We went to one just across the Pennsylvania line last year.
They had *shudder* bagpipes.
To the Irish, they are “bagpipes.” To the Scots, they are “War Pipes!”
c'mon! Were's your sense of fun?
As well you should (shudder). Uillean (elbow) pipes, aka Union pipes. "Sit in your chair in the pub" pipes, not "march into the face of the enemy to get shot dead and have the place named after you" pipes like the Great Highland Bagpipes.
Some twisted ******* chose to use Uillean pipes for "Rob Roy" and "Braveheart" (except in the ceili scene where I recall they actually used traditional smallpipes).
Seriously, I enjoy Irish pipes. The most modern of the bagpipe family; an instrument whose variations are native from Ireland to France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Russian, Macedonia, and perhaps to India.
But it's always fun to watch an Irish piper:
1) He starts and continues the whole time by pumping the bellows under his right arm, out-and-in.
2) To keep the air pressure to the reeds constant, his left arm (with the bag under it), moves in-and-out, somewhat in coordination with the right arm. (If the air pressure on the reeds varies, the pitch varies. A Bad Thing.)
3) To play the basic melodic line, his fingers move off an onto the "chanter" (the stick in his hands).
4) To move into higher registers (octaves), there is usually a valve at the base of the chanter, closed when brought down on a surface, usually a piece of hide draped on the player's right leg.
Do you get the image thus far? Both arms are going in and out, both hands are fingering the chanter, and the hands & chanter are moving up & down. But wait, there's more...
5) The Irish piper has a bunch of specialixed drones (called "regulators") that can be turned on by depressing keys with the outside edge of his right-hand chanter-playing-hand. These add the extra chords you hear in Irish-pipe music.
But the visual image is amusing. Pump and pump to supply air, the melody starts with the fingering, then the flapping with the additional elements -- by the time the Irish piper comes into his element you almost expect him to become airborne like an early flying machine.
Just a Highland Piper's perspective.
But God bless the Uillean pipes and their players.