John Mullen

piper

b. Pennsylvania Oct. 28, 1904
d. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania June 29, 1933

Picture caption: Master Francis Hubel, violinist, and Master John Mullen, the youngest Irish piper in the world, who will be heard at the Emmet concert in Old City hall, Saturday evening, March 2.
"Youngest Irish Piper to Play" Pittsburg [PA] Press Feb. 21, 1912 p. 2 column 2
Newspapers.com

Another image of Mullen is with the biography of Thomas Farrell.

There were three Irish or uilleann pipers known to have lived in Pittsburgh between 1850 and 1950. This biography is about the youngest of the three, John or Jack Mullen. The first two, Barney Farrell and Thomas Farrell, were active between 1890 and 1930. There is a separate biography for the both of them.

Mullen was a child prodigy, or close to it. He was born in Pennsylvania, probably Pittsburgh, in 1904. Earliest musical reference to him is a photograph, first published in 1908 and likely taken in that year. The photo is of the newly formed Irish Music Club of Pittsburgh and "J. Mullen" is holding a fiddle, sitting to the fore in a group of ten musicians.

On January 12, 1911 the Pittsburgh Irish societies held a meeting to welcome delegates from the Gaelic League in Ireland. There was a musical part of the program, and taking part were "Misses Annie, Katherine and Master James Mullen, violins and piano; Thomas Farrell, the Irish piper, and the Irish Musical club." Anna and Katherine were his older sisters. Anna is known to have played the fiddle.

Thomas Farrell became his piping teacher. An article in a Cincinnati, Ohio, newspaper, 1913, describes Farrell as Mullen's uncle. John Mullen's first public appearance as piper was March 2, 1912, at an anniversary celebration for Robert Emmet, the eighteenth-century Irish patriot. Mullen is described as "the youngest Irish piper in the world" and he performed with fiddler Francis Hubel. "Both youngsters are under 10 years of age, but their playing of Irish airs is especially good."

For the next five years Mullen played with Farrell and the Irish Music Club, and often with fiddle player James McCarthy. A photograph from 1914 suggests that McCarthy was ten or twenty years older than Mullen. These musicians and others, in various combinations, often played a musical "selection" called "Cross Road Memories." References suggest that it may have been a medley of tunes perhaps put together by Farrell.

I have found no references to Mullen between 1917 and 1921. In 1922 he was featured in radio programs on Pittsburgh station KDKA. The station had a great reach, and program announcements were published in newspapers hundreds of miles away. His name was given as Jack Mullen and he played with fiddler McCarthy. On July 3, 1922 they were scheduled to play

Bagpipe and violin duets: "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms," "Mrs. McCloud's Reel," "O'Donnell O'Bow," and "Joy of My Life," "The Blackbird Air," and "Hornpipe." "The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls" and "The Shaskeen Reel," "Selection of Irish Reels," "God Save Ireland."

Mullen's sister Anna, by then married and listed as Anna Thomas, played violin duets with James McCarthy on a radio show August 10, 1922. The program included Jack Mullen on pipes, and is the last solid reference to him on the radio.

There is one more radio announcement from 1925 which likely refers to Mullen, but the piper is unnamed.

John A. Mullen was the son of Patrick Henry Mullen (1864-1941), born in County Galway, and Delia Gannon (1863-1945), born in County Mayo. They immigrated to the United States separately in the mid 1880s and were married in Pittsburgh in 1888. John Mullen had at least seven surviving brothers and sisters. According to the 1920 and 1930 US Censuses he worked in a steel mill. He was unmarried and lived with his parents for most if not all of his life.

Mullen died at age 28 from acute gastroenteritis and chronic inflammation of the heart. He was buried at St Martin's Cemetery, Pittsburgh, July 3, 1933.

