Oldest Chanter returns home

Oldest Highland pipe chanter comes home to Scotland's National Piping Centre




The oldest Highland bagpipe chanter known to exist, a 17th century instrument that belonged to the great composer Iain Dall MacKay, has returned to Scotland after many years in Canada after the MacKay-Sinclair family of Nova Scotia decided that the piece should have a new home in Glasgow at the National Piping Centre's museum.

The chanter has been handed down through eight generations of the MacKay family, finally ending up with brothers Donald and Michael Sinclair. The Sinclairs handed over the chanter a special ceremony at the National Piping Centre, whose museum is run by National Museums Scotland, curated by the well known piping historian, Hugh Cheape.

"There’s great scholarship in piping associated with the museum and we felt that it would be a good location for the chanter to be seen and appreciated by young pipers," said Michael Sinclair. "We hope that its story will inspire them in their piping schooling."

Iain Dall MacKay (1656-1754) is considered one of the most important Highland pipers and composers, with as many as 30 piobaireachds attributed to him. Known as "The Blind Piper of Gairloch," he was taught by the MacCrimmons, and one of his sons, John Roy MacKay, immigrated to Nova Scotia in 1805, taking the chanter with him.

"We are delighted that the Iain Dall MacKay chanter is to be housed in the Museum of Piping in The National Piping Centre," said Roddy MacLeod, director of the National Piping Centre. "Iain Dall MacKay was a hugely significant figure for piping and his compositions are regularly performed in competitions to this day. It is incredible to think that classics such as 'Lament for Patrick Og MacCrimmon,' 'The Unjust Incarceration' and 'Corrienessan's Salute' are still to the fore and to imagine that the chanter that he played them on perhaps for the first time is here for piping enthusiasts to look at and to learn from is just fantastic."

....meanwhile several Nova Scotians are throwing their toys out the cot...

true_blue_piper wrote:....meanwhile several Nova Scotians are throwing their toys out the cot...

yes, it seems some believe it's a part of Nova Scotia's piping history and shouldn't have been allowed to leave the area.
Best I understand it, the chanter was privately owned and so I guess the guy was entitled to give it to whoever he wants.
I can't see how the legal action one person is supposedly trying to take can do much now that the chanter is in Scotland.

I can't see what all the fuss is about. Now it's in a museum in a place where thousands of pipers live and where thousands of other pipers descend upon every year. Where better for it to be?

The argument is that Nova Scotia has museums that could accommodate piping memorabilia. It begs the question, as romantic as it seems, how many people actually visit Nova Scotia for piping reasons?

Nova Scotia?? is that the wee village just outside Edinbergen??

mah....a Vauxhall made in Scotchland

janelle wrote:The argument is that Nova Scotia has museums that could accommodate piping memorabilia. It begs the question, as romantic as it seems, how many people actually visit Nova Scotia for piping reasons?

As a question Janelle,

How many people actually visit Nova Scotia for any reason? let alone pipes!

They'll be getting on like the Greeks wanting their marbles back

Quite right it should be in Glasgowe, in a scottish bagpipe college, filled with Englishmen

At least it came back before someone added a new note to it, or added a nice scumble glaze to the finish

begs the question though.....what did they do in these days before black sticky tape came along?

I mis-read this I thought it was about Dai going home not a old bit of firewood, better go and get my eyes tested

Yea Yea, I would book your hospital bed as well, for when i catch up with you