduced to the bass treble and octave pipes. It takes more than a year to familiarize one's self with the mechanism of the instrument, and after that a great deal of practice is required to make the player skilled in his execution. Formerly pipers taught their children to follow the profession, and even the landed gentry caused their offspring to be given lessons in this kind of music. As recently as a quarter of a century ago
'Pipers Were Plentiful
'in Ireland and its music was heard and loved and revered in all parts of the land as fondly as the people of other nations cherish their respective styles of harmony. Every section had its famous piper, and the harp players, too, were quite numerous. Sometimes the musician was blind, and the children took delight in sticking pins into his bag, and if he had his eyesight there were other ways of frolicking with him. No matter what his age, physical condition, or the cut of his clothes, the piper's presence in a neighborhood was like a shower of sunshine; everybody was his friend; he brought the news with him for the old, and the joy of merry music to fill the light hearts of the young. The pretty little poem c lled "Caoch, the Piper," that is so often recited by youthful elocutionists, shows the kindly feeling entertained for one of these characters. He has arrived in a village and accepted the hospitality of the poet, who says:

'But the piper is nearly played out now. He is almost a memory in Ireland, and there is slight hope that the national music will ever be heard again as it was in the olden days, when the Sassenach's hand was off the throat of Erin and his iron foot had not yet crushed the golden strings of her harp.
' "There are no more pipers left in Ireland," said Mr. McEvoy, yesterday, "that is, no respectable pipers. Those who are there are too fond of the dhrop; they take too kindly to liquor, and they're few and far between. They get dhrunk, break their pipes, and as they can't get new ones, that's the last of them. There used to be manufacturers in Dublin and Belfast, but persecution has driven the music out of the people's hearts and the English are thryin' to crush out every bit of Ireland's nationality, so that the pipes are no longer in request as they were formerly, and the manufacture of the instruments has ceased entirely."
'The Harp.
' "How about the harp?"
' "Oh, they've almost succeeded in drivin' that out, too. We had lots of harpers twenty years ago, and now I can't think of but two in the whole of Ireland-Brannigan and O'Hagan, both very old men, who live at Dundalk, in the County Louth. But they haven't kilt the harp, and they never will. They've put it into a box and called it a piano, and although they keep the people's fingers off the sthrings its chords still vibrate, and they'll never be able to silence it."
' "You talk of persecution. Have they bothered you any?"
' "Ah, and indeed, if they hadn't I wouldn't be here to-day," said the piper, with a shake of his head, "I wouldn't be here to-day. Little I thought, l st Patrick's day, of comin' to America, but they told me I had better lave, and I left."
' "How was it?"
' "I lived in Tuam, where I owned two houses of my own, and knew everybody as everybody knew me. On Patrick's day one of the head constables came up to me and said, 'McEvoy, don't be surprised if we have to be throublin' you one of these days.' 'In what way?' says I. 'They suspect you,' says he, 'of bein' an insthrument for the Land League.' 'Is that so?' says I. 'Yes,' says he, 'that's so, an' you'd better be lookin' out.' So I mortgaged my two houses as heavily as I could, sold out everything and came with my family to this country. My wife and children are now in Albany, N. Y."
' "In what way did they suspect you?"
' "They said I was a mere cloak for the league, and that the balls and parties and sprees for which I played were in reality Land League meetings."
' "Did they ever interfere with these affairs?
' "Oh, yes, the peelers frequently came in on us, especially if we allowed a spree to run over into Sunday, when they had the law on us, and dispersed the people."
' "Why did they suspect you particularly?"
' "They knew that I was a heavy subscriber to the Land League, and that I was in favor of them in every way. They were right when they said I was an instrument of the League, because I went around a great deal, and after the Government tried to suppress the League I'd come across the boys at a party where I was playing and would tell them when and where they might expect a meeting."
'Mr. McEvoy said he drove a good business in Ireland; he got 30 shillings a night for playing, and usually had "calls" for two or three months ahead. He played for weddings and everything else, and says he thinks the pipes the sweetest music on the face of the earth. In speaking of the condition of Ireland now he gave a graphic account of the evictions he witnessed, and sadly deplored the heart-rending sufferings of his countrymen.'