A recent development in February 2019 provided a bit more information about Mullen. Matt Molloy, well-known flute player and member of The Chieftains, donated a remarkable set of uilleann pipes made by the Taylor brothers to Na Píobaíri Uilleann, the uilleann pipers club in Dublin. John Mullen had owned the set at one time. Molloy is related to Mullen by way of his maternal grandmother. The set was retained by the family and eventually passed on to him. The earliest known owner of the set was Nicholas Burke of Brooklyn, New York, and there is a photo of Burke with the set in Francis O'Neill's Irish Minstrels and Musicians. Family lore has it that after Burke's death piper "Patsy Touhey arranged for Burke's pipes to be sold to Mullin's family." Best evidence is that Burke died in 1919. Pat Touhey died in 1923.

According to John Glatt, in The Chieftains: The Authorized Biography, Matt Molloy's father "Jim Molloy was brought up on a small farm outside Ballymote, Co. Sligo, before moving to America to seek employment in the late 1920s. In Pittsburgh, Jim met and married Kathleen Cahill from Shraigh, Co. Mayo but in the mid-1930s the couple returned to Ireland...." Emmett Gill of Na Píobaíri Uilleann was told that "Matt's father played music with Jack Mullen in Pittsburgh."

Thanks again to Michael Kelly of Dublin, this time for sharing information about the Mullen family and about a radio interview with Matt Molloy.

Selected References

"Donations & Acquisitions" [Matt Molloy donates the Nicholas Burke set] An Píobaire Vol. 15 No. 2 May 2019 cover photo and p. 7
https://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryId=1328&mediaId=31309

Gill, Emmett email communications 2019.

Glatt, John The Chieftains: The Authorized Biography St. Martin's Press, NY, 1997 p. 156

"Irish Entertainers." [photo of Mullen, James McCarthy, violinist, and John Hayes, dancer] Pittsburg [PA] Press March 5, 1914 p. 9 column 1
Newspapers.com

"The Irish Music Club." [group photo] Pittsburgh [PA] Gazette Times Aug. 2, 1908 p. 2 column 3
Newspapers.com

"Irish Will Welcome Gaelic Delegates" Pittsburgh [PA] Post Jan. 8, 1911 p. 6 column 2
Newspapers.com

Kelly, Michael "Jack Mullen (1904-33) The story of a young Pittsburgh piper and his Taylor set of bagpipes" unpublished article 2019 5 pp.

"Last Night and To-day on the Radio by The Fan" [possible last mention of Mullen on radio] Richmond [VA] Times-Dispatch Oct. 24, 1925 p. 13 column 7
GenealogyBank.com

Molloy, Matt interview with Joe Byrne on the radio program Ceol agus Éalaíon on Mid-West Radio, County Mayo, Ireland, broadcast on Oct. 8 and 15, 2019. Cited in Michael Kelly's "Jack Mullen (1904-33) The story of a young Pittsburgh piper and his Taylor set of bagpipes"

O'Neill, Francis Irish Minstrels and Musicians Chicago 1913 p. 280

"Radio Features Programme for Today [Aug. 10, 1922] Station KDKA, Pittsburgh" [Anna Thomas; last solid radio listing for Mullen] Philadelphia [PA] Inquirer Aug. 10, 1922 p. 11 column 4
Philadelphia PA Inquirer 1922 - 7998.pdf

"Radio Program For To-Day July 3, 1922 Station KDKA, East Pittsburgh, Pa." Freeport NY Daily Review July 3, 1922 p. 4 column 3
Freeport NY Daily Review 1922 - 2381.pdf

"Robert Emmet's Birthday" [Cross Roads Memories] Pittsburg [PA] Press March 6, 1914 p. 8 column 7
Newspapers.com

"Sons of Old Erin Will Revel in Hibernian Melodies, Dances and Folk Song." [Meeting of the Associated Irish Organizations, June 28, 1913; Thomas Farrell is John Mullen's uncle] Cincinnati [OH] Commercial Tribune June 29, 1913
Newspaperarchive.com
Brought to my attention by David Tuohy.

"... Will Hold Annual Entertainment Next Thursday...." [photo of Irish Music Club with names of those pictured] Pittsburgh [PA] Post May 1, 1910 p. 2 column 1
Newspapers.com

"Youngest Irish Piper to Play" Pittsburg [PA] Press Feb. 21, 1912 p. 2 column 2
Newspapers.com

Nick Whitmer
October 2019; addition October 2021