McPeake, Francis

Born in Belfast (prov. Ulster, Northern Ireland); He started, aged 11, playing the flute (which both his brothers did, as well), and soon "discovered" the Uilleann pipes; He was a pupil of John O’Reilly, a blind musician of Galway; In 1906 he came, according to Sam Hanna Bell, into possession of a set made by master craftsman Richard O’Malley [a misspelling of O’Mealy; ws]; In 1908 he was awarded the "Hardebeck throphy" at the Belfast Feis, and at the Dublin "Oireachtas" of 1912 he proved to be "one of the sweetest pipers in the land"; In 1954 he "founded" The McPeake family, a folk group that soon became widely known.