The story of how the term ‘union pipes’ came into public use begins 225 years ago with a concert performance in London on 14 May 1788 by an Irish bellows piper named Denis Courtney..

This essay, written by Nicholas Carolan, which tells the story of the terminology of Irish Bellows-Blown Bagpipes, freely available as a searchable PDF at www.itma.ie/digitallibrary.

Nicholas adds;
"Followers of piping in any code will, it is hoped, find much else of interest on the ITMA site, including piping sound recordings from the cylinder era to the present day, and piping tunes in interactive Scorch file format."