Sir,—I am writing to request assistance from History Ireland readers in tracking down a significant collection of historical artefacts connected to the Irish cultural revival. Specifically, I am researching ceremonial banners that were gifted by Francis Joseph Bigger MRIA (1863–1926) to various Irish piping clubs during the formative years of these organisations.
Francis Joseph Bigger was a pivotal figure in the revival of Irish traditional music and culture. An Irish antiquarian, solicitor, historian and Member of the Royal Irish Academy, Bigger’s Belfast home, Ardrigh, served as a crucial gathering place for poets, artists and scholars. His involvement with the Gaelic League, where he served on the Coiste Gnótha alongside Douglas Hyde and Eoin McNeill, positioned him at the heart of the cultural revival movement.
Bigger played a particularly formative role in the revival of the píob mór (Irish war pipes) and was instrumental in founding the Irish Warpipers’ League, Píobairí na hÉireann, serving as its first president. Through his efforts, numerous piping clubs were established across Ireland in the early 1900s, and it is documented that he presented ceremonial banners to these organisations. The clubs known to have received these banners include St Canice’s Piping Club, Kilkenny; Black Raven Pipe Band, Lusk; St Colmcille Piping Club, Tullamore; St Winnoc’s Piping Club, Armagh; Uisneach Pipers’ Club, Athlone; St Lawrence O’Toole Pipe Band, Howth; and Art McMurrough Warpipers, Enniscorthy.
These banners would likely have featured Celtic designs, Irish-language inscriptions and possibly heraldic elements reflecting both the individual clubs’ patron saints and broader themes of Irish cultural identity. Given Bigger’s interest in Celtic symbolism, the banners would have been carefully designed artefacts of considerable historical and artistic significance.
I am hoping that some of your readers may have knowledge of the current whereabouts of these banners, or may have encountered them in local museums, cultural centres, family collections or club archives. Any information regarding their current condition and location, or any photographic documentation, would be invaluable and gratefully received.
This research forms part of a broader study into the material culture of the Irish cultural revival movement and the specific contributions of Francis Joseph Bigger to the preservation and promotion of Irish traditional music. The banners represent tangible links to a crucial period in Irish cultural history and to the networks of individuals who worked to revive and sustain Irish traditional music at a particularly precarious moment.—Yours etc.,
ANGUS MITCHELL
Limerick
mitchellresearch16@gmail.com