Michael J. Dunn uilleann

Lives of the Pipers Home

Michael J. Dunn

fireman, piper, fiddler

b. Affaly, County Laois, Ireland Sep. 7, 1856
d. Milwaukee, Wisconsin Dec. 17, 1935


Michael J.Dunn, pipes, and his son Michael Jr., fiddle, circa 1910. From the Dunn Family Collection, Ward Irish Music Archives, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.


Time passes and so much is forgotten, lost, destroyed. One tries to figure out what happened, what life was like, from what little remains. When considering these old pipers and the music they played, every remaining scrap seems worth contemplating. Once in a while, through care and good fortune, really significant things survive. Such is the case with the materials once held by the Dunn family of Milwaukee.

Michael Dunn was an amateur fiddler and piper who lived most of his life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Not a great deal is known about his musical activities. I have found no references to him playing in public, for example. He was known to and socialized with well-known Irish musicians in Chicago. Francis O'Neill mentions him in his book Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913), and writes of visiting Dunn in Milwaukee in 1911. Dunn's children thought of Chicago Irish piper James Early as "Uncle Jim." Chicago is about 90 miles (145 km) south of Milwaukee, probably a half-day train ride in the first part of the twentieth century. Both cities are on the western shore of Lake Michigan.

Dunn was born near Affaly, County Laois in 1856. According to O'Neill his father, also Michael, was a "well-to-do-farmer," and a proficient "performer on the Union pipes." The younger Michael emigrated to the United States in 1880, was in Milwaukee at least by 1885.

Much more is known about Dunn's working life. He joined the Milwaukee Fire Department in 1886 and rose through the ranks, becoming Captain in 1891. In 1889 he was assigned to be a crew member of Milwaukee's first fireboat, the "Cataract," and later became its captain. He was captain of a second fireboat, the "James Foley," until his retirement in 1903. In the terrible Davidson Theater fire, 1894, several firemen were on the roof when it collapsed. Nine firemen were killed.

Dunn was later given a gold medal for brave conduct. Two times in his career Dunn was injured with such severity during firefighting that he was mentioned in the newspaper. He retired from the department about age 47 because of these and other injuries.

Michael Dunn married Julia B. Culligan in 1897. They had two surviving children, Michael Jr. (born 1900) and Mary E. (born about 1904). In 1914 the two children are mentioned as dancers at a St. Patrick's Day celebration in Racine, Wisconsin. James Early and John McFadden provided music on pipes and violin at this event. In later life Michael Jr. played violin and led a dance band called "Mike Dunn's Orchestra."

There is some evidence that Michael Dunn made reeds and repaired pipes. O'Neill described him as "an expert and ingenious mechanic in all that pertains to the fittings of the most modern Irish chanter." Drawings of pipe parts, and notes about pipe construction, probably in Dunn's hand, are in pages of Dunn's copies of O'Neill's books. Long after his death a set of pipes he owned was given to the University of Notre Dame. The set appears to be assembled from parts by different makers, not surprising from a man who was known to be a tinkerer and repairer.

James Early, the Chicago piper, was well known as a reedmaker and there is one reference to him having made chanters. Early died in 1914. Dunn's descendants believe that after Early died some of his books and pipe parts were given to Michael Dunn. A copy of O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland, inscribed by the author to James Early, Nov. 1907, is in the Dunn Family Collection. According to an article from the Dunn Family Collection, "Dunn also possessed a set of Taylor pipes that were to be sold for Mrs. Early after the death of her husband."

Another item from Chicago, the most important, and probably acquired from James Early, was a suitcase full of 32 cylinder recordings. The recordings were of top Irish musicians, and made by Francis O'Neill probably before 1904. Non-commercial one-of-a-kind performances by pipers Pat Touhey, James Early and Barney Delaney; fiddlers Edward Cronin and John McFadden. After the death of his son Rogers O'Neill in 1904, Francis O'Neill no longer played music in his house and "stored the sound recordings and cylinder player in the home of a friend." The friend was probably James Early; in any case the suitcase ended up with Michael Dunn.

