Part 1 - Letter from Micheál Ó Ciánain

2 pp; Manuscript; Photographic print

A letter and signed print of Micheál Ó Ciánain (Michael Keenan), a piper from Shercock in County Cavan, to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. His letter refers to a local tradition regarding Andrew Campbell (1711-1769), the Bishop of Kilmore, who was known as the ‘the Piper Bishop’ during the Penal era. Ó Ciánain explains how the prelate ‘disguised himself as a piper’ with the instrument serving as ‘a Bell to call the flock together at a time when no Bell could be heard’.

Micheál Ó Ciánain was a distinguished piper in his time. He was also well-known as a maker of bagpipes and uilleann pipes. An early member of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (the foremost Irish traditional musical organisation), Ó Ciánain performed in his first Feis in 1907 and participated in a parade in Dublin to commemorate the centenary of the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1929. In the 1930s he led the O’Rahilly Pipe and Cèilidh Band and later performed on various RTÉ radio and television broadcasts. He died on 23 March 1978. (Further information and a link to a short obituary are available at https://www.thebagpipemuseum.com/O_Cianain.html) Ó Ciánain was a life-long member of both the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association and, as noted in the letter, of the Third Order of Saint Francis (TOSF), a lay religious fraternity.