St. Louis [MO] Globe-Democrat Sep. 6, 1882 p. 8 column 1
From microfilm owned by Library of Congress.


An Irish Piper.

' "A baggepipe well could he blow and soune."
'-Chaucer.

'He should have been seated on the low mound of a green rath, or at the foot of some gray, ivy-grown wall of a ruined castle, with the rooks softly cawing overhead, and the notes of the ring doves and the murmurs of a stream for an accompaniment, while the darkly green landscape, with cloud shadows gliding over its expanse, should have inspired his music, which the gentle wind could have caressed and carried away. That would have given room for the martial pride and sadness of "Brian Boroimhe's march" to expand itself and and sound out clear and far, and the sweet melancholy of the scene would have made the softly wailing pathos and sadness of the "Royal Blackbird" or "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground" sink deep into the heart. Nor, when the rapid and joyous lilt of "The Foxhunter's jig" or "Miss McCloud's reel" danced out from under his nimble fingers in the whistle of the pipe and the deep accompanying laugh of the drone, could the fancy do otherwise than depict him as seated in the place of honor on the platform in the kitchen or tap room, when the candles were lit and the red fire of the turf danced on the walls, and a score of lads and lassies were welting it out on the floor with heels as lively as the music. He was not, however, in any such appropriate seat and surroundings as these. He was seated on a tin trunk in a narrow and confined hotel room, whose close walls shut in the music and did not give it quite room to breathe. In appearance, however, he was of the real and genuine type of the Irish piper, not a learned professor of music, such as sometimes interprets Welsh airs on a grand pedal harp, such as Taliesin never dreamed of in fashionable concert rooms, but a native and untaught Irish peasant. His hair was snowy white and his eyes from a defect in the vision had that peculiar short-sighted look which is the appropriate expression, most of the pipers being blind. His features, ordinarily somewhat heavy, light up under the inspiration of the music, and it is evident that he plays with the heart as well as the fingers. He at first proposed to play some waltzes and quadrilles, and evidently supposed that his native music would not be appreciated, but when he discovered that his hearer wanted the real genuine thing and requested "The Blackbird" and "Shaun Dheerig Lanagh" his face took quite a different expression, and he blew up his bellows and ran his fingers over the keys to catch the right note as though he was about to enjoy himself as well as delight his listener. And then the tunes flowed forth in unending succession and delightful power. The deep pathos of "The Old Head of Dennis," was followed by the rapid lilt of "Nora Creina," and so on in alternation from grave to gay, now like the banshee's wail over a desolate waste, and now like the very drunkenness of merriment, until the whole gamut of Irish melody had been exhausted. If there was any of the most recondite or intricate of Irish airs that the piper did know, they were not hit upon and from the wierd melody of the "Fairies Funeral" to the crowning rapidity and intricacy of "Yalla Wat and the Fox," he was versed in every grade and quality of piper's music. No apology for tiring him could check his zeal, and he would have very possibly have played all night if there had been any disposition to impose upon his kindness. His music was evidently meal and drink to him, or he does not often get a responsive listener so far away from his native sod.
'There are pipers and pipes, although both, alas, are vanishing and a good one of either is a rarity. They are disappearing with the "good old times" out of Ireland itself, and will soon be as extinct as the wolf hound. The present piper, of whose music we have been endeavoring to give some idea, is Mr. Luke McEvoy, of Tuam, who has followed his profession for 27 years, and has played before the nobility and gentry of a wide circuit, as well as at the more familiar merry makings of the peasantry. He was compelled to emigrate a few months ago, partially in consequence of the universal suspicion attaching to everyone favorable to the nationalist agitation, and partly in consequence of the general distress and trouble putting an end to the usual festivals of the people. But it is easy to see that he is eager to return to his native and more congenial sphere, and lives in hopes that there will soon be a return of the "good times" when he can take his well worn pipes back to where the hearts of the people will respond to their familiar notes. At present he performs nightly in the play of the "Irish-American." '

Providence [RI] Journal Oct. 10, 1882 p. 4 column 4
From microfilm owned by Boston Public Library.

Nick Whitmer
August 2018