Michael Dunn died in 1935, survived by his wife and children. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery and Mausoleum, Milwaukee. After his death, wife and daughter lived for a long time in the house where he had spent his last years.

Daughter Mary was living in the house in the 1940s. Family members recall her saying that she destroyed the cylinders at the onset of World War II. "Apparently she had been told that if she stored the cylinders in the attic that they might become shrapnel if a bomb exploded in or near the home." There the matter rested until 2002, when the house was to be sold by the family. Before the sale "Dr. David Dunn took one more look in the attic and found the cylinders along with the rest of the items in the Dunn Family Collection." The materials were given to the Ward Irish Music Archives, Milwaukee, in 2007. The cylinders were digitized in 2007, remastered in 2010. They can now be heard on CD or on the Internet via the Dunn Family Collection Website.


Much of the information in this biography is taken from the Dunn Family Collection Website, well worth a look. Many thanks to Jeff Ksiazek, Archivist, Ward Irish Music Archives.


Selected References

"Capt. Dunn Injured." [fighting a barn fire] Milwaukee WI Sentinel Nov. 13, 1897 p. 3 column 2
19th Century US Newspapers

Carolan, Nicholas A Harvest Saved Francis O'Neill and Irish Music in Chicago Ossian Publications, Cork Ireland 1997 [O'Neill and his cylinder recordings pp. 25, 50]

"A Day in the City." [Dunn badly injured in fire at a soap factory] Milwaukee WI Sentinel Jan. 2, 1889 p. 3 column 3
19th Century US Newspapers.
Also as a clipping in the Michael Dunn Scrapbook, p. 36 column 2
https://archives.irishfest.com/Dunn-Family-Collection/Manuscripts/Dunn-Scrapbook/DunnMS00-009_36.jpg

"The Dunn Family Collection" a Website of the Ward Irish Music Archives, Milwaukee, WI accessed Aug. 2019
https://archives.irishfest.com/dunn-family-collection.htm

"Events in Social and Club Circles" [Michael Jr. and Mary dance at St. Patrick's day celebration] Racine [WI] Journal-News March 10, 1914 p. 9 column 1 Newspaperarchive.com

"The Francis O'Neill Cylinders; Thirty-two Recordings of Irish Traditional Music in America circa 1904" Ward Music Archives, Milwaukee Irish Fest 2010. 2 CDs and booklet, WIMA 002.

"The Irish Bagpipe." [interview with Pat Touhey, says Early made chanters] Irish World July 13, 1901 p. 8 column 7
Reprinted in An Píobaire vol. 9 no. 5 Dec. 2013 pp. 27-28
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1018&mediaId=26059

Ksiazek, Jeff, of the Ward Irish Music Archives email May 16, 2017 [a tinkerer and repairer]

"Milwaukee and its Firemen" [date Dunn entered service, his promotions] Fire and Water vol. 24 July 23, 1898 pp. 242-43
Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=hXBfZcscSM8C&q=dunn#v=snippet&q=milwaukee%20and&f=false

O'Neill, Francis Irish Minstrels and Musicians Chicago 1913 [Michael Dunn p. 231, 391, etc., photo p. 360; James Early pp. 308-10]

"Theater Fire at Milwaukee" [Davidson Theater fire] Binghamton NY Broome Republican April 14, 1894 p. 6 column 3
Binghamton NY Broome Republican 1891 - 1894 Grayscale - 1165.pdf

"Theater Fire Hero Is Dead" [obituary, career as fireman] Milwaukee [WI] Journal Dec. 17, 1935 p. 3 column 2
Google news
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=jvrRlaHg2sAC&dat=19351217&printsec=frontpage&hl=en Link no good Oct. 2021

Nick Whitmer
September 2019