John Moore (piper)

John Moore (-1894) was an Irish piper.
Moore was born in or near the town of Galway about 1834. His father died while he was a child and his mother was remarried to Martin O'Reilly. O'Reilly, himself an uilleann piper, tutored Moore on the pipes.
At some point, Moore emigrated to the United States, enlisting in the navy, in which he served "for quite a few years". After leaving the navy, he settled in Brooklyn, working as a professional piper around New York City.
On an 1887 engagement in Springfield, Ohio, organised by a Mr. Powers of the Ivy Leaf Company, he became ill and was hospitalised. He was replaced by "Barney" Delaney.
He sailed to Ireland, in 1894, in order to bring his step-father from Galway to New York. The night prior to departure, he visited Patsy Touhey and Patrick FitzPatrick, who noted his condition was not the best but "by no means alarming". However, he died within a week while enroute to Ireland, and was buried at sea "on his own request".
Writing in 1913, Francis O'Neill, the Irish music collector, described Moore as a "piper of good repute" and remarks that he:
"was not particularly distinguished for brilliancy of execution on the chanter, but in the manipulation of the regulators he had few if any superiors. Often when the reed in his chanter proved refractory or did not "go" to suit him, he would play the whole tune through on the keys of the regulators."

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